Michel
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South Island ▷ Kaikoura Region ▷ Kaikoura ▷
Wings Over Whales
We found the flight very disappointing and the service provided by Wings over Whales very poor.
In fact that means that we booked as a family a flight with Wings over Whales.
Originally have we planned to book a tour with Whale Watch Kaikoura by Ship. But unfortunately is it not allowed for our daughter with 2,5 years to participate.
This activity is recommended in the up to date Lonely Planet. Here you can read for example “Spotting success rate: 95%”.
The problems in detail:
1. My little daughter and my wife and me have not received any ear protection for the flight. Even after we asked for it.
Due to missing ear protection (only our pilot had one) there was no conversation possible in the plane and we received non information
In the plane.
2. Obviously we spotted no whales. There is also no refund, discount for the next tour or anything offered to us after the flight. If the spotting rate would really be 95% as mentioned I would suggest a refund system as available elsewhere to avoid disappointed customers. (The only memories we kept are still singing ears)
I can not understand why the pilot has not done more effort or invested more than the minimum time to catch some whales?
3. The pilot played in the air a lot with his GPS and strictly after 30 minutes in the air we landed again.
He kept seating in the plane and kicked us out of the plane in front of the airport building. I have not seen him again later!
So overall I feel like a totaly cheated customer. We paid good money for a waste of time and money.
I would stricty recomment to all other tourists not to book with Wings over Whales and I don´t believe the spotting rate of 95% at all. (So the next 50 persons should spot at least Whales - haha) We experienced beside the non spotting of whales also a very poor service around the flight with Wings over Whales.
We have not received any writen feedback on our Complain via email to Wings over Whales.
This response was sent to you immediately upon receipt of your compliant on 21st October 2010.
Hi Michael.
Thanks for your feedback on your experience yesterday with Wings over Whales.
We value your comments and will make every effort to improve the experience for future visitors.
Unfortunately as was explained to you prior to take off we are not able to guarantee whale sightings as we are dealing with nature. The weather conditions on the day did not allow us to extend the flight further than the 36 minutes already undertaken.
My pilots use G.P.S to assist them to locate the whales as this is a very valuable asset in keeping track of the whales movements.
You will recall as soon as you landed the pilot had to rush back to the aircraft to tie it down as a squall struck the airport. The lightning, heavy rain, and strong gusty winds would have been a dangerous situation for the aircraft to be in especially if it was still airborne.
I regret the company did not have one of our other duty pilots explain this to you.
You should understand that no whales were seen yesterday by operators including helicopter or boats as the whales were not able to be found. This does not mean that we don’t keep trying as the whales are very mobile and can appear in the usual areas with no warming.
We stand by our claim of 95% success rate as we can go for months and not miss a whale but you were unlucky to not see anything.
You will agree this area is very spectacular from the air and I’m sure once you return to Germany your many photos taken on the flight will be a good memory of the trip to our spectacular area.
Thanks again for your feedback.
Regards
John Macphail
Managing Director
Wings over Whales Kaikoura Ltd