Marathon Man

I think it's time we all step up and tell 'em how we really feel. What are 10 things that really get you upset about air travel today? I would love to have a passenger's bill of rights now!!

Please think in terms of the "administration" of travel as well as the flight itself. The things that surround your experience getting from A-B. (or C,D,E,F&G,etc. if you are a MR enthusiast )

Please no blasts. Let's try to create a list of up to 10 things and hey, if it is a good thread that gets long and informative, maybe we can print it out and send it off to the government and the airlines. You never know if it will help so I'd rather hear us passengers and employees agreeing together to go up against "the man" than having us bicker between ourselves and kill off the whole concept!

My gripes are these (in no particular order):

1) long customer service hold times and obscure ways to get thru to a human. One solution: hire quality people, pay and treat them well!!!!!!!

2) missing miles and third party promo deals that fail to post and then they pass the buck making you jump thru hoops. Inconsistencies in deals and offers and rules

3) too many rules and policies, which make the employees more like Nazis who "...just follow my orders, sir. Sorry, there's nothing I can (or will) do for you. NEXT?..." Policies should have an override in times of extenuating circumstances

4) when the plane does not leave the tarmac and they lie to you for hours saying it's gonna go in 10 minutes but you are sitting there without food or coffee or anything for 4 hours! They should (A) be up front and tell you, (B) have food or services available for everyone always, (C) let you off the plane with options to fly on other carriers on THEIR dime not yours, or let you come back tomorrow but be fully compensated for this, and of course, be more in control of the situation to begin with.

5) more educated and understanding TSA and security personnel. They should be trained to speak more than just English.

6) more consistent rules on what you can bring with you and more humanized ways of handling this. (example: moms who breastfeed but are currently traveling without their baby should be able to bring newly pumped milk on the plane with them).

7) if you need to take your shoes off to go thru security, have foot medication available and clean the floors often. Do you have ANY idea how gross and unsafe all that is? Even when you have socks.

8) free airline travel education services regularly available, and a baseline of customer service where the lowest paying passenger is not in hell, but at least has a leg to stand on.

9) better accomidations for elderly, sick, injured, children, families, special needs people...

10) you can still have classes or elite levels of travel and service, but do away with the Titanic-era attitude.

I have more but these are a start.

Anyone else wanna chime in?

jimbo99

1. Airline staff that don't know the rules of their own FF programmes
2. Airline staff that have an "attitude" when you claim a privilege which is derived from your status - no matter how polite you try to be.
3. Queues (anywhere - checkin, security, immigration)
4. Inventory management games that mean flexible tickets become difficult to change for lack of availability - when really there are seats available all along
5. Luggage obviously damaged through airline negligence coupled with "don't care" attitude from agents when reporting same
6. Aircraft changes which blow seat allocations away
7. So-called VIP/executive lounges without internet connection
8. So-called VIP/executive lounges that are overcrowded/with noisy kids
9. London Heathrow Airport
10. Being hassled by "LAST CALL", or "NOW BOARDING" messages only to find everybody crammed in around the gate because the plane's not ready yet

CO FF

If I were an airline executive, and looked at what the first two posts addressed, I'd either (A) sit back & smile, knowing that things must be pretty damn good if that's what my regular customers are griping about, or (B) roll my eyes in disgust that my so-called regular customers have no clue about the reality of my business.

(A) - How bad can it be if their "top 10" gripes are about:

--- missing miles and third party promo deals that fail to post and then they pass the buck making you jump thru hoops

--- free airline travel education services regularly available, and a baseline of customer service where the lowest paying passenger is not in hell, but at least has a leg to stand on.

(B) - How clueless can these people be if they think I can do anything about:

--- free foot powder

--- LHR

--- aircraft changes that blow seat allocations away.

tlhanger

DITTO!

tlhanger

These are good too!
Having worked in reservations, I know the rules change and no one tells you it has changed. When you call in, let the reservationist actually read them before you bombard them with questions. Also, if she or he cannot do anything, ask to speak to a supervisor and be willing to wait, don't lose your temper, hope that the supervisor can and will work with you-they have the codes that we don't have. I use to think that some of the promotions were off the wall sometimes myself, if you cannot abide by the rules you might want to wait for another one.

Marathon Man

Excuse me for not clarifying earlier that this thread should be about how we as travelers can collectively discuss ways to present better ideas to the airlines. All ideas have weight, I think--with regard to everyone's own situation. Furthermore, I am sure others would agree with this statement:
If you have a better way to present the problems, why not post that instead of a blast? Here's more to contemplate with regards to what's valuable:

United owes me 3,000+ miles from a promo they can't even honor and below are pictures of someone's feet who might have walked thru secuirty just before you did:

http://www.dermnet.com/thumbnailInde...ex=0&numcols=0

btw, I hope you don't lose your luggage and that the airline you travel on can find your bags if you do, and easily deliver them to you ASAP with full compensation regarding everything you could not do without them.

silverthief2

Foot medication? Wha?

FliesWay2Much

I'm not blaming the airlines per se for the debacle that is contemporary airport security, although I guess they could be accused of being willing accomplises by not criticising the excesses more vigorously.

I'd just like a bit more honesty about delays. Most of us are adults and act like one most of the time, so just be up-front with us. Tell us what's wrong with the airplane or why our incoming connection is delayed and give us a realistic estimate of the time to repair or the schedule delay.

And, when there is a delay, be responsive enough or even anticipate a problem like weather delays, and add the staff you know it will take to accomodate and re-route people as efficiently as possible.

One security thing -- when re-routing occurs, don't mindlessly hit your paying passengers with an SSSS and then deny you can remove it.

jimbo99

The OP referred to the "travel industry", not airlines. There is real competition between European airports. Even LHR might find itself competing with LGW if BAA's London near-monopoly gets broken up.

As for aircraft changes.... that has alot to do with airline policy. Both on the number of different configurations they choose to operate, and their propensity to swap planes around if they see a yield advantage.

pinniped

1. Provide at least passable (mediocre) customer service. I know it's too much to expect good customer service. Mediocre, as opposed to hellishly bad, will do. Mainly, I'm talking about the ability to talk to a human whether at the airport on the phone. (Ironically, WN does this better than any of the legacies, including the United 1P line.)

2. Hire smart employees that know how to think and problem-solve. I'm tired of hearing them parrot "policy". I'm not asking for special perks or freebies, I'm just asking for people who know how to use common sense when it comes to helping me resolve issues. If I'm talking to customer service, it's because something has gone wrong and I'm just trying to get it fixed - not because everything is hunky dory and I'm trying to scam something extra for free.

3. Fix your websites. It's 2007, not 1997. And if I have to call customer service for ticketing because your junky website can't handle it, don't have the audacity to try and charge me that bogus ticketing fee. That just reinforces how out of touch the airlines are with their poor websites.

4. Dump the garbage fees. Don't charge me an "award expedite fee" when nothing is being expedited. Don't charge me a bogus "fuel surcharge" - really, do you think your customers previously didn't expect the plane to have fuel in it? If fuel is more expensive, raise your airfares. Most of these fees should be illegal - period.

5. Quickly deliver checked baggage quickly to the carousel upon arrival quickly. Yes, I used "quickly" three times. If they could do this well behind the scenes, a lot fewer people would need to carry their steamer trunks onboard, they could turn flights around faster, and the entire process would be more pleasant.

That's really it in terms of complaints about today's operations. The TSA is another topic of its own - my only complaint there is about the lines at certain airports. I can live with the War on Toothpaste, the shoe carnival, etc. - if the TSA is properly staffed to handle the passenger load. At some airports I have no problems whatsoever, but at others security always seems to be total chaos. It seems that some stations are fairly well run and others clearly aren't. But the airlines themselves don't have direct control...

tjl

You call UA a lot?

A big gripe is overloading an airport so that the slightest hint of weather causes massive delays and misconnections. ORD is the most obvious example.

jimbo99

Oh yes, I would always adopt this kind of approach. Unfortunately I've also encounted staff who simply don't care to engage - refusing to look at their own guide book or printout of their own website which I've brought in. They just say point blank that I'm wrong and there's nothing they can do to help (including getting me access to a supervisor, or even an email address). They seem to love the power of being obstructive. I've always got around these problems, but I wonder why some of these people are employed. Seems so pointless - they are of course a minority.

Probably should have reworded that entry "Staff that are unwilling to apply the rules of their own FF programmes - whether through ignorance or obstruction"

CApreppie

Poorly trained CS
Fees fees fees everywhere
In-flight costcutting

PTravel

In no particular order:

1. Telephone CS provided by people who (a) speak English and understand "Americanisms", (b) know the system well enough that they don't have to follow a written script, and (c) who are sufficiently empowered to exercise their own judgment to fix problems.

2. Put the "club" back in "club room." Don't let noisy/obnoxious/obstreperous passengers create disturbances for others (regardless of ages -- infants to elderly, no one should be loud).

3. If you have to change equipment, MAINTAIN SEATING PREFERENCES, i.e. elites get elite seating, forward windows don't wind up in middle middles in the back, etc.

4. Stop the race to the bottom. Don't chase the low-fare lowest common denominator. I'd pay a modest premium (3-5%) on my airfare if it meant more legroom, a decent hot meal, etc.

5. Do more to segregate casual fliers from frequent fliers. Provide an elite check-in area, elite security lines and completely separate boarding (UA's model at SFO is good, but shouldn't be limited to UGS and 1K -- 1P and 2P should be included).

6. Stop devaluing status. Status should be earned by BIS, and not granted as part of corporate contracts, for credit card use, etc. Miles should be earned for BIS, so that award travel and upgrades are available to those who actually patronize the airline.

7. Enforce carry-on limits and use of overhead bins. This means no oversize duffels, over-stuffed backpacks, shopping bags and the other detritus that accompanies the casual flier. And for the frequent flier, no coats in the overhead on crowded flights, small bags under the seat in front of you, and only rollaboards sized to fit in wheels or handle out.

8. Do something about screaming babies and young children -- have a "family" section, have "family" flights, just do something so that the rest of us don't have to be subjected to 100db shrieks throughout a flight, particularly on long-hauls and redeyes.

9. Fix the checked baggage system. It shouldn't add 30-45 minutes to check in a bag before a flight. It shouldn't take 30 to 90 minutes to retrieve a bag after a flight. Stop losing bags. Stop misplacing bags. Stop damaging bags. FedEx and UPS can do it. Why not the airlines?

10. Consistency throughout the system. We shouldn't have to play the, "call back and speak to another CS rep" game. We shouldn't have to wonder whether this FA will make us take off our headphones, when that FA allowed it. There should be clear-cut, published policies that detail exactly what the airline will do if we misconnect, there is an equipment change, the flight is over-sold, etc.

sonofzeus

I want a national railroad system that provides a viable alternative to air travel within the US48. When enough consumers elect to use the train over the plane, air travel might become more "consumer-centric."