Airline Customer Service

Sorry. Of all the tens of thousands of miles I've flown as an airline passenger and the time I've spent as an airline employee, I still don't see it. That is, all the much hyped "poor customer service" that millions of air travelers supposedly experience every day in the American airline industry. In my experience, airline customer service is no better or worse than any other sector I've had to deal with as a customer. I know that's not saying much in this modern day and age, seeing how horrible customer service in general is becoming, but the airline industry is not exceptional in this regard. Airfares are arguably cheaper than ever before (adjusting for inflation) even with the much reviled "added fees" of late. Additionally, since industry deregulation 30 some years ago, there are more choices for the consumer than ever before. Granted, the elimination of many amenities in recent times, such as free hot meals in domestic coach class, as well as the addition of onerous security measure since 9/11 have not curried favor among many airline passengers, to put it lightly. Yet these are relatively minor factors given the easy and inexpensive access to economical and extremely safe rapid transport system that is the airline industry in the modern era.

All that being said, there are a few reasons why I think airline customer service has become increasingly reviled in the past ten years or so. For one, most Americans share somewhat of a cultural memory of airlines as they once were: a premium luxury transport service. Seemingly they do not realize how much the economics of the industry have changed and that Americans' demand for a flying bus service (ie cheap fares and increased frequency) has perhaps lead to the current state of affairs in the industry.

For another, customer service has seemingly always played second fiddle to other goals in aviation, namely the goal of successful flight operations. Early accounts of the "glory days" of Pan Am prop liners (you know, the fabled ones with lounges and staterooms on board) are peppered with anecdotes of "distant and aloof" airline crew not fully attentive to passenger complaints. The airline industry is first and foremost a flight organization with safety and successful operations as the driving force (at least in theory, some airline managers seems to secretly differ in this opinion, but that's a post for another day). Thus, airlines are very much an authoritative structure. Airline captains have full nautical style authority over their craft. Flight Attendants issue rigid safety orders to passenger as their job requires. I think some paying passengers see this as a bad product, one for which they paid "large" sums of money. They perhaps rebel at the idea of paying to be exposed to nautical style authoritarianism not realizing that "it's nothing personal, just business [of safe flight operations]." That is that safety is paramount.

Still another reason for perceived bad customer service in the airline industry is a practice that has become widespread in just the past ten years. This is the practice of "cross utilizing" outstation airline officials. Traditionally, even at outstations (or airline destinations with non hub status), ramp personnel (baggage handlers, cleaners, etc) were typically separate departments from airport customer service. Lately, many airlines have begun using airport agents that perform both ramp and customer service tasks. This leads to task over saturation for fewer employees. Additionally, from an HR or an I/O Psychology perspective, ramp and customer service are two separate core competencies. Rampers are theoretically recruited on a more mechanical competency while customer service agents are theoretically recruited on an interpersonal competency. Perhaps hiring ramp agents who are also tasked to be customer service agents has resulted in a decrease in interpersonal competencies among front line airline airport employees.

Finally, and perhaps most obviously, I think that many passengers perceive airline customer service as "bad" because they are anxious or scared about flying, perhaps not even realizing that they are. Many airline passengers do not seem to understand the basic mechanics of flight nor is the human mind wired to automatically accept the idea of a pressurized metal tube soaring through the sky. Such must be the work of gods or spirits or perhaps the devil. Add in the recent memories of hijacked airliners crashing into buildings and you have a recipe for extreme anxiety in the typical airline passenger. Perhaps some of this anxiety is manifest in anger or irritation.