yg17 said:
Meh....the 5 angry, pissed off people they show each week is nothing compared to the thousands of satisfied customers every week. That goes for any airline.
True, but one bad experience a customer has will be told to something like 20 people, if I remember correctly. The same can not be said about a positive experience.
In my case it has been like 10 years since I had a bad experience with United; bad communications, lack of care for the customer, indifference from the lowest level to the highest level - all at the time they were running those commercials showing people waiting for a trainer to show up, the tag line was that they needed to look at how customers feel.
I have yet to fly United since. And will only if they are my last choice.
Compare that to my very positive experiences with USAir (though I had to get nasty with them - they canceled a paid ticket because it was a mistake on their part entering into the database, the counter agent saw the hassles and upgraded me to first class at the gate for both the outbound and return trip - $89 RT first class, what can be better?), America West (delayed bags got us a first class upgrade for the return trip), Independence Air; aka FlyI -RIP - (just first class customer treatment), and Midway Air; also RIP - (another airline that treated their customers with respect).
Sadly the later two are casualties of 9/11 and IMO predatory practices of the legacy airlines that had/have deeper pockets and long term connections to "The Hill". The legacy airlines are somehow allowed even under bankruptcy to offer fairs that further drive themselves towards insolvency, only to drive their weaker financed competitors out quicker.
To those that say only the strongest should survive. I agree unless the "strongest" are looking for relief in bankruptcy court. Both FyI and Midway were doing well until the likes of United decided to go further into debt by severely under cutting these others fares- to a point that nobody was making even the basic bills.
Deregulation as it has turned out has not truly helped the public overall. Sure there have been periods in which the traveling public has been helped with lower fairs. But at the effect of lower wages and increased work hours. At an increased number of aircraft that are sent out of country for service, with questionable FAA oversight. At the cost to us as US tax payers with the PBGC holding the bag for failed pensions.
In the days before deregulation; would we have had two flights delayed because of "mechanical issues"? Would we have had a hodge-podge of the Rule 240 (
http://www.mytravelrights.com/travellaw.cfm?ai=3) guaranteeing our rights for delayed/cancled flights?
It was like 7 years ago that I was scheduled for a Midway flight from Tampa to DCA. They were over booked (why any airline should be allowed to overbook is beyond rational thought IMO). I told the main terminal counter agent that I needed to get home that night, that I knew of another flight to IAD on another airline that would work for me instead of their flight DCA. She confirmed with me that I understood the change in airports (in this case it saved my ex driving 20+ miles one way to DCA; verses a 10 mile R/T to IAD).
She gave me the ticket on the other airline, writing in a marker RULE 240; and telling me that if I had any issues with the other airline; just to state RULE 240.
In the end it bodes well for us that travel by air to know how each airline under deregulation has chosen to define RULE 240. SWA does not have a RULE 240 understanding. This is not much different for many other low cost carriers.
So instead of shopping for the lowest fares, maybe we need to seek out those that have the best understanding of RULE 240. In the case of iGary the $200 an hour that he paid for the support staff may have been outweighed by going with a slightly higher cost airline.
Sorry if I went OT here. But I view SWA as the WalMart of the airlines. All about price, nothing about customer service.