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Clients Look For Better Service As Airlines Raise Fares, Fees

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The Associated Press

Published: September 20, 2008

FORT WORTH, Texas - On a recent rainy day at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, a suitcase bound for Colorado Springs, Colo., lay on the ground outside a terminal under a maze of American Airlines conveyor belts that ferry bags to and from nearby planes.

A field representative for the airline who was showing a reporter the long, circuitous route checked bags take put the suitcase on a belt where it was supposed to be. He said it likely fell off a belt or a baggage handler's vehicle. He didn't know how long it had been off its path.

The airlines have been imposing new fees, raising fares, reducing flights and, in some cases, cutting out free snacks in coach. Several big and small airlines alike have struggled relative to the industry in terms of baggage handling, on-time performance and other customer service metrics. An annual University of Michigan survey released in May found customers giving airlines the worst grades since 2001.

With the slow travel season now upon them, airlines face the dual challenges of increasing revenue to cover heavy fuel costs while also improving their product to give air travelers a return on their added investment.

"We realize that in order for us to regain that brand recognition and the customer loyalty that we used to own in the '80s and '90s, we ought to do something very dramatic and different," said Mark Mitchell, American's managing director of customer experience.
Delta Air Lines Inc.'s regional subsidiary Comair had the worst on-time performance in July among airlines surveyed by the Department of Transportation.

From January through July, American Airlines' on-time arrival rate was the lowest among U.S. carriers, and UAL Corp.'s United Airlines' was second-lowest. Comair had the highest mishandled baggage rate in July, but the highest number of consumer complaints received by the DOT that month were about Delta. Comair's on-time performance from January through July ranked 17th out of 19 airlines, and Delta's ranked eighth.

The fourth-highest number of consumer complaints received by the DOT in July were about Tempe, Ariz.-based US Airways.

Companies Acknowledge Problems

Executives blame weather, congestion in the Northeast and air traffic control issues for some of the problems, but they also acknowledge company specific problems. They say there have been improvements since the latest DOT figures were released.

American, a unit of Fort Worth-based AMR Corp., is keeping planes on the ground longer in some cities before turning them for their next flight so that if something goes wrong, there is extra time to board passengers and baggage. It plans to block a limited number of seats from being sold on flights in key markets this Thanksgiving to give it flexibility in reaccommodating customers on planes that would otherwise be full.

The carrier also is refurbishing the interiors of its Boeing 757s, upgrading business class seats on international flights, adding leather headrests to coach seats on MD-80s and testing Wi-Fi service on some aircraft.

To make it easier and quicker to locate mishandled bags, American is equipping personnel with automated handheld bag tag scanners.

"There are huge costs when you have inconvenienced your customers," said Dan Garton, American's executive vice president of marketing.

Dorothy Boydston, a 48-year-old electrician from Hawaii, knows what Garton means.

On a recent trip from Santa Barbara, Calif., to Denver to see her daughter, Boydston had to spend a night at a Phoenix hotel at her own expense because she missed her US Airways connecting flight after, she said, an airline employee wrote the wrong gate number on her ticket. That came after she had to pay $15 to check a bag she tried to carry on the plane to Phoenix, when the airline told her there was no room in overhead bins.

'What Customer Service?'

The next morning, she was still at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, on standby for another flight to Denver.

"I could have rented a car for what it's costing me," she said.

Asked whether passengers should get better customer service in light of the higher fares and fees they are paying compared with a year ago, Boydston said, "What customer service? There's no customer service anymore."

Southwest Airlines Co., which has not faced the same threat from fuel prices as other carriers because of its aggressive fuel hedging program, boasts in TV commercials of still allowing all its passengers to check two bags for free. Its on-time arrival rate in July, third-highest among U.S. carriers, was nearly 20 percentage points above Comair's.

The Dallas-based airline led the industry in passenger satisfaction in the latest University of Michigan survey.

"We've got to be in the business to make money, but not to sacrifice what our brand and our product offering is," said Daryl Krause, Southwest's senior vice president of customer services.

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