Air Travel: Speaking as The Cow
As a follow-on to my recent post Acceptable is UNAcceptable.
From NYT: Cows on A Plane
Industry analysts say that most airlines have rightly decided that it makes little economic sense to provide expensive perks to customers paying the lowest fares.
“With the spread of low-cost airlines,” said Philip Baggaley, senior airline credit analyst at Standard & Poor’s, most of the major carriers “have come to the conclusion that they’re not able to get a higher fare for offering added service.”
MOOOOOOO! Forget “expensive perks” and “added service.” What about simple human decency? I can live without:
1. Mystery-ingredient hot meals and embalmed-looking sandwiches. (Also, I’ve flown first- and business-class; the gourmet selections ain’t all that great either.)
2. Pillows and blankets. Yechh, just where have those things been?
3. Leg room. Yeah, it’s cramped, but I’ll get lost in a book.
However, I should be treated humanely. This means:
1. Attendants that at least pretend they know I’m a fellow human being, not a “seat.” (They’re not serving meals anymore, so they can surely take the time for a little common courtesy - a smile, a nod, a “how ya doin’?”)
2. Seats that work and aren’t filled with crumbs (and worse.)
3. Clean restrooms. They should at least start out that way. At least dig the grime out of the corners once in a while.
4. Courteous gate agents and service reps. Yes, I’m sure it’s a boring, tedious job, but have a little self-respect. Tuck in your shirt; tie your shoes; lose the gum and the ‘tude.
And here’s the view from the flip side: We “cheapo” travelers will keep looking for absolutely the lowest price because we know the service is equally crappy - rather we pay American $800 or Delta $500. (I think Southwest still does a pretty good job of treating people like people - and prefer to fly with them when possible, even if the fare is higher.)
A last snippet from the article:
“We recognize we have missed some opportunities in the last couple of years to do the right thing from the customer experience, as we have tried to save our company financially,” said Mark Mitchell, managing director of customer experience, a newly created position at American. “We have fallen off, especially in the last 18 to 24 months.” He said he was hired to “work on the broken pieces of our airline,” including how American handles delays, the boarding process, cabin cleaning, baggage handling and flight attendant interactions with customers.
Man, that’s just sad the AA feels it needs to create a poobah position for “customer experience.” Shouldn’t this be everybody’s job? (duh.) Hope Mr. Mitchell’s family doesn’t expect to see him much - he’s got a BIG job to do. He might start by talking to the JFK service agents and AA manager Denise Wilewski.
(Pssst. Mr. Mitchell? You might also want to start “researching on-line blogs.”)
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December 6th, 2007 at 4:29 am
I’d give up almost everything else just for a comfortable seat. I almost always fly Continental and am generally pretty happy with them, but the size of the seats is ridiculous. I’m 5′8 and I find them insanely cramped; I don’t know how 6′ tall guys cope with it.
The reality is, of course, that they can get away with almost anything because in so may markets, there is not real competition. Houston is a CO hub, more than half the gates at the larger airport are theirs, so realistically they are almost always the best way to get anywhere. So they could get away with a lot of bad service, because when it comes right down to it, they’re going to be the ones with the direct flight from here to where you want to go.
May 14th, 2008 at 7:53 am
[…] Lots is written about airlines - their horrible service, their financial woes, the rising costs of jet fuel, the problem of increasingly overweight passenger bodies taking more fuel, battles with the unions, safety issues, etc. etc. I’ve written several posts myself about airlines. And, there’s really no excuse for making it a policy to treat your customers badly. […]