News and notes from around the interweb:
- 9/11 birthed the TSA. 14 years later, it needs an overhaul
- South Sudan’s South Supreme Airlines has ceased operations due to unavailability of US dollars.
The owner of the airline attributed the shut down to the lack of U.S. dollars in the struggling new country according to Radio Tamazuj. The foreign crews were paid in dollars and the carrier was reportedly unable to pay its employees.
- Doctor of Credit thinks he’s found a competitor for the worst credit card in the universe.
- Delta is launching a co-branded advertising campaign with Empire State Development’s Division of Tourism. Considering they also own a stake in the most subsidized Chinese carrier, perhaps they can finally shut up about airline-government partnerships being so unfair to them. Or perhaps they can reconsider the kind of cronyism that just got United’s CEO in trouble>. After all, Delta has been known to hand out elite status to politicians like candy.
- Terry Maxon’s final ‘idle thoughts’ piece
- IVR: I asked on Twitter, “In a few words please tell me what you’re calling about?” Does ANY frequent flyer respond to this with anything other than “Agent”..?” I got several good responses. “I occasionally use ‘representative'” I find it most galling when I have to wait for a message telling me about the things I can do online. If I could do online what I was calling about, don’t you think I would rather than sitting through the message?. Is it true that Delta elites skip the voice system entirely and go straight to an agent?
been enjoying your blog for several weeks. Still waiting to read something good that Delta has done. Wow. They must be awful
@jim see http://viewfromthewing.com/2015/08/23/congratulations-delta-this-is-why-they-dont-need-a-competitive-frequent-flyer-program/ and http://viewfromthewing.com/2014/11/16/five-good-reasons-choose-delta/ and http://viewfromthewing.com/2015/08/30/deltas-gorgeous-new-sfo-sky-club-has-a-celebrity-chef-and-adventurous-menu/
Heh. I took forever to merge my aa/us accounts. When I went online, aa wouldn’t let me do it. So I called, punched the option for advantage customer service. It was so nice to have an option fur merging accounts!
Except that option only gave you a message saying to go to the website. Argh…
I know Gary hates Delta, and I’m no Delta fanboy myself, but did he really just equate Delta giving out elite status with UA’s flying a commercial jet (at a loss) as a private taxi? That is a (ludicrous) stretch, even for Gary.
@Joseph N – nothing to do with my feelings towards Delta, and agree 100% on the *matter of degree*
@Gary – To be fair, it’s not just the matter of degree. There’s a material difference between offering a good/product/service for free to all members of a certain class unconditionally, and offering a specifically requested, massively expensive, personalized product/service/good to a specific person in power *in exchange* for the expectation, implicit or explicit, of (improperly) returned favor.
I certainly don’t like what Delta is doing there, but I’m not about to suggest they’re corrupt for doing it. There’s an inherent difference in both fairness and abuse of power in these situations.
Further, if Delta is receiving improper treatment from politicians, I suspect that’s due to factors besides elite membership. After all, what difference would that even make in an individual politician’s experience or view of Delta? The product is still basically the same (a seat from point A to B), they would just receive a skewed view of what other customers receive in the way of customer service.
With all that out of the way, the US airlines certainly deserve heaping criticism for their attempts at distorting reality to fit their protectionist ends. Good on you for that one!
@jamesb2147 they are not offering the good/product/service ‘free to all members of a certain class unconditionally’ it is very much conditioned on their good graces and different status levels for different poliiticans, and in any case offering the good/product/service ‘free for all members of a certain class’ is very much problematic when that class is ‘politicians who influence your business’.