Airline - Quality service and ticket prices

adreamer

adreamer

Well-Known Member
Good morning, everyone:

Before I start it, please excuse of my poor English and grammar. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif Here is my sotry about flying with "major". By the way, I paid full fair - 280 dollars. Where was quality service?

I was on NWA flight from JAX to DTW then to AZO. The flight was an hour late due to mechanical problem at DTW. The flight attendants on the plane and gate agent on the boarding area were on the case. They informed passengers to deplane and board plane ASAP due to numerous connection flights from DTW.

That was a quick boarding process I have ever seen. In less than 20 minutes, passengers deplane, boarded, bags loaded and plane was pushing back to tug. There was an 78 years old lady sat next to me. I found out we were going to same destination and on the same connection flight. The DC-9 somehow landed at DTW about 10 minutes early than ETA. Therefore, we could not park at gate due another flightat gate. At that time, flight attendant made this announcement - "For those of you who call DTW home, welcome home and remain seated. For other passnegers who are connecting out of DTW, please stand up and ready to run." T

I told the lady who sat next to me - "Please give me your bags, so we can run a little faster." We ran through the new NWA terminal, beneath RAMP and taxiway(Tunnel between TErminal A and B). The lady finally said "leave my bag, you go ahead." I prmoised her to do the best I can to hold the plane. I ran to the gate. The plane was there, but no gate agent. By that time, The lady and I stood there and watched our flight being push back. We questioned gate agents wether they got notice about holding the plane for few extra minutes becase late inbound flight. She said they could not hold the plane because of on time performance. My wife was waiting at destination airport for starting our spring break vacation.

On this particular flight, there were about 35 to 40 people who missed their connection. Customer service issued meal and hotel tickets for passnegers. I know things happen, but when I am paying almost 300 dollars for my flight. I am expecting a little better customer service than that. I wonder how much money airline can save by wait just few minutes, especially not weather, passenger's fault?


adreamer
 
Sorry about the crappy deal, but $280 for a plane ticket isn't a lot of money. I know airlines should treat every customer the same, but how can they afford to be the best when they charge so little for their service?
 
dreamer, I hate to break the news to you, but I'm with lruppert on this one.

$280 isn't crap. You could barely drive a car for that price, yet you expect an airline to fly you there on an airplane with no problem?

Maintenance problems are a real world thing, even for airlines. What you you suggest they do? Would you rather dly on a broken airplane?

With regards to them holding your flight....can't always do that. Remember, you missed that flight because your first flight was late. What about all of the people that follow? Is it fair for them to miss their connections, etc, so that you can be on time?

Doesn't work that way....
 
And there is the crux of the matter. Everyone raves, and justifiably so, about the service that say, Singapore, or Emirates provides.

There are a few problems with comparing that level of service to that of US based flights.

First, think about the length of the flights. Singapore just started a 14 hour flight from New York to Singapore. That is more than three times as long as any flight in the continental US. Gee, wonder why they can give better service? Give me three times the amount of time to do something, and I'll do a better job of it.

Second, you're gonna pay for it. Want an upgrade on Singapore? Well, carry a couple of pounds of the stuff that you need to be smoking to think you'll get one from them into their country, and you'll be pushing up daisies.

People for some reason think they can pay the same price for an airline ticket as they did back in the days before Jimmy Carter deregulated it and get white glove service.
 
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With regards to them holding your flight....can't always do that. Remember, you missed that flight because your first flight was late. What about all of the people that follow? Is it fair for them to miss their connections, etc, so that you can be on time?

Doesn't work that way....

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I think you missed some info. His flight landed early, then was held off of the gate until he and the lady missed their connections. This is without doubt one of the most frustrating situations in aviation, sitting on the ground waiting for a gate to open while you miss your connection.

There was a time when my airline would have busted a gut to connect these people, or hold the outbound flight a few minutes. Not any more and it takes very few of these incidents to really sour people on air travel.

As far as the price of the ticket? It doesn't matter. The airline offered the service at that price, they should deliver the service.

It's sadly funny to me that there are two threads on this forum about lousy airline service and the consensus is, "hey you paid for lousy service, you deserve lousy service". I'm with the Motley Fool guy, the majors are in real trouble if that is the attitude. And of course, it's no secret, they are in real trouble.

It's one of the reason's I decided to pull the plug early. I listened to a lot of similar sentiments at work. It's a major sign your company is in trouble.
 
I am with everyone else on this one. Next time maybe you should pick a flight with a longer connection time. Mechanical problems are a way of life just have to deal with it.
 
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People for some reason think they can pay the same price for an airline ticket as they did back in the days before Jimmy Carter deregulated it and get white glove service.

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I dont't think them getting the people from one plane to another on the ground like they said they would qualifies as "white glove service."
 
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I dont't think them getting the people from one plane to another on the ground like they said they would qualifies as "white glove service."

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Mechanicals happen. Weather delays happen. ATC holds happen.

Want a no delay, no problem, no hassle flying experience? Charter your own plane....except the same weather delays and ATC delays will still hold you up!

If you can't deal with it, don't fly. Drive instead, or take Greyhound. Oh, you'll have to deal with traffic congestion, and the bus smells bad? Deal with that then.

Pick your poison.

But don't expect any sympathy from me.
 
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By the way, I paid full fair - 280 dollars. Where was quality service?

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Trust me ... you did not pay full fare.

But I do agree that airlines do need to work on their customer service skills and connecting practices. A lot of it has to do with scheduling on the airlines part. No conecting flight should have less than an hour between ETA and ETD. But they don't do this because people complain about long "layovers" so the Airline schedule connecting flights closer and then any little thing that goes wrong throws off the whole shebang.

I think the biggest problem airline have is they "try to please everyone" and they can't so you end up with below average service across the board. If instead they determined their core demographic and then played to the needs of those passengers and let everyone else "deal with it" I think there would be a lot more happy passengers because eventually pax would migrate tothe airline(s) that fit their needs best.
 
On the other side of the coin you have people on the plane that you were trying to get to pushing to get out so they can get to their meeting on time. The flight crew is pretty much helpless in this case as they cant hold a flight for more then a few minutes without dispatch stepping in. What we'll do sometimes if we know we have some tight connections (thanks to the FA) due to us being late is call ahead to ops and have some electric carts standing by, at least theyll be aware of the situation.
If you hold a flight for 30 min, you are starting a snowballing effect that could cause 10 flights down the road to be effected. Normally on the last flight of the day there is more of a chance they hold a flight so they dont get stuck paying for hotels and having irate passengers on their hands. Sounds like your flight was the last flight since you were issued hotel vouchers, ouch.
 
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Mechanicals happen. Weather delays happen. ATC holds happen.

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But what our dreamer friend described above was neither.
 
Jacksonville to Kalamazoo on Greyhound:

Roundtrip

1 day, 6 hours, 55 minutes

$278
 
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I paid full fair - 280 dollars.
Customer service issued meal and hotel tickets for passnegers.

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1st -> Airlines, especially Legacy Carriers should do a better job at customer service. This take what we give you or take someone else, is exactly people are taking someone else. Things do happen, there will always be delays and cancellations, however there is a better way to present it than telling your customers “I’m sorry the Flight is canceled, due to our crew scheduling problem, but we sold you a discounted ticket, so f-off.

2nd-> $280 was certainly not full fare.

3rd-> Now, they have sold you a discounted ticket, (which most likely means there breaking even or losing money to start with), given you extremely poor customer service, put you in a hotel, and give you meal tickets. Plus they still take you to your destination all for the same $280! Does anyone care to speculate as to why airlines are going broke? (at least part of the reason)
 
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I think you missed some info. His flight landed early, then was held off of the gate until he and the lady missed their connections. This is without doubt one of the most frustrating situations in aviation, sitting on the ground waiting for a gate to open while you miss your connection.

There was a time when my airline would have busted a gut to connect these people, or hold the outbound flight a few minutes. Not any more and it takes very few of these incidents to really sour people on air travel.

As far as the price of the ticket? It doesn't matter. The airline offered the service at that price, they should deliver the service.

It's sadly funny to me that there are two threads on this forum about lousy airline service and the consensus is, "hey you paid for lousy service, you deserve lousy service". I'm with the Motley Fool guy, the majors are in real trouble if that is the attitude. And of course, it's no secret, they are in real trouble.

It's one of the reason's I decided to pull the plug early. I listened to a lot of similar sentiments at work. It's a major sign your company is in trouble.

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Flyover I agree with you 110%.
If the airlines are in trouble these days it is not the customer fault, the customer pays the ticket at the airlines price.

In my opinion the customer is ALWAYS RIGHT and they are the ones that are keeping the airlines in business.

if you don't want to provide a decent services get out of the passanger services business and do something else period.


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Let's be blunt here. The "customer is always right" mantra is absolute and total BS. The customer is often wrong. And horrendously wrong.

When the customer is wrong, you know what one very successful airline does? They pull a Cheney on them and tell them to go and perform an anatomical impossibility.

And the legacy carriers need to be more like Southwest, right?
 
Sounds to me like NWA did a pretty good job overall, but unfortunately came up just a little short.

1. Turning the plane in JAX in less than 20 minutes takes some good work and coordination by quite a few people.

2. Quick flight from JAX to DTW (10 minutes faster than posted) - we'll give credit for that one to the weather gods (with a little assist from pilots and ATC maybe).

3. FA's asking pax to allow connectors to deplane first is a good attempt to help.

4. Someone made the (unpopular) decision to keep the departing flights on time, hopefully keeping literally hundreds of subsequent passengers happy, rather than hold it for a couple of people.

A couple of additional thoughts / questions:

- Since adreamer was departing DTW from Terminal B he was on either Pinnacle or Mesaba to AZO. I'm curious on how much *pull* NWA gate agents have with the regional carriers in this kind of situation? Would a phone call from his incoming gate agent to the Pinnacle / Mesaba gate agent be enough for them to hold the plane (assuming the flight delay would be, say, less than 5 minutes)? Or are the regional's on-time performace numbers (remembering that holding this flight could easily snowball down the plane's schedule) more important to them than keeping the mainline gate agent happy?

- Was this the last flight of the day to AZO? Was the plane RON in AZO or was it returning to DTW? Makes a difference on the decision whether to hold the plane or not. If it has to come back to DTW and those subsequent passengers have connections to meet it is much more difficult to hold the flight for those two people. If the plane stays overnight in AZO then it should be a no-brainer to hold the flight.

- What was the scheduled arrival time in DTW versus the actual arrival time? I know he said they got in 10 minutes early, but early compared to the *new* scheduled arrival (after late departure from JAX), or 10 minutes earlier than the original schedule? I have a very hard time believing that they could be on the ground early compared to the original schedule, and still miss the connecting flight. I fly through DTW regularly, and other than the first month or so of operation of the new terminal, I have never seen a plane wait for a gate more than 5 or 10 minutes. I'm presuming that the original mechanical problem causing the flight to be late into JAX caused them to arrive DTW too close to the connecting flight departure time.
 
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In my opinion the customer is ALWAYS RIGHT

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No, 90-percent of the time the customer is always WRONG - or at the very least, trying to angle the situation to their own benefit.

Now, does this mean you have to be rude to them? No. But companies do need to be firm and consistent about hteir own rules.

For example I used to wait tables in a former life ... instead of telling customers no, I won't comp your meal, or I'm sorry you found a hair in your food that is obviously yours ... these "managers," to avoid conflict, simply comp a meal. This costs everyone (the company and customers) money.

I was at a TGIF one day and was eating as a customer (never worked there) and the guy at the table across from me literally cleaned his plate. After he was done eating he called his waiter over and asked to speak to a manger. This whole time he was polite and friendly with the waiter, when the waiter asked how the food was he was told it was fine. When the manager arrived this scuzzball proceeded to go on and on about how poorly the food was prepared. What did the manager do? Comped not only this guys meal but his wife's too.

Why do people get away with this crap? Because "the customer is always right."

BullSh*t.
 
Good afternoon, everyone:

Doug, thanks for point out the option of Grey Hound. I used to earned about 20000 frequently miles on NWA. I am not working for business(a school teacher). I was just sharing my experience. I have worst experiences with different airlines. However, things worked out in the end. I am just wondering what kind of attitude(s) most airlines possess? How come LCCs are making money while major are struggling?

I am learning flying right now. I know there are a lot of things going on behind the scene, such as, refueling, bags load/unload, clean the plan, special needed passengers, file the flight plan...etc.

I do not think I can dispute my airline ticket price. If that is what they asked for, I paid for it. But I am asking just watch out for the people who fly on your airplanes.

About that particular flight, that was last flight for that crew and plane of that day for fact. In my humble opinion, airlines are providing "service". Try to imaging 78 years old lady, your grandma, sent to hotel without cloth to change. The sad part of my story - she and I were standing there for 5 minutes before the plane even pushed back.


adreamer
ps: Just share my experience
 
The guy said they were held off the gate because it was occupied. Very, very frustrating. Doug knows the feeling of trying to get your passengers connected and then having them miss because you couldn't get on a gate. It's vey hard to be sanguine about that.

There is only one way a business of any kind thrives over the long haul. By providing the customer more than they feel they are paying for. That is, leaving them with the feeling that they really got value for their money. It doesn't matter if the emplyee thinks they got value, it's what the customer thinks. Fail at that and your business will inevitably fail.
 
I think it all depends. The customer is always right as a generic statement is false.

A real world example.

If one of my advertisers swore that I told them that I'd sell them a month of banner ads for $5, I'm sorry, the customer is wrong jack!

It's really a weird business. People are afraid to send back a sandwich at a restaurant because they're afraid of getting a little extra 'spit' on their ham 'n cheese.

But they'll hop on a jet, insult the flight crew (happens ALL the time), curse at you then fasten their seatbelt and put their lives in the hands of the people they just treated like dogs.

So a few years ago, on a short turn, I'm eating a sandwich in between flights and a passenger steps into the cockpit and screams "You guys f***ing suck! I paid $x for a ticket and I had to go buy my own food. You suck."

Fortunatley, I was more hungry than angry so I didn't even acknowledge his existence and finished my sandwich.

THAT'S the reality of this business. Every Tom, Dick and Harry hops on a jet with a sense of entitlement. Hey, we'll give you a comfortable ride, on time, from point a to point b and not lose your luggage.

But if you're going to throw a crumpled newspaper at the gate agent mad because the flight was turbulent while demanding a refund, which I've personally seen, I'm sorry Otis, it ain't happening.
 
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