Grades Are In and U.S. Airlines Flunk.
It wasn’t that long ago that flying was actually fun. But these days, more and more Americans are saying they hate to fly and there are multiple reasons for that. But the top three complaints are crowded conditions on board, resentment over fees, and poor customer service.
The loss of legroom is a big issue for most travelers and the longer the flight, the bigger the issue becomes. Of course, we can always pay another $50-$75 for one of their “Extra Comfort” seats, but that’s a whole additional source of irritation because, in essence, they took away that extra inch or two of legroom we used to get for free and now they’re selling it back to us.
Truthfully, I can’t speak to the issue of baggage fees because I don’t check bags. Over the years, I’ve learned to pack light and I do not/will not travel with luggage the won’t fit in an overhead bin. That said, all these additional fees—for baggage, for extra legroom, a surcharge for the high cost of fuel (even when the cost of jet fuel is low) . . . all these things combine to make us passengers feel we’re being squeezed. And you know what? We are!
Every Customer Service Department gets good marks when that blessed word “uneventful” can be applied to any given flight. But when things go wrong—when your flight is cancelled or delayed and connections are missed—and you have to deal with Customer Service, that’s when an airline makes or loses friends. The government keeps track of these things and when it comes to poor customer service, the same names keep showing up year after year.
And here’s the “winner”—that is, the airline that finished at the bottom of the American Customer Satisfaction Index last year. It’s Spirit, which scored 54 out of a possible 100. Second from the bottom was Frontier with a score of 58. The grading was based on a number of factors, including everything from how promptly calls to Customer Service were answered (if at all) to customer satisfaction with compensation or remedies proposed to make up for whatever screw-up prompted the complaint in the first place.
But adding insult to injury, while airline passengers as a category are getting shabby treatment, the airlines themselves are making money hand over fist. Case in point: American Airlines. In 2015, American made a profit of $6.3 billion, which was 50-percent more than the previous year. Gee, with profits like that, maybe the airlines should hire a few more people to answer their phones and be a little more generous with the dollar amount of the vouchers the hand out. Ya think?
Just bought and read latest edition all aboard. Have talked my husband into taking me from Newark NJ to Chicago for Southwest Chief to Grand Canyon. In 1984 I took the train myself from Newark to Chicago to San Francisco to LA back to Chicago and Newark. In LA I was in the last car roomette and met a guy who worked for the Pennsylvania. I was young and single and he arranged that we could stand outside frequently to photograph interesting bridges and sites. The best was the last 3 miles into union station Chicago. I was outside. Since the train backed in, a portable whistle is hooked up. Yes I got to blow it. Growing up, every summer my sister and I took the west coast champion to St Pete. I used to open up the top Dutch door so we could hang our heads out. Didn’t realize the danger. You might call me a foamer.
Sheila, this is the best comment I’ve had in a very long time! I hope and trust you and your husband will have a great time on the Chief. And I have the idea that my book helped influence you two to take the trip. If so, I couldn’t be more pleased. Have a wonderful trip!
Mr. James is right, of course. In the days of Pan American World Airlines and Trans World Airlines, air travel was a premiere experience with everything you could expect with corresponding luxury; stylish and young and attractive stewardesses dressed to the nines with hat and gloves (you could envision them having stepped out of a fashion magazine), three-course meals on all domestic flights, and wide and comfortable seats. And that friendly stewardess with that beautiful wide smile even included a complimentary pack of four cigarettes when she brought the dessert at the end of the meal. She KNEW how to make her customers feel important!
And the passengers were well-mannered and well-dressed, and definitely not from the under class.
Now, as Mr. James says, all that luxury wasn’t free; it was just embedded in the ticket price. That’s what discriminating travelers were looking for. But somehow over the years the clientele changed from the discriminating to more of the type of traveler you might come across in a bus station.
And, frankly, over the years, the airline business has not been that profitable; maybe it’s time they did show their stockholders a bit of return on their investments.
I wish I could remember the ticket price of my first commercial flight in 1963 from Wichita to Denver. I’d run the figure through an inflation calculator and find what the 2016 cost would be. For example, if the one-way price was $75 in 1963 that would be equivalent to $581 in 2016. I’ll be the price today would be substantially less today to satisfy the folks chasing the lowest price. But certainly the luxury and comfort that came with that 1963 price would no longer be there.
For many of these reasons, that’s why I prefer the long-distance passenger rail sleeping experience. At least there is still a semblance of luxury and at least a degree of comfort.
Spirit AL deserves ZERO, their fares are usually higher than UAL & AA, they have nerve to try to charge for storage in the overhead bin, & even charge for water!!! Which I thought was illegal when no other source of H2O is provided.
Agreed … but wouldn’t you agree it’s lousy marketing?
We need to stop saying that we used to get all those conveniences for “free” when flying. They were never “free”, but were rather “included” in the ticket price. Americans have decided that we value low fares over everything else. If an airline didn’t charge any of those fees we all complain about, reduced the the number of seats in order to provide extra leg room, hired enough customer service reps to answer calls by a human quickly, provided good tasting drinks and food at no extra cost, and raised their fares over their competition to pay for it all, they would be out of business quickly. Passengers view flying as a commodity and just look for the lowest price. Back when flying was “fun” only the well off could afford to fly on a regular basis. The airlines are simply responding to their market and giving their customers what they want – cheap fares above everything else (despite their complaining about it).