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Today the quarterly report from the ACSI (American Customer Satisfaction Index) came out which ranks dozens of industries and hundreds of companies for customer satisfaction and provides historical context.
Again this quarter the domestic airlines did not fare well (with a couple of bright spots).
Last year at this time headlines screamed “Airlines Score Less than IRS for Customer Satisfaction” and well! you probably can guess that it is very similar this year.
Here is my take …
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The actual historical index can be found for all domestic airlines here.
It shows an overall drop by 1-point (scale 1-100) for all airlines with significant drops for US Airways (down 11.5%), Continental (down 10.1%) and Northwest (down 6.6%).
The legacy airlines argument is that we travelers only care about price and that that doesn’t give them a chance to provide us good customer service because they can’t afford it.
I don’t believe this for one bit.
If that were the case Southwest Airlines would not be scoring so highly each year — as they are the low cost (airlne ticket price) leader.
While there are a lot of reasons for consumers to be crabby: higher airline ticket prices (mostly due to fuel), fees being charged at every step in the process of purchasing and consuming travel and those oh so frustrating delays, cancellations and lost bags.
I think that many travelers have made peace with these issues and what they really want is a timely “straight” answer when things go wrong so we can plan for the next step instead of hanging around the gate twiddling our thumbs for any nugget of information that might help us make a quick decision on their next step.
Much of the issue also stems from the culture or what I like to call the curent core “ethos” of an airline (in Southwest’s case their quality reputation has been core since their inception) — I think many times antipathy by many line level employees toward their management is also a big driver in the overall customer experience.
Airlines cause their own woes, but their are other factors including air traffic issues (congestion/weather), airport issues and the like.
Some interesting things to note in this data:
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American Airlines was up 3.3% this quarter, which included the first wave of MD-80 issues — wonder how they will do in the 2nd quarter with 350,000 having issues …
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Continental surprised me with such a large drop becaue they had been running stronger (2nd behind Southwest), not sure what happened to drag them down
People always ask me which is my favorite airline — to be honest I always say the following:
“The last airline I flew that got me to my destination on time” …
Rick, they want us twiddling our thumbs around the gate so we won’t go off and fly away on a competitor. I know for a fact that sometimes information has been purposely delayed to passengers so as to try and keep the business. The current market structure of the air industry is creating some pretty twisted outcomes.
I do have to say that there are definitely times when I have been way less then impressed with the service on various carriers, even my usual carrier. But Rick, trust me when I say I would rather deal with my usual airline then with Comcast, anyday.
I do have to say that I have been well accomodated recently. On my last trip, a week and a half ago, I had delays both ways that were going to cause me to miss a connection. On the way there, the delay was posted several hours in advance (got a message on my cell phone). I knew I was on the last connection of the evening, but when I called the agent, I simply suggested routing me on a partner airline. A few minutes on hold, and the ticket was transfered (it got me in at the same time, too).
Then on the way back on the same trip, I arrived at the airport, to find a really long line, which was due to a 3 hour flight delay that was going to cause a lot of missed connections. I got on the phone with reservations again, knowing it would be faster. Again, I suggested routing through a partner airline, but everything was sold out. Much to my surprise, when I then suggested a competitor, they put me on hold to check availability, and I was confirmed on a non-stop of a competing carrier that got me in an hour earlier then my original itinerary was supposed to. I know I wssn’t the only one rebooked on a competitor, as I saw at least two other parties checking in that were booked on my original flight. As a bonus to this, I called the frequent flyer program to see if I was still eligible for miles. They saw my reroute, and immediately credited my account for the segments on my original itinerary.
Yes, they put me on a competitor for this once, but because of the great handling of my situation on this trip, I will stay loyal – I will remember the great handling of this for a long time.
It was definitely part luck, but sometimes, all you have to do is be calm, and find the right person to talk to who wants to help. And sometimes, it is faster to get an agent on the phone then at the airport.