Scoot Commits To Improving Service Following Flight Disruptions

Low-cost carrier Scoot is working to improve its customer service and recover standards in light of recent flight delays and overall disruption, said Scoot's CEO, Mr Lee Lik Hsin. The CEO admitted that the flight disruptions had affected the airline's key On-Time Performance (OTP) metric.

Photo: AeroNewsX/Paul Schmid

Mr Lee also added that the OTP was not satisfactory from the end of 2018 to the beginning of 2019. Scoot had occasions or months where OTP was around 70%. Scoot has since commited to improving, in terms of delivering their promise to the customer of punctuality.

Scoot has suffered six significant flight disruptions between November 2018 and January 2019 that have caused delays of between a few hours and more than two days. The worst incident took place on 18 December 2018: A flight from Athens to Singapore, bearing the flight number TR713, was faced with technical and operational issues, forcing all 321 passengers to disembark. The flight landed in Singapore, 56 hours behind schedule. Passengers on board the delayed flight told news reporters that they will never fly Scoot again.

Mr Lee said: "Being part of the Singapore Airlines Group, it doesn't matter that we are the budget Airline. We will spare no expense in that area. But technical issues can still happen. That's what happened to us. We're not perfect. There always work to be done. But we hope that people understand that we are sincere in wanting to make that effort."

Mr Lee explained that one of the major reasons for Scoot's improved OTP was tweaks made to reduce utilization rate for its fleet. The airline's fleet of Boeing 787s now spend 13 hours in the air daily instead of 14. This tweak has allowed the airline to increase the number of spare aircraft when one is required to fill in.

Scoot use two methodologies to measure customer satisfaction in its post-flight survey: "Net Promoter Score" and the "Customer Satisfaction Score". Scoot is not doing so well in terms of the Net Promoter Score which measures customer loyalty, including likelihood of them booking another flight on the airline or recommending the organisation to their social circle. However, Mr Lee said that 700% of Scoot's passengers currently rate the airline as "good" or "very good".