Carrier customer satisfaction / competiveness

[Jeroen D]

I've moved from Europe to Kanas City, USA about 13 months ago. I'm currently on an expat assignment from my company for the next couple of years.

I used to travel extensively in Europe. At least I thought so. In my current job I do on average 3-5 US/Canada trips per month and about 4-6 trips from the US to Europe or other parts of the world per year.

So, I'm a gold/platinum member of just about any major carrier you can think of. Yes, I do travel first/business class all the time.

I'm really appalled at how the various carriers treat their customers. I can't but anything else come to the conclusion that amongst others, American Airlines, United, KLM, Air France, Delta, SAS, Lufthansa don't give a damn about their customers.

What really gets me winded up is their magazines. Each and everyone is still pretending, through their magazines, that air travel is something romantic and special.

I'm telling you, even travelling first/business class it ain't! None of their captains, with very few exceptions, has the decency to come onto the PA when you're standing still somewhere on the airport, waiting for...... I don't know, clearance, a parking slot, a take off slot , etc.

For instance; About every week I'm waiting at a gate. My ticket say for instance the flight will depart at 15.10. I'm at the gate, and at 15.00 there's no plane at the gate! Still the monitors keep insisting we will leave at 1510. The gate agents haven't got a clue. They don't know when the inbound plane will arrive, nor what the delay will be. It's totally and utterly pathetic!

When it comes to customer communications these guys haven't got a clue. The other day I arrived at my final destination with 36 hours of delay and the crew thanked my for my business? Are they serious or what?

In the last 12 months me and my family got separated from our luggage on 7 separate occasions! Since I've moved to KC, one out of three visitors arrived without luggage!

To me it sounds as if the airline business simply isn't competitive enough. I don't have that many options. I take who ever flies to where I want to go! The carriers know and they don't give a damn.

I've flown South West a couple of times and at least that's a refreshing experience. They deliver on their promise and don't pretend they're something they're not. And they've got very funny flight attendants, which helps a lot.

Anyway, I know I'm ranting and raving here a bit, nothing to do with flight simulations, but Im interested to really understand how the big carriers take their customer needs/complaints into account. As a customer I just think they don't.

Jeroen

[Richard McDonald Woods]

Hi Jeroen,

Would you say that the airlines are so bad because they suffer, like you, from the ATC/airport services and have just given up; or that the airlines are just rubbish, period?

What would you say is your favourite airline?

Cheers, Richard

[Jeroen D]

As a passenger/customer it's of course the whole chain that determines your experience/perception. And when a plane is late arriving/leaving the gate, it's near impossible for a mere passenger to figure out who's fault it was.

But rude flight attendants is definitely something specific for the airline. Same goes for the cockpit crews who don't let their passengers know what's going on, whilst your standing somewhere out on field for 15 minutes or more.

The other day I got a 2.5 hour delay with United at Dallas airport because they were short one flight attendant. Only after one hour delay the gate crew informed the waiting passengers. I have endless examples/experience of airline staff behaviour that is really unprofessional.

Still all these airlines still try to convince us, though their advertisements and their magazine that they really care about their customers. Even if they do, they fail miserable in execution. Branding and marketing people will tell you that if you don't live up to your brand promise, you're going down the drain.

I would say my least favorite airlines are American Airlines and Delta.
My most favourite airlines is Southwest.

Southwest in interesting case because it is being used as a case study in many business/marketing courses here in the US. They are extremely focussed and are extremely good in delivering on their brand promise.

Jeroen

[Mariano]

Hi,

As a very frequent airline passenger, I will say this about the U.S. major airlines:

As long they (legacy/major carriers) keep trying to compete price-wise with the low cost carriers, passengers are bound to get extremely poor service over and over again.

Southwest makes money because their WHOLE operation was designed to minimize costs (for example an all 737 fleet.) They have been doing it for a long time.

The majors (whose operation is completely different) should STOP trying to sell tickets at the same price Southwest does. They are not designed to do so while maintaining a barely acceptable level of customer satisfaction.

Passengers are also to blame. They shop for the lowest-priced tickets available and then complain that there are no pillows on board. They cannot expect Delta to take them from Boston to Los Angeles on US$ 300.00 while getting good customer service. It can't be done. This is why the airline industry in the U.S. is getting worse every day.

The majors have to decide whether they want to make money and treat people well, or compete with Southwest. They cannot do both at the same time. Southwest was designed to operate like Southwest. Delta wasn't and shouldn't be. They are different types of carriers. As simple as that.

About two years ago, I started talking to a flight attendant on a Delta flight. This was during the 2008 oil price spike. I asked her how Delta was dealing with it and she said that they were yet again cutting her pay / hours. She made an excellent point; she said something along the lines of "When oil goes up and people go to the service station to fill up their cars, they expect and actually DO pay more. When it comes to flying, Delta cuts our pay in order not to increase ticket prices because people will not accept a fare increase." She was absolutely right. Why should airline employees suffer when oil goes up? If it goes up, people should pay more. But they refuse to pay more (and then bitch about service.)

Southwest did not have to substantially increase their fares during the 2008 oil price spike because they hedged their fuel. If Delta did not, then they should had increased their fares (or reduced employee's pay, and thus customer service, and have customers pissed at them.) Not many choices here; it is not brain surgery.

That same flight attendant said to me something like "Why should I go the extra mile when dealing with customers when they are the ones bitching about prices even when oil goes up and, at the same time, bitch about service? I am the one paying for their share of oil price increase."

The fast decay of the U.S. airline industry is not going to stop anytime soon. Passengers hate the airlines and the airlines hate passengers. I believe that once the majors caved to passengers and started competing with Southwest fares, they dug their own grave. How can they ever go back to charging what they should be charging? People will never understand why.

As you can see, this subject really gets me fired up. I have had my fare share of airline horror stories.

Mariano

[Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers]

Interesting article to go along:
http://www.roger-wilco.net/work-hard-fly-right-the-motto-of-continental-airlines/

[Richard McDonald Woods]

An interesting article at http://travel.yahoo.com/p-interests-36360593