Scanning the news this morning (actually afternoon here on the Turkish Mediterranean) this reporter saw where airline service, if possible, got worse in 2004. According to news reports, airlines generally arrived later, lost more luggage and caused more consumer complaints in 2004 than they did the year before, an annual study of aviation quality finds.
In late February I remember doing an article on how airlines, desperate to stop losing passengers to competing low-fare carriers, were going to improve customer service. Or so thought Kevin Mitchell, a national business-travel expert and founder of the Business Travel Coalition.
Mitchell also warned that “some airlines may not survive the tectonic shift in the industry from traditional airlines to discount carriers.” He said that since Delta Air Lines and other carriers lowered their fares, “customer service is likely to be the next battleground.”
A battle of hara-kiri, evidently.
Customer service was supposed to be the one thing dinosaur carriers could do better than the low-fare boys who are eating Delta, American, United et al’s lunch these days. A quarter of all air travel is on low-fare airlines.
Ominously, of the four of the 14 major airlines rated in both 2003 and 2004 whose customer service improved, three – AirTran, Atlantic Southeast, JetBlue – are low-fare carriers. Among the major carriers only United managed to irritate their customers less frequently in 2004 than in 2003.
And here we were all so optimistic. According to the 2003 Air Travel Consumer Report, on-time arrivals are up and complaints are down. In fact, complaints logged in June 2003 were almost half those logged in June 2002. (582 logged in 2003 vs. 339 logged in 2002.)
Airline service is getting worse because more people are flying at a time when carriers have slashed their work forces, said Dean Headley, a co-author of the study and associate professor at Wichita State University. “Morale’s going to be down and they’re not going to care if they get the bags to the loading dock in five minutes, 10 minutes or 15 minutes,” Headley said.
The seven largest carriers, for example, employed 12 percent fewer people in January 2004 than they did the year before, according to the federal Bureau of Transportation Statistics.
On-time performance worsened last year, with 78.3 percent of flights arriving on time, down from 82 percent in 2003. Skywest was on time the most, American Eagle the least.
The problem of deteriorating airline service came to a head over the Christmas holidays, when delays and cancellations inconvenienced more than 500,000 passengers. Regional carrier Comair canceled all its flights during the holiday weekend, and US Airways’ baggage system failed.
Complaints about airline service rose 27 percent last year, a much higher increase than the 3.3 percent growth in passengers. US Airways generated the most complaints, and Southwest the least.
All aboard Amtrak.
David Sims is contributing editor and CRM Alert columnist for TMCnet.
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