I just posted a paean to United Airlines on Larry Ribstein's blog in response to his suggestion that it be thrown to the corporate dissolution wolves. On edit: in the comments he backed away from that suggestion.
He apparently just flew them, didn't have a particularly good experience, and is now embittered. I'm sorry he didn't have a good experience but it does bring to mind something I'd observed before, about who is likely to have a good air travel experience and who is not.
Basically, people who fly a lot will have a much better experience. Even on the same flight: people who fly more often will have a much more satisfying experience than those who fly more occasionally.
Some of that is due to the loyalty rewards. Frequent customers of the same airline get some perks, like better seats. But mostly frequent customers benefit from knowing the airline's system. Every airline has it's own way of processing thousands of passengers daily through its airports. It's a system that focuses on making sure that large volumes of people get to where they need. It's not a system that can afford to focus all its attentions on passengers one at a time. Now, it can and does attend to individual needs (wheelchairs, etc.) but that's part of what's necessary to do to process the large volumes of people. The most upset customers I've seen at airport counters are the ones who demand that the airline focus its entire resources on their particular travel experience. And that just can't happen. Unless the airline is some sort of luxury charter, it's going to have to make resource allocation decisions based on the greater good.
There's actually nothing necessarily wrong with this kind of priority. It doesn't mean that passengers are treated like cattle. Individual needs can still get met, but they get met within the context of what is possible within the system. In my experience, nearly anything is possible, but a traveler needs to know how to ask for it. The trouble with inexperienced flyers is that they don't know the vocabulary of the system, so they don't know how to present their request in a way that would work within in.
I'm not sure that airlines having such a system is necessarily a bad thing. If the exercise of routing large volumes of people through airports were haphazard or ad hoc, whether or not one had a successful travel experience would be left entirely up to chance. At least now, as long as the system is effective and not arbitrary, the predictability leads to a certain equitability among travelers. By letting airlines focus on the collective needs of the (potentially) several hundred people on a flight rather than the individual needs, it is more likely that all those people will have a successful journey.
Still, perhaps it is worth taking steps to make sure that even inexperienced travelers should be able to have positive travel experiences. It's not good if successful air travel depends on overcoming a steep learning curve. But in my experience I don't think the problems result from an obtuseness of the system as much as an obtuseness of the passengers. The ones I've seen be most upset are people who seem not to recognize (or care) that there are dozens and dozens of people all in the same situation, and that their own best chance for satisfaction depends on the airline's ability to satisfy all of them. It's not that their travel story requires their mastery of a particular airline's operational system but merely their acknowledgement that one might even exist, and it isn't out to get them.
Edited.
Comments (7)
Considering your past comments on customer service you have received at cell phone stores, the gap, and various motels, I'm a bit surpised to hear you saying this...
Perhaps your problem at those venues was that you didn't understand their systems? Would you reccomend better training of you by them as to their arcane policies, or would you reccomend they change their systems? In the past you have definitely seemed to think that they should work to meet all of your expectations, regardless of policies or industry practices...
Posted by Mark | January 7, 2006 4:35 PM
Posted on January 7, 2006 16:35
I don't hate all companies or think all company policies are invalid. They can be quite valid when they are reasonable, transparent, and consistent. I give United much more credit in this department than those other vendors.
Posted by Cathy | January 7, 2006 4:45 PM
Posted on January 7, 2006 16:45
I have to say that I have rarely run into a business as filled with "gotchas" as the airline industry. From their multi-level fare structures to their various types of changeable/non-changeable tickets and rules about stand-by and bumping, it seems to me that their rules are unneccessarily complex. One can find out all the rules, but it definitely takes time, and every airline is different for almost no reason.
Also, something about the fact that the airlines specially create "elite" customers whom they will treat reasonably, while treating everyone else like cattle definitely annoys the egalitarian in me. That might be why I usually fly Southwest-- everything is much simpler on SWA and they treat everyone pretty much the same.
Mark
Posted by Mark | January 9, 2006 3:17 PM
Posted on January 9, 2006 15:17
I don't like Southwest. In the late '90s I flew a whole lot with them - including two trips two thirds the way across the country - and found it a huge pain in the ass. All those takeoffs and landings necessary to leap frog across the continent, and I'd never be able to get a good seat on the second leg because I couldn't get to the next gate soon enough to get a decent seating priority. The Southwest approach to air travel doesn't suit my needs at all.
I agree with you about the "gotchas," but I think some of it is that is due to the problems of price discrimination. The airlines have been able to actually pull it off, but increasingly other industries are able to as well. There's something to be said for whether there can ever be equal bargaining power between a customer and a business capable of price discrimination.
But all this is not really my point. My point here rests more with the "obtuseness" comment. I've observed several unpleasant encounters where myopic and/or narcissistic customers who were unjustifiably beating up on well-meaning and professional gate agents enforcing entirely reasonable policies. That behavior always struck me as much more dysfunctional than anything the airline was trying to do.
So yeah, in the big picture there are certain criticisms that can be directed to the airline industry, and probably to United in particular as well, but it bothers me when people gratuitously criticize it. Sometimes it's reasonable, sometimes it's not, and I felt like defending a company I appreciate doing business with in the contexts where it's not been so reasonable.
Posted by Cathy | January 9, 2006 5:01 PM
Posted on January 9, 2006 17:01
SWA has greatly increased their number of transcontinental nonstops (and one stops), but I know that many people don't particularly like them. Just so happens that I do. Plus, they are just about the only game for flights within California, so as someone who lives in California I have few choices but to have them as my default airline.
Posted by Mark | January 9, 2006 6:10 PM
Posted on January 9, 2006 18:10
Oh, and don't get me started on their lame-ass frequent flyer program. I earned a free flight one time, but only had a year to use it. Unfortunately it was the year I lived in France, so I had to give it up! That sucked...
But then, I'm not particularly interested in a frequent flier program that can't get me to another continent on my award travel.
Posted by Cathy | January 9, 2006 6:28 PM
Posted on January 9, 2006 18:28
Their frequent flyer program works incredibly well for folks who both (i) either have their credit card or who fly very frequent short trips (which on other airlines wouldn't get much credit) and (ii) don't mind being rewarded only with essentially unrestricted domestic flights. For anyone else, their program isn't as good as the other airlines. But for folks (such as myself) who fit into this category it's golden. (though I note that they have been gradually screwing up their program's generousity over the last year or so, first by cutting in half the amount of credit you get per internet booked flights, and now by starting to have capacity restrictions on reward reservations).
Mark
Posted by Mark | January 9, 2006 6:36 PM
Posted on January 9, 2006 18:36