Attention All Passengers Read Online Free

policies? One
month later, Secretary LaHood announced this policy had been adopted by the DOT,
Congress be damned. But unfortunately, refunding fees won’t improve airline
baggage handling.
    Declining Customer Concern in a
“Service Industry”
    The airlines claim that the number of
passengers who are inconvenienced is quite small considering the millions
carried. But beleaguered passenger Dave Carroll notes that such percentages
don’t mean much to those whom the system fails: “You have airline executives who
quote statistics—but they don’t seem to care about those on the margins of the
statistics.” He adds, “If there’s no integrity in the policies, then it’s open
season.”
    Of course, few carriers are competing on customer
service these days. Charlie Leocha of the Consumer Travel Alliance explains: “As
the low-cost carriers and as the comparability made everyone more competitive,
the first thing to go was differentiation in customer service. It’s not only
executive management—it runs through the fabrics of the companies. The managers,
the gate agents, the flight attendants working without contracts. The front-line
employees are under the most stress.”
    For airline passengers in recent years, customer
service has gotten worse. That’s not opinion—that’s documented fact. According
to statistics, there have been more mishandled bags (despite the added baggage
fees), more consumer complaints, more congestion, and more passengers bumped off
flights.
    But other key elements of poor customer service
can’t be encapsulated in statistics, though they have been captured by dozens of
polls, surveys, and rankings. In June 2011, for example, a Consumer Reports survey of fifteen thousand readers found a “low
opinion of today’s flying experience.”
    There is so much bad juju surrounding airline
customer service that sometimes I need to step back and wonder if hyperbole is
overtaking reality. Could so many pissed-off passengers possibly be wrong?
Luckily, one of the best barometers I know happens to be a trusted friend and
colleague. Linda Burbank was the ombudsman for Consumer
Reports Travel Letter when I was editor, and a few years later she
joined me at USAToday.com, where she continues to serve as a consumer travel
advocate. I’ve seen the way she fights for readers who have been wronged by
airlines and other travel companies. (On behalf of a CRTL reader, Burbank once secured a $29,833 refund from Royal
Caribbean and Expedia, an unprecedented action from the laissez-faire and
largely unregulated cruise industry.)
    I sat with her in a café in San Francisco and asked
her if airline service has really gotten worse. Burbank considered this and
said: “I think I’m seeing fewer complaints, but I don’t think it’s because
service is better. Everyone is so beaten down. We’ve all just become resigned to
bad service. We’re in the flip-flop generation.”
    It’s worth noting that Burbank sees customers at
their worst. As she explained, “When I hear from people they’re already
over-the-top angry. First, there was the original problem. Second, they have not
gotten a suitable response. They don’t feel they have been heard. It’s not about
the money—I have had people who are as angry about one hundred dollars as about
three thousand dollars.” With airlines, she’s often able to secure discounts for
future travel for her wronged readers, but cash refunds are much harder.
    As for what passengers are complaining about,
there’s little surprise in learning that baggage fees top Burbank’s list.
Another trend line is how the airlines respond to “big problems” such as
widespread weather delays. She noted that masses of people are angry, yet it
seems no one is available to provide assistance—at the airport, in reservations,
or even online.
    In fact, many