"I'll never fly --- again."

I've heard that from friends and acquaintances. I've read news stories that quote people who say it (usually after some significant irregular ops event). I've read it on FlyerTalk, for that matter.

However, in my experience, they usually mean: "I'll never fly --- again, unless they're a nickel cheaper than their competitors for some trip that I'm booking." Not too long ago, an acquaintance swore that he would never fly TZ again. (A wise idea, in my opinion.) But, when TZ turned out to be slightly cheaper than the other options, he decided to fly TZ again.

To me, unfortunately, this crystallizes why airline service is unlikely to improve, in most cases.

So, in your experience, do "highly price-sensitive" travelers ever vow to avoid an airline and then actually stick by that?

The passenger might figure that the chance of bad treatment on the airline is no higher than if she flew a different airline. That's how I figure. There are a few airlines that I think do have a higher chance of mishap, every service related or safety, so I avoid them.

I'll never TWA or Eastern again

I think it's a combination of things.

First, as much as people complain about a bad service experience, when the next purchasing decision comes along, $$$ seems to be the deciding factor. Some people are at places in their lives there this doesn't matter as much (and fortunately, I'm gradually getting there), but the reality is that most aren't. Thus, they look at it in terms of: "If I spend the $100 extra to go on a different carrier, I won't be able to go out to as nice a restaurant." I call this the Wal Mart phenomenon: Nobody really likes to shop there (I mean, really!), but they go because they feel it'll maximize what they can do with what they have.

The other part might be availability of options. Unless you live near a place like New York, Chicago, LA or the like, the range of options that get you where you want to go when you want to go there can be limited. Or even if you technically have options, they may involve more stops, bad connections, etc. If they flew airline X before, chances are that part of the equation was that they were available and convenient.

I agree - And to answer your question, no I don't think people stick by their vows - They pick the cheapest flight.

I do think the competing airlines could help themselves if there was some mechanism for a passenger to ask the airline to price-match. i.e. If I can fly from A to B for $X on Airline Q, but I'd rather fly Airline P becuse I'm "Never Flying Q again!" there should be some mechanism to request that Q match P's price.

Cheers,
Geoff Glave
Vancouver, Canada

I will NEVER fly UA from CAE-IAD. But that's really for combination of reasons including I will NEVER use IAD for domestic flights!!

Well try Branif or PanAm instead

I find the "I'll never fly ---- again" to be the most humorous when you hear people at the airport yelling this during something like a massive thunderstorm that grounds ALL flights on EVERY airline. But, of course, these tend to be the 'fly-once-a-year' crowd who will forget almost any miserable incident when it is time to book tickets for next year's trip to see Aunt Jenny in Cleveland.

Interesting concept. Do you think that the staff at your typical India Call Center are going to be able to handle that?

Everytime I've done a price-match at a retail store, the store has to confirm the price via an ad, phone call, etc. Can you imagine trying to have a Airline P CSR confirm your price on airline Q? All so that Airline P can lose $ matching? It's lose-lose in the airlines mind, minus giving customers one more warm-fuzzy about their airline. They aren't in the warm fuzzy business anymore as shown by their continual devaluing of FF miles, programs, etc.

The walmart thing is spot on.

I disagree to a point. I used to fly transaltantic a mix of Virgin and Continental crediting all the miles to CO. I had a poor experience at EWR at the so called service desk that if I hadn't known better would have left me with a 24 hour delay instead of a 12 hour overnight delay (total denial on CO's part of code-share)-I resolved it by calling customer service but I shouldn't have HAD to- That alone didn't stop me flying CO but when followed by a very poor Virgin flight that included safety issues led me to switching all my transatlantic travel to AA- a decision I'm happy with and am unlikely to use CO/VS again as the miles with AA are mounting up and I don't fly enough to justify diluting them (am currently gold-with a reasonable chance of making Plat this year). I wouldn't say I'd never fly either carrier again but there is little incentive to pull me away from AA at this point with the routes I currently fly and the incentives I get from Aadvantage (served also by CO and VS-but I'm happy with AA and if it ain't broke-why try and fix it)

I disagree, too. I'm unlikely ever to be in a position not to compare fares, but by now I've learned to factor in the cost of the wear-and-tear that certain airlines/itineraries are likely to add to a trip. Life is too short--I'll give up that $100 dollar meal if I can arrive feeling fresh and unabused by the flight. Ok, maybe $50....

(I miss Pan Am. They were generous even to non-status frequent flyers. Probably one reason why they went under.)

I would probably fly any airline outthere. Preconceived ideas about airlines and often countries that people have are often unture and ridiculous.

Never even occurred to me it would happen with a CSR - I envisioned it would be in Expedia or something - You'd click the "match best fare on AA" button and the computer would talk to AA's computer and choose whether to match the best fare. The AA flight might route through DFW as opposed to DEN or whatever, but you'd get the fare.

I suspect this is where most of this 'pick the best fare' stuff is going on - In online bookings engines where all the options are presented. For people who still to TAs, Saber (Sabre?) could offer the TA the same option.

Cheers,
Geoff Glave
Vancouver, Canada

I don't recall the exact details, but it's my understanding that the Continental Airlines of today is more Eastern than Continental, Texas Air just rebranded everything under the Continental name. I could be wrong.

FWIW, I said I'd never fly American Eagle again, and I have pretty much stuck to that--flying them only when there was no other air alternative (and even then, I've sometimes driven).

3 years ago I said I'll never fly Midwest airlines again (nevermind why), and I still haven't, even though they've been cheaper than their competitors many times from MSN or MKE. But, I would probably fly them if they had an obvious fare mistake. My goal is to not allow them to make money off of me again, so it's okay if they're going to lose money because of my business (assuming I actually want to go to a place where the price mistake applies).

So, maybe I would change "I'll never fly --- again" to "I'll never fly --- again, unless they make a price mistake and it's to a place I want to go."