Who are you and how long have you been working at SWISS?
I am Katharina. I came to Basel two years ago and joined the Lufthansa Legal Team straight away. Here in Basel, I work in the large Premium Feedback Service department. There are three teams within the department: The Lufthansa Legal Team handles legal cases for Lufthansa and Discover Airlines (previously Eurowings Discover) as a service provider, and the SWISS Legal Team handles legal cases for SWISS. In addition, there are the passenger complaints, where we take care of First Class passengers, HONs and SENs and sensitive cases such as food poisoning and discrimination. 

And what does your day-to-day work look like?
I mainly take care of a category called ODR. That's a platform for the European Commission where passengers can complain. But we are also trained for all other categories. But mainly we handle cases from lawyers, courts, federal agencies or conciliation boards, so we rarely have direct contact with passengers, but mainly with the legal authorities.

Are there any particular challenges in your daily work?
Adhering to deadlines is certainly one. Sometimes the deadlines are tight. Nevertheless, it is crucial that we meet them, otherwise penalties can be imposed on the airline. A second challenge besides the time pressure is to deal with all the negativity. We are a complaints office and a lot of negativity comes our way. Very few people say thank you or write us something nice. Sometimes you notice in writing when people shout. They write in capital letters and with exclamation marks, so you have to find a way to deal with it. Most of the time I try to take it with humour.

What do you like most about your job?
I definitely like our team spirit because we are always there for each other and support the others. We do a lot together. At the moment we are planning to go to the autumn fair together again. We also often do small team events. We also have a table football table on the 11th floor in our break room in Basel, where you can let out your frustrations during the break. Another thing I really like is communicating with very different customers. We have complaints from all kinds of nations, so you can live out your language diversity.

Is there a case you can tell us about?
I had a sensitive case that escalated through the media and through a lawyer. It was about not being able to take the wheelchair of an impaired person because it contained a prohibited battery. The pilot legitimately decided not to take the wheelchair on safety reasons. The battery was indeed not properly declared. It might have been possible to see it at check-in. The case then came up again and again, so we worked with Lufthansa on statements. In the end, it was not our fault, they should have declared the wheelchair with the battery. But of course we still do everything we can to ensure that our customers are satisfied and that the journey can be carried out. I think we managed that quite well. Yes, that was a case I will never forget.

 

Thank you Katharina for this exciting interview.