Category Archives for Airlines.
The U.S. is the world’s aviation largest market — by a lot. The EU as a whole is larger than Chinese market. The UK is the biggest aviation market in Europe, so perhaps Brexit will be what causes China to grow larger than Europe.
Japan is a bigger market than India, though a decade from now will that still be the case? India has nearly doubled in the past seven years. (So has China.)
We know that mechanics are unhappy about their inability to get a new contract and anecdotally have been causing some of the airline’s operational challenges. Flight attendants are embarrassed by the new domestic product that the airline offers. Perhaps survey data that can be seen in a spreadsheet will underscore some of what employees have been telling management each month already.
A passenger who flew Southwest Airlines from Tampa to Phoenix caught cell phone video of a baggage handler tossing boxes coming off the aircraft into a bin. Even boxes of live fish.
What makes our hero more than just your average negligent employee is the enthusiasm for his sport. He bounces on the balls of his feet as he readies to toss a box. And after he nails his throw he offers a fist pump. Victory over great customer service is his!
In 2012 an Air France flight bound for Beirut diverted to Damascas and passengers were forced to come up with cash for additional fuel. The pilot couldn’t use a company credit card because of financial sanctions imposed on Syria.
So as insane as it sounds it’s not without precedent that passengers on a Star Alliance member LOT Polish Boeing 787 flight were asked to reach into their pockets to cover repair costs to the plane’s hydraulic pump before a Beijing to Warsaw journey could begin last Monday.
Earlier this year Aeroflot announced that they would revoke the elite status of passengers who behaved badly inflight. Accounts would be closed and miles forfeit.
That policy is now being used to punish journalists and customers who criticize or embarrass the airline. As Yakov Smirnoff might have said, “In Soviet Russia, elite status downgrades you!”
American is introducing a flight to compete with all of the painful experiences they’ve offered to customers in the past — and that’s certainly worse than anything else they’re offering today.
Starting in May their Miami to Brazil’s capital of Brasilia flight will no longer be flown by a Boeing 757 with lie flat business class seats. Instead they’ll run the flight with a Boeing 737 MAX. Since the plane has no ovens in back, economy customers will eat hummus.
Cathay Pacific is offering legit discounts off of their fares when booked by Tuesday, November 27 using a promo code to take $1,000 off Business Class and $500 off Premium Economy tickets for travel throughout most of the first half of next year.
At the most recent employee question and answer session with American Airlines CEO Doug Parker, a flight attendant asked about the airline’s inflight product — she hears from premium customers that the product United and Delta offer are better, and she worries because new American Airlines flight attendants aren’t getting training in service, and ‘half’ of flight attendants don’t follow the service standards that do exist.
Ok, she did more than ask about the product. She looked right at her CEO and said American’s service standards “suck compared to United and Delta.”
This is literally the opposite of “hang up, call back.” It’s almost like a Yakov Smirnoff Russian Reversal joke, “In Soviet Russia, American AAdvantage calls you!”
I’ve never had an agent check for award space after a call and proactively follow up before. That’s amazing. Has an agent ever gone above and beyond like that for you?
American Airlines CEO Doug Parker says their relentless focus on exact on time departures is what customers want, even though it means that upgrades don’t get processed, flights don’t get catered, and customers are forced to gate check bags unnecessarily.
Airlines that achieve operational reliability do it by getting the right resources in place to accomplish everything that’s necessary to get planes out on time, not by requiring employees to skip steps and inconvenience customers in order to achieve operational goals.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
