Yeppers! First, a company/business should never want to be at, or toward the bottom, of any bad customer measure. It's just not a sound business principle. Ergo the possible reason for the Employee/Customer Award/Recognition Program.

Second, everyone has 250 friends. Thats the multiplier used when you offend a customer. Those 12,000 customers have the ability to influence 250 people each and through word-of-mouth. Thats 3 Million. Now all of a sudden, that number is meaningful. In fact, more meaningful than any of the influential Media Headlines I listed yesterday in another thread.

The bottom line is, airlines are in a Service industry. It doesn't take long for customers, existing and prospective, to determine how well or bad, real or perceived, the company meets their expectations.

As we all know, reputations are important. It takes honesty, integrity, morals and principles to get and keep one, versus only a few and repeated failures to lose it.