it’s comforting to know, i’m not the only one with the bad experience. anyone want’s to issue affidavits attesting to their experiences with Cebu Pac?

This airline company rips people off. When you arrive 45 mins before time, they say you’re f*ck*ng late when in reality they had sold your seats to chance passengers.

They have never been on time, at least, for more than 20 times I flew with them.

They would never refund your payment.

They have very rude ground and inflight service crews.

Damn, they’re not even that cheap.

I would prefer Zest Air over this ripper Cebu Pacific anyday, anytime.

Very good article Ryan, tells the truth

*cross fingers

Though PAL is the airline to fly with if you can afford it. Good thing they have a domestic flights promo now. Just a heads up :)

I haven’t tried SEAir much. The few times we tried it, we got delayed by (an average of) around 2 hours and had to be rerouted to a different airport (from Caticlan to Kalibo) due to sunset restriction that wouldn’t have been the case if the flights hadn’t been delayed in the first place. :(

I think Zest Air has the worst rep amongst the airlines mentioned, too bad for them. I tried it with friends and can’t say anything bad about it. The service was good, take off & landing was ok. Oh, I remember now, we got delayed by a few minutes. Hehe That was it though.

By the way, SEAir has been showing Cebu Pacific-like tendencies lately. Good thing the topmost management has been made aware of these (thanks to Facebook) and have been taking direct action – even answering customer complaints themselves instead of some lowly intermediary giving stock answers.

i would mention just two incidents with cebu pacific that made me swear never to fly with them again.

(1) online booking facility – during the final booking process, an “error” occurred and there was a prompt to do it all over again. but instead of going thru this trouble again, i booked with the more expensive philippine airlines. i was shocked to find out later that cebu pacific online payment facility has successfully captured the credit card details, and hence payment was processed and that i was subsequently billed. called their so-called hotline (it always takes a good 10-15mins before an agent finally speaks to u) and complained about the billing, but the agent at the other end of the line was so quick to blame me for the apparent mistake by not calling my credit card issuer to check if the payment was indeed captured. cut to the chase, 5,000 pesos never refunded. this incident happened around september 2009.

(2) i cancelled thru their website a manila-shanghai-manila paid booking because i was too tired from my malaysia-thailand-cambodia-vietnam trip to take another trip in 2 weeks. at the time of the online cancellation, there were 3 choices to make – apply for a travel fund with the full amount to be used in future travels within 90 days from date of cancellation; rebook the flight; or cancel the booking and apply for a refund which will be credited back within 45days. i chose the 3rd option. after more than 90 days, no refund or credit was given, so i had to call their hotline again, and was told that no refund was possible since it was promo ticket that i got. had i known this at the time of the cancellation, i would have chosen option 1, which is to apply for a travel fund and use the amount within 90 days. again, i felt i was robbed of 4,000 pesos.

as to their call center agents, i’ve spoken to about 10 or 12 of them, and half of them were rude, some were empathic. i was even told by one agent that if i don’t like their service, i shouldn’t have booked with them in the first place. right, i never booked with them again. thanks to air asia, another low-cost carrier, which now flies to destinations i usually go to that cebupacific flies to.

For the past 2 years, their service has deteriorated and they are no longer the best value airline for regular scheduled flights. Shame!!!!

And, all airline staff look ugly after big delays and/or cancellations – whatever the company :)