From Bangkok to New York - Be Warned about AeroSvit

Amazingly, a search on Google would return a whole heap of complains about this airline. So I will blogged about what had happened. Thais looking for the best deals for their winter holiday, to see the snow they never seen, to put on heavy clothes they never here will. More often than not, we see promotional pamphlets that come with bank’s card statement, Thai forums, the newspaper ads and by word of mouth from agents to friends thru friends. Good deals to Korea and Japan in white winter. Priced at sub 20,000 Baht return. Why not? That’s cheap. Now what about some agent promoting a ridiculously cheap sub 20,000 Baht ticket to New York for the countdown, transit at Ukraine? Grab!

Scheduled to leave on 30 Dec 2012 at 6am, to arrive in New York on 30 Dec 2012 the same mind boggling day. Flight was delayed 5 hours in Bangkok. My girl missed her connecting flight in Ukraine. Waited 12 hours and got re-routed through Paris. So she finally arrived on 31 Dec. The good thing was she got upgraded to Business on her flight from Ukraine to Paris, then to First from Paris to New York. That’s first rate service from AeroSvit I have to say. But there is the other side to it. Arriving on 31 Dec in the afternoon, her luggage did not. A day went by. Now it’s the 2nd day in New York and she still does not have her luggage. This Ukraine airline has an online chat system which she got in touch with but they just shrugged the case aside stating they can’t help and she had to report to the airport’s lost and found department. No solution, no compensation.

Eventually they found out that her luggage loves Ukraine so much that it decided to remain there. For her and her friends on this dream tour, for all the Thais that were affected, it’s such a pain and a total mess of their schedules. Pay peanuts get monkey, that’s what we say. Will a lesson be learnt from this? Nay, we don’t learn our lessons this way. We will always look for the cheapest deals and hope all turns out great. That’s how we are wired, that’s how we travel and always will be.

[Added 10 Jan 2013] There's more to it here: From New York to Bangkok by AeroSvit.