singapore airlines in the air is excellent always has been, cabin staff brilliant always helpful makes travel a dream. HOWEVER what about the ground experience with singapore airlines is it as good,? I would really like to say yes to the question and in a lot of cases the ground service is good, but there are areas where singapore airlines has to have a look at, the latest problem ive encountered is as follows. I drove out to the singapore airlines office at chennai, 1 hours drive from my home. I have business class tickets and i want to change the date. the guy at the counter demnds 50 dollars for each ticket to change it. he says he wont release the tickets till i go and get him 200 dollars and come back. I informed him that the tickets do not have any penalties attached to them so why is he doing it. nothing . well singapore airlines I really dont understand why you employ people at your office , who canot handle the customer in the proper way, Ive paid 20000 dollars for my tickets. is it really necessary to try by the means of your staff to squeeze another 200 bucks out of me. to make me return the next day with 200 bucks to satisfy the ego of your staff. even after i explain that my travel agent has assured me there will be no problems or fees in case i want to change my date of return. ive since contacted my travel agent and he has told me there is no fee for changing my ticket. but this unfortunately is not much consolation after i have been given the run around by ground staff. the second time i might add in the past six months.singapore airlines i suggest its time to have a good look at your ground staff very soon or you are going to lose valuable customers and unfortunately I will be one of themn. I am still marking good ticks on all of the above as i feel singapore airlines may not actually be aware of whats going on

I had travelled from chennai to sydney on 27th dec 2011. I had travelled to india for business discussions and to collect some samples for my company. I would like to ask does anybody who has ever travelled to an airport know the weight of their baggage till it goes on the scales, well unless you keep industrial scales at home the answer is probably no. anyway my baggage it seems was nearly 55 kg, which I add I accept is over the weight allowed. I had actually guessed it around 40kgs which is acceptable for business class, but on many other previous occasions when my baggage has been more than that nobody has ever bothered about it. anyway I had come into contact with an agressive rule spouting employee of singapore airlines who wanted to go by the book. he was rude to me and made me feel quite ill. I am a diabetic patient and have been warned by my doctors to avoid stress. well I got plenty from this staff member . he basicaly said I am not taking your baggage go away. I went away and dumped some samples in a rubbish bin and put others into my hand baggage. still he was not satisfied amazed at this behaviour I requested to see the manager and another man appeared and backed up this staff member. he also boasted to me that he was a senior member of staff and relished the request that he give me his name so i could report the matter. I felt after that traumatised the whole flight and arrived in sydney feeling ill. even the samples I had moved to my hand baggage were taken away from me when i went to the departure lounge by security and given to the singapore airlines staff to keep in their office. Of course my company in sydney were outraged at this type of behaviour and imediately sent a complaint to the manager at chennai. after 11 days a few line sugar soaked email arrived hoping that next time my experiance with singapore airlines would be better but not even mentioning my complaint about the way i had been handled by the staff member. well let me now say that singapore airlines has an excellent service in flight and i have never in 25 years found anything to complain about. basically they treat you like a king. however before one gets to enjoy this royal service we have to go through check in. how can a member of singapore airlines act in this way and get away with it.even the reply I got was just a gloss over. well I am glad that my wife and child were not with me at the check in. Now i must think of future flights were i might have to put up with this staff member and im afraid at 7000 dollars per ticket im just not willing to take that chance. As singapore airlines does not seem interested in the passengers greviance as noted by the gloss over email sent by one of their senior staff at madras, I have decided to return my frequent flyer memebership and my wife and childs also. I do not want to be associated with an airline which canot answer a passengers greviance in a proper manner. I might add many members of my company use singapore airlines and after hearing my story are also considering their future travel plans, finally the samples I had to dump in the garbage were prototypes and canot be remade without a lot of expense. Those companies who made them are asking me for an answer as to who is going to pay to remake them. and one of the companies is threatning to cancel the contracts we had to produce and export goods from india. this is the flow on effect which can happen when a check in staff memeber of singapore airlines decides to play god. ps my next trip to chennai may be on MAS or THAI.