T.W.X Gossip Corner

2. Interpersonal Communication Issue

As a ground handling agent, my job duties revolved around the operations in the boarding gate hold room. Our main goal is to ensure swift turnaround of the arrival flight and departure as scheduled with the cooperation of all the departing passengers. In recent years, Singapore’s Changi Airport has adopted a ‘quiet’ airport style whereby they would no longer do a ‘Last Call’ paging for passengers that have not boarded the flight. Often, passengers who missed their flights would blame the lack of broadcast.

I remember this incident very vividly as other than what I mentioned earlier happened; there was more to the story. That day I received an ad hoc job duty to escort a passenger out of the airside of the airport. This passenger was a business class passenger who had missed his flight. When I approached him, he was exasperated regarding the treatment by the gate staff. He claimed to be chased away from the gate and that the aircraft left without him with 30 minutes away from the scheduled time of departure. While escorting him, he reiterated how he would not have received that rude treatment by Singapore Airlines (SQ) because of his membership tier and how ridiculous it was for the aircraft to depart so early. Initially, I wanted to retort him with facts and be defensive regarding the attitude of my colleague, but I feared it would only escalate the matter.

During this whole ordeal, I understood that for a frequent flyer like him, he would have known the appropriate timing to be at the gate. However, that instance, he remembered the flight timing wrongly, but through my analysis, the cause of the fuss should be how my colleague had communicated with him concerning him missing the flight and what he should do next.

Q: If you were to be the one facing an angry passenger that was in the wrong, what would you do?

After reading the comments offered by my fellow peers, I have derived a method to resolve the problem. I agree with my peer Shao Shan, saying that the last thing a furious passenger wants to hear is him being wrong. Therefore, when the passenger was complaining to me about the injustice he felt, I should be more empathising and listen to him. Next, acknowledge the points he covered and assure him that I will bring up this matter to my superior. Moreover, invite the passenger to have a seat at somewhere comfortable and allow him to calm down. After the passenger had calmed down, explain the whole situation to him politely especially the correct flight timing and advised him further on how he can change his ticket to the next flight. Finally, taking the initiative to apologise on behalf of my colleague and company that as a service provider, we might have fell short on providing a service up to his expectation. Reassuring him that this is not the usual service standards and this matter will definitely be brought up to my superior.

3. Descriptive Reflection on an Ethical Decision-Making Issue

My job as a ground handling agent, I am fortunate to work with different colleagues throughout my duties for the day. This hypothetical ethical scenario happened during a gate operation, most of the passengers had boarded the aircraft early, and we were left with a few passengers yet to board even though we still have forty minutes before scheduled departure. I was asked to head outside the gate and call out for passengers to head to the gate for immediate boarding. The instructions given to me was to ask them to run to the gate as they were late. However, as stated clearly, that boarding gate only closes twenty minutes before departure; thus, honesty is in question here. Technically the remaining passengers still have twenty minutes before they were expected to reach the gate.

Although I disagree with what I was instructed to do, I still performed my duty and managed to locate the last passenger with ten minutes left before the gate closure. Eventually, we reached the gate, and the passenger was shouted at for being late in front of everyone else. The officer had not respected the passenger’s rights and dignity as there was no justification to be treated that way as a customer or human who had done nothing wrong.

After the flight, I decided to talk to the officer regarding the treatment towards the last passenger. I feel that we can advise passenger to quicken their pace because they were the last, but we cannot lie to them and say they were late because should any accident arises from the running because they ‘presume’ they are late, all of us are responsible for it. Furthermore, there is almost no situation should a human treat another with a disrespectful attitude like shouting at them as there is no basis for justification for that action.

4. Critical Reflection on Module Learning

At the start of the CPD2 module, I had established two objectives that I hoped I would be able to achieve by the end of the module. The two goals were to communicate more effectively and to build up self-confidence. Since the trimester is ending, I took time to reflect and evaluate on myself for the past trimester. I realised that in terms of the first objective, I did manage to communicate better holistically. During our project discussion, I would usually prefer to keep my opinions to myself as I have a fear of not being able to bring my point across to my peers. However, after going through the different CPD session, I tried to learn from the theory within and convince myself to try to shape my thought process and slowly speak as if I am thinking out loud. Eventually, I realised my peers started to understand where I was coming from, and I succeeded.

Additionally, I feel that my second objective is highly correlated to my first as my self-confidence was built upon my ability to communicate effectively. We were given plenty of opportunities to share our opinions and work experience in class, and I believe it had assisted me greatly in building up my self-confidence.

Although the module is coming to an end, it is still the start for me on my road to achieving excellent communication skills. Moving on, I will work on speaking up more often to build up my self-confidence. Also, by speaking up more often, it is where I will learn to structure my lines to make it easier for people to understand.

Lastly, thank you for your patience and making an effort to keep things more comfortable for our class and cohort!! (: