Airline Customer Service In Need Of Major Reforms

The pandemic has presented all sorts of challenges and barriers to air travel, creating frustration and headaches for customers. Airlines seem to adding to those frustrations, canceling or rescheduling flights and providing inferior levels of customer service. The result is a terrible customer experience for travelers, with horror stories becoming more common each day.

American Airlines and Southwest Airlines collectively canceled more than 4,000 flights over the Halloween and Columbus Day weekends, with hundreds of more flights delayed. Perhaps even more frustrating for customers, however, was the time they had to spend on hold trying to rebook flights or receive refunds.

“I’ve never had to be on hold that long for any customer service in my life,” Paulina Morales told The New York Times after her flight was canceled. She spent a total of four hours and 54 minutes on hold trying to rebook a flight from Mexico to Los Angeles after it was canceled.

To say that airline customer service is lacking in 2021 would be a pretty big understatement. Airlines blame staffing issues and were particularly understaffed when it came to handling thousands of customers whose flights had been abruptly canceled in a short time period.

According to Stephanie Belle, one of Southwest Airlines approximately 2,600 customer support representatives, the company was already stretched thin at the time of the cancellations, with representatives putting in overtime to deal with the thousands of disgruntled customers.

At the beginning of the pandemic, when travel restrictions effectively grounded the airline industry, many companies, including Southwest, had to let go of representatives. Around 400 customer representatives there took voluntary separation packages, while a quarter of the reservations team at American Airlines left voluntarily. Emirates, based in Dubai, reduced its workforce by 31 percent while Delta cut its call center staffing nearly in half.

While many airlines have supplemented human customer representatives with AI-driven tools and bots, they are not capable of handling more complex issues and questions about rebooking and refunds.

Airlines are planning to hire more representatives, but are facing another challenge with the U.S. labor shortage. Southwest, for instance, is attempting to hire 1,000 additional customer representatives, but has never had a more difficult time filling positions, according to spokesperson Dan Landson. He said the company would have typically gotten 80 applicants per open position, but now receives between 10 and 15.

Starting pay may be a major factor in that labor shortage, with new reservation agents at American earning $13.05 an hour and those at Southwest beginning at $15 an hour.

It's clear that airlines need to up their customer service game. That may mean hiring new agents at higher pay rates, while also expanding technology and AI solutions to handle more complex issues. Airlines may also consider better training and coaching along with incentives to equip existing agents to handle calls more efficiently.

Edited by Luke Bellos