Major Airlines Will Fail

[Doug Taylor]

Oh, the traffic is good. More expsoure to what we're going here at Jetcareers. No complaints from me!

My #####'s correct, yo! [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[mtsu_av8er]

[img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img] [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

You know, I've got a handful of students that I'm trying to get in here. Why don't people just register and join in the fun??

[tonyw]

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If I ventured over to FlyerTalk, if one of us had the cajones to say, "Hey guys, look at this from the flight attendants perspective", they'd have a field day with that one.

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Heh heh heh. I used to do that. Every single time they started talking about paycuts, I would bring up how much money it cost for all the flight training, the CFI salary, and so on.

It shut most people up, but there were always a few bungholes.

Then I dropped the, well, if you screw up, what happens? A pilot screws up and hundreds of people die.

Would you believe that some bungholes still wanted to argue?

I haven't been back there in years except to recruit some of the employees on the boards to this one.

[tonyw]

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Dude, it looks like the FBI is trying to bring the server down! Haha! The IP addresses are hilarious.

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You thought I was kidding about Ashcroft, didn't you?

[img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

[flyover]

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Heh heh heh. I used to do that. Every single time they started talking about paycuts, I would bring up how much money it cost for all the flight training, the CFI salary, and so on.

It shut most people up, but there were always a few bungholes.

Then I dropped the, well, if you screw up, what happens? A pilot screws up and hundreds of people die.

Would you believe that some bungholes still wanted to argue?

I haven't been back there in years except to recruit some of the employees on the boards to this one.

[/ QUOTE ]

It's a courageous argument, but not relevant to pay issues. Salaries are market driven. Not based on logical thought processes about who deserves what because they have so much responsibility and what it they screw up, etc. etc. (I acknowlege this makes me, by definition, a bunghole).

Airline pilot salaries got to where they were because of effective union organizing in a closed, regulated environment. Unions controlled the supply, government made sure there was no competition. Airline salaries were headed down from the day that Jimmy Carter signed airline deregulation into law. If the 1980s and 90s hadn't been such strong business cycles and if the first few deregulation carriers hadn't been so incompetent, underfinanced and slot restricted (de facto regulation), this would have happened 20 years ago.

Admittedly it wouldn't be so catastrophic today if airline managements hadn't borrowed to the hilt, over-expanded, and let costs spiral out of control. In other words they never adopted to an open market. They acted like they were still sheltered from competition. Oops.

[tonyw]

Dude, those people were saying stuff like I hope you all get furloughed because I didn't get warm nuts on my last flight. One time someone said that their flight was cancelled due to the pilots reaching their duty time limits and they said, they should have flown anyway. Yeah, whatever.

I say that people like that deserve the Southwest treatment.

Go fly someone else. You ain't worth the time to deal with your whining.

[flyover]

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Dude, those people were saying stuff like I hope you all get furloughed because I didn't get warm nuts on my last flight. One time someone said that their flight was cancelled due to the pilots reaching their duty time limits and they said, they should have flown anyway. Yeah, whatever.

I say that people like that deserve the Southwest treatment.

Go fly someone else. You ain't worth the time to deal with your whining.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah I'm not familiar with that particular site. But it sounds like a vent site, so it by definition is where all the whiners and complainers come. I was just responding to your pay arguments.

I don't get the idea that there are all these huge numbers of whiners and complainers out there. It just doesn't jive with my 30 year experience of hauling these people and trying to interact with as many of them as possible, especially ones who were unhappy.

Is it possible that you are taking it all too personally? When some customer directed anger at me I never felt it was personal (well there was one time..) but rather the fact that I happened to be the company rep in front of them at the time. Usually a few minutes just listening to them got it ironed out. Often they were angry because they had gotten legitimately bad or rude service. Given a few minutes to vent about it they were ready to move on. Everybody needs to vent their frustrations (see: "bimbo" and "bunghole") it's just the way people are. It's part of what makes passenger flying more challenging and fun than box flying.

Given a choice I'll take the newbies or infrequent fliers everytime. They're just more fun to interact with than stone-faced, dismissive businessmen.

[Kristie]

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Dude, those people were saying stuff like I hope you all get furloughed because I didn't get warm nuts on my last flight.

[/ QUOTE ] [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shocked.gif[/img] that's dissapointing & rude!

[Doug Taylor]

Three pages and it's like the thread is a 'floater' that won't flush!

Man gets burned on flight.

Man writes scathing, broad article about a single incident.

Man uses title to capture as much interest in his written hissy fit.

Article gets permalinked, crosslinked and cut 'n pasted across a few thousand aviation websites.

People backbite, feed on themselves and pontificate how right/wrong the author was.

(repeat)

[tonyw]

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I don't get the idea that there are all these huge numbers of whiners and complainers out there. It just doesn't jive with my 30 year experience of hauling these people and trying to interact with as many of them as possible, especially ones who were unhappy.

[/ QUOTE ]

Of course the airline industry can do better in customer service. What industry can't?

Most people just want to get from point a to point b in reasonable comfort in a timely way. Do that, and they'll be happy.

But there are always those people who will complain and say that's not good enough.

FlyerTalk exists for those people. Believe me, these are people who paid $250 for their transcon, and then they got all pissy because they saw a couple of pilots in first. I should have been upgraded to that seat, they said. Never mind that those guys got those seats as part of their contract if they were on their way to another city for work!

They thought they deserved those seats because their fannies had been on the airline for enough miles.

I've met those people in person. You know how at network JC we don't plan on talking about aviation all the time? Well, at their gettogethers, all they do is talk about how to earn more miles.

[Doug Taylor]

In fact, last year at DougFest 2003, I don't even think we brought up aviation once! [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[Kristie]

are you freekin kidding me?! that was the only thing ya'll talked about! hahaha [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

[flyover]

I agree. I believe very strongly that there are only two major areas that airlines need to correct to get their customer service back on track.

1) Overhaul their communication to the customer. This is necessary on all levels, but most importantly at the customer contact level. There are skills that the even the most lowly trained service rep can learn that will vastly improve how they interact with customers. For employees those that refuse to go along, out the door.

2) Decide for the long term what your product is and start delivering it consistently. This really gets back to number 1 as it goes to communication. What is it you are selling? My years in the industry have come since deregulation. I have watched the majors go througn dizzying changes in service levels, marketing, pricing, etc. etc. Because of that there are only a few brand names in the industry that really mean anything. The top two are SWA and JetBlue. For their customers there is absolutely no confusion about their product.

I think the majors have so completely botched this that they will have no choice but to re-brand. Make a clean break and start over again. It's not going to be easy.

[flyover]

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are you freekin kidding me?! that was the only thing ya'll talked about! hahaha [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

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Venus and Mars. There you go. [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[tonyw]

I'm with you on the communication. They try to make things too simple and they end up confusing the passenger.

For example, they'll say, due to weather conditions, flight xxx to Poughkeepsie will be delayed. You and I know that, well, okay, even though it's gorgeous here, maybe the plane that's supposed to take me to Poughkeepsie is being held up at the place it's supposed to depart from.

Joe Average, though, says, what the hell? It's absolutely gorgeous outside. What possible weather delay could there be? The airline is LYING to me!

Let's take the US Airways example that started this whole mess. Okay, the crew couldn't get there. Why? What if they had said, due to weather problems at the city where the crew is coming in from, we can't operate this flight. All of the sudden, now Joe Average says, oh! So they couldn't get the pilots here because the weather was bad in the place they were coming from. That makes sense.

As for the long term branding, I think you're seeing United and American do that. They are stressing that they can get you anywhere. That is the biggest advantage they have over the LCCs. They need to exploit that, stress it, and go from there.

Wanna go skiing at Jackson Hole or Big Sky? Well, JetBlue and Southwest ain't gonna get you there. Wanna go see Australia? No can do on the LCCs.

United is actually doing that here in the DC area. They're stressing how they can get you wherever you want to go and Independence Air can't.

[flyover]

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As for the long term branding, I think you're seeing United and American do that. They are stressing that they can get you anywhere. That is the biggest advantage they have over the LCCs. They need to exploit that, stress it, and go from there.

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When I say re-brand I mean no more United or American. I mean a clean break so that the customers can get rid of some old baggage too. It will likely come about as the airlines rise back out of the ashes of bankruptcy.

[danielsexton]

[ QUOTE ]
Three pages and it's like the thread is a 'floater' that won't flush!

Man gets burned on flight.

Man writes scathing, broad article about a single incident.

Man uses title to capture as much interest in his written hissy fit.

Article gets permalinked, crosslinked and cut 'n pasted across a few thousand aviation websites.

People backbite, feed on themselves and pontificate how right/wrong the author was.

(repeat)

[/ QUOTE ]

you know Doug, i thought this was an interesting article and expected, it would invoke a little conversation about airline customer service, which in many cases is legitimately horrid, never expected it to get 65 reply's.

[tonyw]

Not sure you want to just toss out a brand that's been around for 75 years or so.

[Doug Taylor]

However, for the most part, service is good and we all work our butts off on a daily basis. Dealing with limited resources, tight time restraints lead (and disciplined) by people who haven't seen the 'front line' in their entire career.

Primarily why I'm a little overly sensitive when articles such as these make the rounds on the internet. Granted, yes, mistakes were made, but there is usually so much more to the story than most people realize.

The agent can't respond and say, "Well, Mesa cut out all of the agents except one and I probably hadn't had a break, a bite to eat or even a chance to visit the bathroom and empty an overflowing bladder for seven hours. I did the best I could, on my own, with NO resources." Or how the agent that was supposed to help her out decided that an extra $1/hr, weekends and holidays off was enough to make him leave the CSR job and go work at Wal-Mart as a greeter because of abhorent working conditions at the airline.

That would be a fantastic piece of investigative journalism. Instead of screaming about what happened that morning, investigate and determine why it happened. Perhaps he'd discover exactly what transpired that morning.

Like if one of my flights was horribly delayed, I usually have a pretty good idea of the chain of events and missed opportunities which caused the SNAFU. Problem is, if I got on the PA and explained to the passengers what the actual problem is, I think I'd be doing the 'carpet dance' monday morning in the chief pilots office and looking for a ticket home on Orbitz.

[mtsu_av8er]

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Problem is, if I got on the PA and explained to the passengers what the actual problem is, I think I'd be doing the 'carpet dance' monday morning in the chief pilots office and looking for a ticket home on Orbitz.

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Insensitive bastages....they'd fly you to ATL to fire you, and not even fly you home?? [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[flyover]

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Not sure you want to just toss out a brand that's been around for 75 years or so.

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United apparently agrees with me. They are so concerned about turning a new page and shedding an old image, they come up with Ted?

If after 75 years you've completely and utterly failed as a business, and have tried so many different combinations of marketing, service, pricing and incentives that no one really knows what they are buying anymore........it might be time for a new brand.

[FlyingFish]

Or come up with new livery colors. That always helps... [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[flyover]

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investigate and determine why it happened. Perhaps he'd discover exactly what transpired that morning.

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I think his whole point was that the company should have been able to tell him, it shouldn't have been a mystery.

We've both seen this many times, Doug. Something goes wrong and we can't find out what or why to pass on to the customers. When that happens I tell them that I'm in the dark, that it's not right that I'm in the dark, and I'm going to find out and let them know. When it's the company's fault and it was a dumb screwup I tell them that. I've let big D have it a number fr times on the PA, never had to do a carpet dance. Some of the things I've said "poor planning" "dumb mistake" "out to lunch" "no excuse" etc. The passengers really appreciate it when you voice what they are thinking. You want to realy piss them off take a ridiculously bad service situation and try to put a good face on it.