I would like to apologise sincerely to Dr Beng for the inconvenience caused to him and his family during their travel with us. We appreciate his feedback and our cabin crew did in fact report the matter. We wrote to him on Feb 12 but the letter appears not to have reached him.
As far as possible, Singapore Airlines tries to accede to customers' seating preferences, and pre-assigns seats based on customers' requests and special requirements, as indicated in their flight bookings. The assignment of seat types, such as aisle or window seats, is based on a first-come, first-served basis and is subject to availability at the point of request.
Dr Beng's flight booking record did indicate a bassinet request for an infant but there was no mention of seat preference in the forward cabin. As a result, we allocated bulkhead seats closer to the rear of the aircraft to him and his family on both sectors.
On the return flight from Perth to Singapore, we sincerely apologise that our check-in agent's staff did not offer Dr Beng the bulkhead seats in the forward cabin, though they were available. The staff should have given him the option of moving his family to the available seats. This, however, meant that he and his family would not be seated together as only a few seats were available in the front.
We take this service lapse seriously and will counsel the staff to ensure such an incident is avoided in future.
Once again, we thank Dr Beng for his comments and look forward to be of service to him and his family again soon.
Ong Boon Khim
Vice-President, Customer Affairs
Singapore Airlines
