Originally Posted by
pollione
When you've got hordes of people trying to get on an oversold flight to Duluth, a weather delay and god knows what else going wrong and there are two of you checking in coach passengers, time and other very real constraints make it close to impossible to turn everybody's bad attitude around in the time that you've got.
I don't think that most of the "problems" encountered by travelers are the "fault" of the airline. However, the response and care taken by competent employees who realize that their role is to "serve the customer," can create a customer experience that lends itself to a profitable business relationship.
It's when things go wrong that you have the opportunity to exceed customer expectations. Will some people take advantage of you? Of course - but they're not really your customers. Think of that cost as marketing. It lowers your ROI a little, but the ROI with those real customers makes an actual impact on bottom line.
And we all want to fly for free or close to it.
Look at the examples I mentioned above. None of them reflect "free." People will pay for a genuine, positive customer experience. It's why people buy a BMW (aside from status, you pay for the experience).
I've gone on way too long when all I wanted to say is that their is not a single source for the problem. There are many convergent sources.
I stand by my assessment that the root cause of all that is wrong in the airline industry (and for many similar reasons - the auto industry) is the unions. They breed complacency, mediocrity, and incompetency.