How Airlines Can Make Passengers Love Them Even During Flight Delays

If an airline doesn’t arrive on time, customers will be unhappy. That’s simple enough, right? As American Airlines ties the attempt to improve their operation to the happiness of customers, it’s arriving on time that they find matters (“A14” or arriving within 14 minutes of schedule) rather the merely departing on time. Customers won’t be ‘likely to recommend’ if they landing early and find they have no gate for half an hour!

But is that all that matters? Obviously people want to get where they’re going, but they may still be unhappy. And several airlines can deliver well on performance, that’s not enough to distinguish one airline from another.

The airline’s product matters. A nicely padded seat, enough room between seats to open a laptop, access to quality food and beverage (hungry people aren’t happy) and some entertainment make for a better experience. And being treated like a person, ideally with a smile, rather than as self-loading cargo can make a huge difference too.

Even when a flight’s delayed it can turn out to be a great experience. Airlines can communicate well with customers, giving them regular updates, and appear to be doing as much as they can to address the situation. They can even make the delay fun.

Here Alaska Airlines ran a game of skill where passengers could compete for a better seat during their delay.

At the gate, at boarding time, that seat wasn’t going to be monetized anyway. So why not?

Employees who want to be at work, who go out of their way for customers, make everyone feel like they’re in a delay together. These Alaska Airlines passengers wanted to get where they were going, but this employee clearly cared. It’s the indifference, helplessness, and uncertainty of a delay that can be its worst elements.

In other words being on time matters, but there are different things that can happen during a delay. Every airline faces delays, how they respond to them matters.

About Gary Leff

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 »

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Comments

  1. Am I the only person who initially mistakenly read the headline as “How Airlines Can Make Passengers Make Love…”, as the entire headline was not visible on BoardingArea?

    Probably; but if a smile was added to your face as a result, Gary, the error of creating click bait in my own mind was worth it…

  2. Ring toss for my upgrade seat? No thanks.

    All airlines will suffer some form of delays, consistent procedures are a choice. If airlines behave consistently when it comes to auto-rebooking, re-routing, holding planes, upgrade clearing etc., the real frequent fliers know what to expect.

    Anxiety of the unknown creates unhappiness. This is why Air Canada is one of the most despised airlines by frequent travellers: inconsistent operations. This is why Delta (and United) are not disliked as much.

  3. Airlines or any business for that matter that not only don’t encourage thier employees to treat thier customers well but handcuff them from helping (looking at you AA) lead to deserved bad reputations…

    I’ve had AA employees voluntarily try to improve things for me (without me asking or complaining about anything) only to express disappointment in being told they couldn’t… Thats probably why, so often, I have AA employees just flat out complain to me about AA, totally unprompted, (“I don’t understand why they didn’t deliver your bag yesterday?!” “you’re flying to Phoenix from Chicago through LA? (rewards ticket) well that’s American we’ll make you pay!” “your plane landed an hour ago you should have your bag this always happens (it’s fine I was just checking) no it’s not, please, go to AA.com and fill out a complaint, nothing ever changes when we tell them.”

    Like no joke I have never ever complained to an AA employee or been anything but innocent and polite and they just unload on me about how bad it is.. Very sad

  4. Running a consistent operation across tens of thousands of employees, multiple countries and numerous third-party companies takes management talent. New planes and paint is cheap in comparison.

    It’s one thing to be an AA employee and not aware you are delivering an inferior product, it’s quite another to know that you aren’t and unable to do better. And bumping their pay isn’t likely to help either. This is how great companies die…

  5. Over the last several trips I have taken on AA, all JFK-MIA, each on-time arrivals were followed by some type of wait for a gate. One was a 45 minute wait for a tractor to pull us into a specific gate at JFK that requires a tractor. It was close to midnight and there was no tractor operator available. After 46 minutes we were diverted to a gate that could be used without a tractor.
    I get it, I travel a bit and i understand that some gates are configured for certain equipment, some gates are used for international….Ultimately, when all the gates at JFK are empty do you really have to keep 200 pax waiting 55 minutes before deplaning?

  6. Airline’s culture has a direct impact on the crew’s performance

  7. A great Airline is always ready to assist a passenger when there is a problem

    All the world’s best Airlines have comfortable and clean aircraft and offer free snacks and beverages to all passengers

  8. SWA fosters this culture also.
    JetBlue doesn’t need to. Delta,AA, UAL, it’s pretty much hit or miss as to whether the agent will go beyond requirements to help.
    I have seen and heard stories of Delta both helping and not helping in unusual cases.
    AA is loosing a lot of goodwill by shrinking seating space. The economy seating surprises for occasional travelers is not helping the big 3.
    Since Alaska doesn’t have lounges like the others, maybe they aren’t serious competition. But if their employees have developed a knack for empathizing with their customers, relating to millenials, and can do it better than competitors, they may generate a larger consistent customer base that helps them get through the slow times.

  9. “[L]anding early and find they have no gate for half an hour!” AA does not have to land early for that to happen. It’s pretty much standard procedure. There’s nothing more frustrating than to sit on the tarmac and see your next flight pushing back from the gate.

  10. In my own experience, Virgin America *always* made flying fun, to one degree or another. Alaska (both pre- and post-acquisition) did not, so it’s great to see an AS employee loosening up!

  11. In this case it was great that the employee knew how to defuse some of the travel anxiety at the gate without raising too much expectations. All in all that was brilliant.

  12. Ya know, each flight is different in its own way. But each flight is also the same, a plane with X number of passengers, getting on, getting off at the destination. Each passenger wanting some knowledge, comfort, consideration, clarity.
    Why, oh why, oh why, do both ground and in-flight personnel act surprised and put-out when variations come along? Have they each NEVER dealt with a delayed flight? Are they too feeble to take the initiative to try to seek out some information? If there is a meal, do they prepare ahead of time the number and demands of each kind.
    The last time I landed in Mexico from the US, the Mexican customs/immigration folks exploded, screaming at arriving passengers with: “American gives out the wrong forms every time! We tell them and tell them and tell them. And still they don’t do what they are supposed to!”
    I would say that now when I fly nine times out of ten each gate person, each cabin crew and certainly pilots try to avoid any eye contact, busy, busy, busy on computers or with papers, making it quite clear that passengers are a real nuisance. Move along now, move along, nothing to see here. We’ll tell you when we know anything. Move along, I’m busy.

  13. @cassandra – on the flip side, I EXPECT to get the wrong Mexican forms, so I take it in stride.

    @Asian Miller: Unless that AS flight had cleared their upgrade list (which is highly unlikely on a weekday departure out of Newark), then playing games with an upgrade is a poor call. It might entertain a few like a Powerball lottery, but just even the concept of randomness associated with an upgrade would turn off a frequent (entitled) flier. As a passenger I’d personally donate a bunch of Starbucks gift cards to make a bunch of people happy.

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