TACV Cape Verde airlines
Flights from Stansted to Sal
The Cape Verde carrier briefly operated flights to the UK
All flights suspended
B from Stockholm had a chastening experience on TACV flights from Europe
" The first two legs of the journey from Stockholm to Sal went well with
only a slight delay on departure from Lisbon.
I know from experience that it is necessary to confirm the domestic flights
as soon as possible after arrival in Sal. We went directly after coming
out of the passport control (around 1 a.m.) to the TACV ticket office in
Amilcar Cabral Airport on Sal. The TACV staff person looked at our tickets,
checked at her computer and informed us that we were not on the passenger
list. She also informed us that there were no bookings for our return flights.
On the tickets we had received from the travel agency all flights including
the domestic TACV flights were confirmed as OK. TACV told us that the tickets
were issued through TAP. TACV could not take any responsibility. We had
to contact the TAP representative. No suggestion as to how to solve the
problem was provided.
Immediately contacting the TAP office, their representative performed
the same procedures i.e. checking the tickets and checking her computer
after which she informed us that the tickets had never been requested and
there was no trace of them in the TAP booking system. She said that the
travel agency had issued the tickets and put OK on them without even requesting
them through TAP. (After returning to Sweden the travel agency could provide
me with the booking confirmation code from TAP which I unfortunately didn’t
bring with me when travelling). Returning to TACV office we were informed
that the only thing to do was to put our names on a waiting list. We should
then hang around the check-in counter for each departing flight to Sao Vicente.
There should be 5 flights to Sao Vicente, on July 29.
Our names were entered as 3rd and 4th names on an A4 paper called the
waiting list and we went to a hotel for a few hours sleep. After returning
to the airport and seeing off the first two Sao Vicente flights 29 July
without being near getting a seat, we contacted TACV ticket office again.
We had already been sent around to various members of the TACV airport staff
when asking for assistance (all providing different information). I asked
the person in the ticket office for the first flight with vacant seats that
we could get booked and confirmed. The answer was on the last flight Monday
1 August (note that the question was asked on Friday 29 July). I requested
a booking for Monday 1 August and keeping our names on the waiting list.
The reply was that it was not possible to book seats on the Monday flight.
No reason was given. It was not possible to book a seat at all any day.
We tried our luck in the TACV ticket office again a few hours later after
seeing off 2 more Sao Vicente flights and talking to numerous TACV airport
staff (still providing a wide variety of confusing information). This time
we were lucky in the ticket office. The chief of the office took care of
us. She not only booked us on the Monday evening flight but without us asking
for it she also booked the return flights two weeks later. Our names were
kept on the waiting list. This was the ONLY clear, competent and service
minded TACV staff member we met during our 4 days stay in the airport. She
was the only one of all we met (of more than 15) taking our problems seriously
and providing a solution.
We talked to many fellow passengers from the waiting list. Most of them
had the same problem as we had. They had arrived with confirmed tickets
Sal-Sao Vicente but didn’t have their names on the passenger list. They
were coming not only from various European destinations but also from USA
and Brazil. Interesting to notice was that also some passengers with TACV
tickets arriving from Brazil with confirmed domestic flights were not on
the passenger lists. In that case neither TAP nor the Swedish travel agent
could be blamed.
From some friends on Sal (not TACV staff) we heard that TACV had problems
with the capacity since two planes were out of service. The passenger lists
for some of the flights had been "cleaned" when the capacity became limited.
That could explain the situation but could not explain the unacceptable
lack of problem handling and service by TACV. To make a very long and troubled
story short we spent 4 days in the Amilcar Cabral Airport seeing off 4-5
Sao Vicente flights each day. Our luggage had left the first day with the
flight in our original booking.
During 4 days the waiting list was growing finally to include four or
five A4 pages with names of passengers waiting for connection to Sao Vicente.
The third day, I observed that nearly all the names on the first page of
the waiting list and most of the names of the second page were crossed out.
Asking what that meant I was told that those passengers had already left
for Sao Vicente. My next question was of course how it could be possible
that our names remained as nearly the only ones on the first page of the
waiting list. We had been present at the check-in counter at most of the
departures every day without getting a seat when all the other passengers
had been able to leave. The TACV representative gave the amazing reply that
the others must have been on WAITING LIST EXPRESS (lista da espera expresse!!).
It is easy to laugh at that afterwards but it was not so funny in the situation
we were at the time.
Several of the fellow passengers arriving the same day as we arrived could
through personal contacts leave for Sao Vicente after waiting only 2 days.
I guess that, that’s what was called waiting list express. I have a different
name for it and that is corruption. On the fourth day (August 1) TACV organized
a special waiting list counter. We didn’t have to usee that since we had
our booked seats for the evening flight finally arriving to Sao Vicente
at11 p.m. after 4 days on Sal.
For me, this story prompts a number of questions for the actors involved.
Let’s start with TAP: How is it possible at check-in at Arlanda Airport
to check in the luggage all the way to Sao Vicente if there is no confirmed
ticket for the last leg of the journey (Sal-Sao Vicente) or not even a request
for a ticket? For TACV, problems can always appear and will always appear.
Some problems can be prevented but not all. Whenever a problem appears there
must be a structured and fair way to solve the situation. No TACV staff
we met in Amilcar Cabral Airport showed any service attitude or provided
any suggestion how our problem could be solved. In fact most of the staff
showed a quite nonchalant attitude and was only interested in getting rid
of the troublesome passengers. It wasas if the passengers were disturbing
them in their important job not realizing that their important job is to
assist the passengers.
This said, with one exception and that was the head of the TACV ticketing
office in the airport. We would like to convey our thanks and respect to
her. TACV has a long way to go to build capacity to meet the minimum needs
of the passengers. The nonchalant attitude of the TACV staff in Amilcar
Cabral Airport and the complete lack of leadership and competence to handle
the problems was a most annoying experience. It was an unexpected and very
unpleasant way to celebrate my 60th birthday (29 July) moving between uninterested
staff and unhelpful TACV offices in Sal airport in-between seeing off flights
to Sao Vicente.
I got however a story to tell and I hope it can be useful to improve conditions
for future passengers. Problems appear all the time and everywhere. That
is nothing to criticize. It is the handling and the care of the passengers,
the lack of leadership, organization and the attitude which is the true
problem. After returning to Sweden in August, I sent copies of this story
to my travel agency, to TAP and to TACV. Do I need to say that only the
travel agency has replied? "