Airline service descending: Study’s co-author says passengers should expect decline to continue
Airline passengers have had reason to complain recently about service. And they can expect more of the same, according to academics and airline industry observers, who blame everything from inefficiency in the nation’s air traffic control system to staffing cutbacks by airlines. On Monday the annual Airline Quality Ratings study came out…. “Our rating has shown that the quality for the industry has gotten worse for last three years,” said Dean Headley, who co-authored the airline quality study. “We expect it to continue down.”
I’ve written a lot about the airline industry’s march to not just poor service, but no service. Now it appears that I may have been closer to the truth than I had imagined. Yes, airline service, never the stuff of legend to begin with, appears to be about to become even worse. Tom Peters used to refer to US Air as “Agony Air” for their poor, inhuman, and exceedingly indifferent customer service. Now that appellation can reasonably be applied to just about every carrier.
Let’s face it, America. Flying isn’t (and truly never has been) a customer-centric transaction. Post-9.11, what had been an unfortunate reality now has the virtual force of law. We, the flying public, can now be treated like cattle…and there’s not a damn thing we can do about it. Never mind that WE’RE the customers, and WE’RE paying the freight. Fears of terrorism and the specter of 9.11 means that we can be poked, prodded, inspected, harrassed, questioned, suspected, and just generally treated as if we’re terrorists just looking for a place to happen. And if we have the temerity to protest this mistreatment, we can be arrested or detained with impunity- no reason or justification needed or expected.
Rights? We don’t need no stinkin’ rights!!
“The vast majority of customer service issues arise from weather and congestion flight delays that lead to misconnected flights, lost luggage and related complaints,” said the transport association’s president and chief executive, James May. “These delays are inextricably linked with the government’s outdated and inefficient air traffic control system.”
Aviation expert Mike Boyd also criticized the Federal Aviation Administration, which he said is largely to blame for congestion and delays in the nation’s domestic aviation system.
“The FAA’s air traffic control system is the core reason for air delays,” Boyd said. “The airlines are willing victims, and they have to stop.”
While there may be a grain of truth in Boyd’s assertions, the reality is that the airline industry hasn’t exactly strained itself by providing solid customer service. Most anyone who’s flown anywhere over the past few years can tell you what it’s like to be treated more like an annoyance than a paying customer. Airlines complain about rising fuel costs, and the onerous security climate, but the reality is that you don’t need a survey by a collection of overpaid consultants to know that customer service SUCKS.
If airlines want to succeed, they would do well to begin by looking at how they treat their customers. Providing good customer service doesn’t necessarily have to cost a lot of money. It can often be as simple as placing employees in a situation where they are allowed to take care of customers. Too many airlines have cut costs and customer service positions to the point where the front line customer service people are expected to make filet mignon out of Alpo. Perhaps if airlines actually invested money in providing decent, efficient, and friendly customer service, flying the (not so) friendly skies would be a borderline adversarial situation.
Yes, these are tough times for the airline industry, but the airlines are hardly the only industry struggling with the realities of a post-9.11 economy. We fly because we have to, because it’s the most efficient way to get where we’re going. Unfortunately, we are forced to do it with airlines that tend to view paying customers as cattle, cargo to be moved from one place to another as efficiently and cheaply as possible. If we were talking about restaurants here, they’d have long ago gone out of business. Thankfully, you don’t (yet) have to go through a security checkpoint to get a seat a Chili’s.
I’m tired of being treated like I’m a piece of meat. If I could reasonably drive to my destinations, I would. In a heartbeat. Unfortunately, that’s not really an option…and so the airline industry really has no incentive to improve. They know that we need them, probably even more than they need us. And you wonder why airline customer service sucks….
Meanwhile, the airlines will continue their race to the bottom…only to discover that there IS no bottom….
