PAL: Karlie Kloss missed check-in cut-off time
@flyPAL has the WORST CUSTOMER SERVICE OF ALL TIME. Most BUDGET AIRLINE. Rude & disrespectful. Shame on You @flyPAL pic.twitter.com/5vEul2HyTY
— Karlie Kloss (@karliekloss) June 7, 2016
Model Karlie Kloss is used to walking high-fashion runways the world over, but she missed a different sort of runway at her home country in the United States.
Kloss made local news on Wednesday after airing her frustration on social media about a missed flight to Vancouver, Canada, with flag carrier Philippine Airlines (PAL). It turned out Kloss, who criticized PAL’s customer service, was just late.
PAL said in a statement Wednesday that while it was “sorry” to hear that Kloss missed her 12:15 a.m. flight on June 7, it noted that she missed the closing of the check-in counters at the JFK International Airport.
PAL said the policy was to close the counters at JFK an hour before departure, or 11:15 p.m. on June 6. PAL said Kloss arrived at 11:40 p.m.
Big airlines typically do not publicize their responses to individual complaints. But Kloss has a large following on Twitter, one of the venues of her comments against PAL. Kloss has 1.2 million Twitter followers against 1.6 million for PAL. She also posted the complaint on her Snapchat social media account, according to reports.
On June 7, Kloss posted on Twitter that PAL “has the worst customer service of all time. Most budget airline. Rude & disrespectful. Shame on you.” The post, shared 3,680 times and had 7,885 “likes,” also included her photograph posing in front of a PAL check-in counter with the added caption: “No one flys Philipines (sic) Airlines… and now I know why.”
“Philippine Airlines values all of its passengers and we have exerted all efforts to reach out to Ms Kloss. Our purpose is to explain the operational limitations at airports including cut-off times for check in and boarding of passengers,” PAL said in its statement.
“We are happy to note that Ms Kloss has gracefully responded to PAL’s initial communication. The airline has likewise sent her a formal letter stating that there was no deliberate intention to cause her any disservice,” it added.
PAL said it was also extending “assistance to facilitate the refund of her unused ticket or to facilitate the rebooking of her flight.”
The Manila to New York route, which travels via Vancouver, was one of the flights PAL launched to capture a larger share of the market in the United States, one of its more popular and profitable destinations.
