lougord99

Thank you bluethunder for a couple of outstanding posts and some great insight into management.

knope2001

It's clear that not being able to operate in marginal conditions when the competition is flying is a cluster, and I'm hopeful it is in fact being addressed. That being said, stretches like what Kansas City saw recently are not terribly common. There was a similar issue in Milwaukee for a few days of ugliness which we discussed at great length, and if I remember right it was nearly two years ago. Given that not much happens with Midwest that isn't beaten to death, that suggests that incidents like what took place at MCI recently are not comon. However it should virtually never happen if reasonably possible. Remember that not only is there a great deal of unhappiness and reputation damage to crap flights due to weather when the compeititon runs, irregular ops cost the company a lot of money.

As for Midwest's social media, from what I've read / seen / heard Midwest does a fantastic job with this -- better than most airlines. The tweets to Midwest include, of course, a fair number of complaints. Twitter lets people vent when they are unhappy about something -- it's just the nature ot the beast. But frequently if you trace back the exchage between the customer and the Midwest staff, someone who intially tweeted angrily will eventually express gratitude for the responsive follow-up of the social media team. With a tool like Twitter, invariably there will be people who use it to vent frustrations regardless of how much "fault" belongs to Midwest. Being able to turn many of those around is huge, and the social networking team at Midwest deserve big kudos for that.

knope2001

+1

mke9499

+2

In following your tweets, one can see that you (and I have noticed that many RTs are from you), try to make a real attempt to reply meaningfully, not with just a token response.

Obviously, people are most anxious to express concerns and complaints; when things go right, unfortunately, satisfactory performance usually does not get recognized. At least with issues at hand being immediately addressed with a very prompt response, an attempt can be made to right a wrong; if resolution is not possible, at least a sincere apology and acknowledgement for any lapse in fulfilling customers' expectations can help smooth over the problem.

One continued issue, however, is the difficulty in getting through by phone, without a very extended wait time; the long wait can sometimes compound a problem, when there is a very time-sensitive issue needing assistance. If some of the urgent concerns can indeed be resolved via twitter, I believe that many dissatisfied customers can be brought back into the loyal YX customer base.

Good luck with your efforts in trying to implement this ability; I think it's a great idea. Also, hopefully, with the additions to the MKE contact center, telephone response times will be improved.

Again thanks to both you and MostlyAir for contributing to this board most meaningfully.

RSVP

Remember United broke my guitar?

blucys

I think the problem is that passengers never realized that "fog" could ground a plane because the pilot is not qualified to fly in it...As a passenger you look out the window and see heavy snow, you know you are in for a tough day...but fog? Many people just dont understand that this can cause problems as well...This is why I agree with your statement about the fact that no domestic frequent flier can list off any airline that is certified to land in low visibility.