Dear Mary,

David Abraham has passed me your email, regarding cleanliness and security issues experienced, by the US Airways crew on the 22 July (Flight 196). Please find detailed below, my comments regarding the issues that were raised.

Singapore Airlines do stay at our hotel, in addition to your Crew. They have been at the hotel since July 2000. As part of their contract, they do have a Crew room set aside for their use, in which there is a small oven. They are allowed to cook a minimal amount of food in this room.

This room is located on the first floor. We do our utmost to ensure that Singapore Airlines get allocated rooms on this floor. In addition, we also ensure that US Airways do not get allocated rooms on the first floor, so that they do not incur any disturbance from noises within the hotel or outside the hotel. This crew room has been active since July 2000, and I can honestly say that this is the first time, we have received a complaint from guests staying on the second floor, (Rooms 201, 203, 205) about the smell, coming from the Crew room.  (Unfortunately, for security reasons, guests are unable to open the windows in the bedrooms, but there is air conditioning, in all the rooms).

However,  it is important to us, that your Crew members are happy and that we resolve any issues, swiftly and satisfactorily.  I have spoken to our Director of Engineering about the problem, and he is going to review the extraction in the Crew Room.  We currently have a large extraction fan in the room, but it requires Crew members to turn it on, for it to operate effectively, and this is evidently not happening.  So I have asked Engineering to link up the extraction fan to the main light switch and install a hood over the cooker, to ensure any unpleasant odors are minimized.  In addition, I have instructed the Front Desk to not allocate your crew members, rooms 201, 203 and 205, until these modifications to the extraction in the crew room have been made and then I will review the situation again.

Regarding the flight attendant, who did not receive his messages, because his name had not been changed in the computer, that is definitely an oversight, by ourselves, and something which I will be addressing with the Front Desk Supervisors, as that is totally unacceptable.  In addition, any guest, being checked into a dirty room, is again, an error.  I will be asking our Front Office Trainer to address, both these issues in our weekly training sessions, to ensure these are isolated incidents.

The issue, regarding the cleanliness of the bedroom and bathroom in room 201, have been passed on to the Executive Housekeeper, to address with her team. The Engineering team are conducting an ongoing maintenance program of redoing the mastic around the bath tubs and likewise they are also looking into the extraction within the bathrooms, which should help alleviate the mold problem in the bathroom, in the future.  However, in the meantime, our Executive Housekeeper is addressing the short term issue by putting in place an aggressive cleaning program for removing the mold on the shower curtains and tiles.

Regarding the issue of security.  I can think of no reason why someone would have gone into the Flight Attendant's room whilst he/she was out.  However, we do have the ability to read the door locks, to see which department entered, which room at any time. I shall be speaking to the Duty Manager on duty that evening, as this could easily have been done, by the Engineering team and the information relayed to the guest to allay any fears, he/she may have had.

Mary, please be assured that our priority when US Airways arrive, is to allocate them clean rooms as quickly as possible. We always try our best to meet their room requests, but on the odd occasion, when we have to allocate them a room, which they may not have requested on the crew sheet, then I explain the situation to them and give them the option to wait for another available room. For example, US Airways crew who checked in on Sunday 29th July.  205 was allocated, (as we no other rooms ready at that time) to a crew member and I called her in her room and said that if she smelt any unpleasant odors, then we would room move her, but she said she smelt nothing and was fine with the room.

May I also say that your Crew members are always very pleasant and friendly and I believe we have built good relations with them.  However, to speed up the problem resolution process,  I am more than happy for you to give my name as a contact for your Crew members, so if they have any grievances, with the hotel, in the future, we can deal with it straight away, so that they do not leave
dissatisfied.

I hope this explains the situation, and please feel free to contact me, if you require clarification on any issues discussed above. (I have copied a number of our key managers on this email, to ensure their full support)

Best regards
 

Susan Callow
Director of Rooms Operations