Originally Posted by
1KPath
While I agree with you completely, isn't it sad that, as customers, we now accept such a low standard of service form airlines? I grew up in this industry (nearly 60 years) and until only recently the airlines actually competed for customers based on their customer service. Now it is basically "take it or leave it" Sad, Sad, Sad!
I agree with you that it's sad. Very sad. But as someone pointed out a few posts earlier in this thread, if we want to find the culprit, we need to look in the mirror, because, "we", overall, demand the cheapest of everything and reward airlines that try to provide a premium product with bankruptcy. Sure, there are a few here, and I count myself and assume you as well in this group, who are willing to pay for quality, but in large measure, most travel buyers care about nothing but price. Hence, the airlines are optimizing for the environment they find themselves in. Even the trashing of UA is part of this trend. All the destruction was done in favor of finding the cheapest solution, damn the consequences. And, $mi$ek and his regime were apparently given those marching orders by whoever gave them control, by whoever gave him a $14 million bonus based on achieving cost savings (aka synergies), by the BoD who allows this, by the shareholders who allow this, and by the stock market that rewards this. End of the day: These folks are just reacting to overall market forces. And, so we wait 45 minutes for our luggage and consider ourselves lucky when we get it at all.