The World’s Worst Airlines for Customer Service

KVNC said:
Do brick & mortar travel agents still exist? I'm a "millennial" so the concept of buying an airline ticket anywhere but online eludes me.
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Yes!

1) Corporate travel is mostly booked through travel agents. Some are part of the company and others belong to agencies under contract to provide these services.

2) Package travel is still very popular in many parts of the world

3) Many older travelers prefer to speak to a high-touch travel agent vice go to an Online Travel Agent (OTA)
 
Let's see. I was in Puerto Rico. American unfortunately had a fire at their Miami fuel farm, so they were understandably scrambling. The way they decided to handle it customer-service wise was to:
  1. Not notify the the customer at all until the customer called the day of the flight to confirm it;
  2. Make no arrangements whatsoever for alternate transportation or for accommodations (not even fee-based);
  3. Leave passengers stranded for as little as 3 days; many for longer;
  4. Book newly-paying passengers before the stranded ones;
  5. Hang up on customers who were not happy about it.
As they had before, although I did have to pay for it, Delta came to the rescue and I got home that day.
 
JOEFRIDAY2 said:
That's it.

Because of this article, I am not flying Royal Air Maroc.
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Delta applied to fly JFK to Marrakech, but the Morrocan govt wouldn't approve the route because they were afraid that Delta would bankrupt Royal Air Moroc because everyone would book away from them.

Then they pulled out of the market anyway.
 
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hook_dupin said:
I fundamentally disagree with this. Delta has a high-brand, high-customer service, higher cost, strong culture strategy that seems to be working for them.
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They don't have a higher cost, universally.

Like I'm flying the SJC-LAS shuttles next month and the "price" of SouthernJets is better than the price on Southwest because they're able to charge a premium for the marketing of being a "low cost carrier".

Find high value customers, take care of them, follow up, cash a check. Hell, when my own friends fly my airline, I treat them like high value customers because most of them, well, are. Hell, if I called HQ and @DPApilot called as well, considering he's a Diamond Medallion traveler, they'll pick up his call first. Which is good.
 
Cptnchia said:
Delta applied to fly JFK to Marrakech, but the Morrocan govt wouldn't approve the route because they were afraid that Delta would bankrupt Royal Air Moroc because everyone would book away from them.

Then they pulled out of the market anyway.
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They do that to basically every carrier. There's an ongoing drama with Air France that's been going on since Concorde crews trained there... They are SO bad...
 
Pépé le Pilot said:
They do that to basically every carrier. There's an ongoing drama with Air France that's been going on since Concorde crews trained there... They are SO bad...
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When a certain airline started flying NYC to TLV back in the day, there was much consternation because a good portion of El Al's market said, "It's about time! El Al sucks!" and made the jump.
 
Derg said:
They don't have a higher cost, universally.

Like I'm flying the SJC-LAS shuttles next month and the "price" of SouthernJets is better than the price on Southwest because they're able to charge a premium for the marketing of being a "low cost carrier".

Find high value customers, take care of them, follow up, cash a check. Hell, when my own friends fly my airline, I treat them like high value customers because most of them, well, are. Hell, if I called HQ and @DPApilot called as well, considering he's a Diamond Medallion traveler, they'll pick up his call first. Which is good.
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By high cost, I mean a high airline operations costs... and I see the universal picture

Here's total revenue per available seat mile (TRASM or yield) and cost per available seat mile (CASM) taken from airline 2015 10-Ks:

upload_2016-12-19_19-11-17.png


Delta very much appears to me to have the high cost, high touch approach that leads to a high yield. Delta is cashing about 3 cents for every butt they fly a mile.
Spirit has a very different approach: they're low cost, but also low yield -it's giving them 4 cents per butt-mile.

@Derg What you see very much seems to be true. Delta sure looks like their path to the bank is the customer willing to pay more.
 
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