I have to throw some of the responsibility for passengers' bad behavior back on the airlines, too. Remember the experiments you read about in Psych 101 where they put a lot of rats in a small space and they started biting each other and getting into fights? What do you think would happen if they strapped them into tiny, cramped seats in a little Rat Plane, restricted their ability to take bathroom breaks by making the aisle too small to hold anything but a beverage cart (and making rats in the window seat have to ask their seatmates to move so they could get out), didn't feed them, limited the circulation of fresh air, and kept them on the tarmac for an hour or two? They would not be happy, well-behaved rats.

This was really driven home to me once as I watched people on an Amtrak train. The children were positively serene. They could get out, stand in the aisles, even take short walks. Anyone who wanted to get up to stretch their legs or use the bathroom could do it- easily. Food was available in the dining car. You could enjoy it and use your laptop at the same time without endangering your laptop.

Of course the rats- uh, I mean the passengers- are responsible for keeping their behavior under control and being polite and civilized. But the current conditions in Coach make it very difficult.

I think it's a definite turning point that some airlines are now advertising jobs on their websites! A few years ago you never saw that...jobs were all taken. Back when I was going through college you really had to have luck and connections to work at Delta, which then had a sterling reputation and very low turnover.

Once a job gets marginalized in pay to where you can't make it a career or part of a career track, the quality of those who'll take it really nosedives. Airport security pre-9/11 was a good case in point; the private contractors were paying screeners about what McDonald's was paying. People in those jobs will understandably reason that they're "not being paid to put up with the pax" and they can just take another McJob in another area if conditions don't improve. Higher turnover also puts more pressure on training, which is another thing the airlines don't really like to pay for. And seat downsizings and seat-pitch reductions aren't just imaginary.

Steerage class and failing customer service
 

Outsourcing customer service to India was done to make money. Quality of service has decreased and not just b/c English isn't the first language but also because of poor training. As long as airlines still offer cheap fares customers will continue to fly even with poor customer service.

Additionally, less gate agents means less people to resolve problems faster making people wait longer, get more upset, etc.

and waiting longer and being more upset makes you go elsewhere and that costs them the money they tried to save!

It's a matter of short vs long money. Many companies are going for the short money, sadly. It's trickling down from the similar attitude of the 8 year administration in my opinion.

As for India, etc, I think the CSRs are trained very well... in the way of policy and by the book rule-oriented speak. They know not, however, of special circumstances, one-off issues, and many of our detailed mileage issues and promos. I think it's partly because our culture is more in tune with the whole world of mile deals being done the way we do them, and the ways to fix problems that may come up with these offers. I find the agents from overseas have NO CONCEPT of what all that even is! To them, it's " you sign up for X and get the miles. If you did not, oh well. Sorry." To us, we'd complain and maybe rightfully so. They don't complain enough over there. Airlines like them.

Alot of great comments here so not much I can add. I've worked in the airline industry since 1979 & you would not believe how long it took me to get that first airline job.(Well heck I'll tell you it took 1974-1979) I applied to every airline I could think of & probably some I couldn't think of LOL. It was an honor to be an airline employee, now I will not tell anyone or wear anything that hints I may even work for an airline. I make less money now than I did 10 years ago with everything much higher in costs. So why do I stay ? Well if I'm lucky will "retire" in a year or so & move on from there.
Also as far as hiring goes now imo my airline hires anyone walking & breathing who can pass the background checks & they have a very hard time doing that.

A lot of it seems to vary by airport, not just airline or class of service. There are some airports where every employee seem competent, nice, helpful and others where nobody seems to care at all. My impression is that different airports have cultures which encourage or discourage professional behavior. It could also have something to do with the pool of people in the area available for hire and the economic conditions of that area, in general.

Training seems to be a huge issue, as well. When employees are not trained, you can expect inconsistencies, mistakes that cause you unpleasant experiences, contradictory information, and general incompetence, even from people who would like to be doing a good job. I suspect that airlines/airports are not only not paying as well as they once used to, but that they are also severely cutting back on training budgets. When I know more about the policies and processes than they do, it is clear they've not been trained adequately. There are countless times when I've been able to avoid bad situations simply by knowing that what they are telling me is incorrect and insisting on something different.

On top of everything else, there also are simply not enough crews available, flights scheduled, and gate agents working to accommodate natural disruptions that are bound to occur.

The system is stretched so thin that any incompetence aggravates the situation in extreme and noticeable ways.

No. low fares

Show me another industry where its acceptable to use the excuse that customer service is poor because customers are rude.

There are two types of "rude" customers: Difficult people, and people experiencing difficulty. While someone determined to be difficult maybe unaffected by spectacular service - there are truly very few of these people. I'd guess it's less than 0.5% of customers in any given industry.

Most unhappy or "rude" customers are those who have experienced great pain and inconvenience. These customers can be EASILY turned around by even good customer service and can be converted to lifetime loyal customers with spectacular service. Fix their problem and exceed their expectations and it is amazing the effect you have on your customers.

The truth is really quite simple. There's only one reason for the horrible customer service in the airline industry. Unions.

In fact, I would be willing to stake my net worth on a bet that if we eliminated unions from ALL sectors (public service, government, airlines, auto makers, etc), not only would the customer experience DRAMATICALLY improve in these industries - they might actually become profitable again.

Do Congress or the State Legislatures have unions? @:-)

Think part of the problem is that sophisticated marketing licenses unrealistic expectations. Even at a basic level, a slogan such as "putting the customer first" will license some pax into thinking they are owed the earth (including being "put into First").

As schemes get more complicated - a multitude of fare buckets, special rules, FF programmes, partner deals, codeshares, etc. etc. its no surprise that customers get on the phone and are frustrated to discover that the CS rep understands less about the particular situation than they do.

I can cope very well with a CS rep who does not understand something and needs the time to go and check and come back. Problem is that so many of them seem hardened by less patient people and go into defensive/fib mode. Or that the systems are not in place - so its not even possible for them to call me back or for me to email them etc.

Many/most of the posts on this issue reflect on the CS issues with US airlines. Most people agree that (for example) Asian airlines have far better CS - one should ask why. It certainly is not the pay - but more likely training and culture and lack of job protection from union contracts IMO.

Gosh, back when US Airlines were the best (remember First Class, or even coach, Trans-Atlantic on Pan Am or TWA before deregulation) they were heavily unionized. :D

So, I suspect, there must be other factors here. @:-)

I think part of it is it's a unique service environment where the front-line staff aren't actually empowered to *do* anything about complaints.

If you buy a cheeseburger and it's cold or tastes bad, if you complain you'll likely an apology and a new cheesburger, or your money back pretty fast.

If you buy a shirt and the buttons fall off and you return it reasonably you'll get a new shirt or a store credit.

If you rent a car and there's no car, they'll upgrade you

If there's a problem on your bill at a hotel upon check-out, the counter staff will correct it.

- etc. etc.

These are all functions handled by front-line low-level service staff, not 'customer care' 25 weeks later in the head office.

I think airline staff are unique in that they're no longer empowered to do any of this stuff - Which leads to hostility.

Cheers,
Geoff Glave
Vancouver, Canada

in every business there are so many competitors just down the road they maybe want to help you out quickly to save themselves. In airlines, they know they gotcha because there are only a few, say, that fly to your destination, etc.

Why else would they allow their customer base to potentially resort to hostility because their own policy-ridden zeal prevents anyone from helping to fix anything anymore? How does this make them money?

Although you raise some correct examples, I also think that airline staff is not necessarily unique in terms of the lack of empowerment of front-line employees. There are so many other businesses where front-line staff basically "lives in fear for their jobs" if they dare to even THINK of going outside the tightly-defined procedures for which they've been trained. That's also why you never can get the first and last name of any CS rep you deal with (in most any industry)..."I'm the only Jane here"...utter lack/fear of accountability.