Why
Fewer People are Flying part 3
Five more reasons - obvious to us, if
not to the airlines
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It seems that no matter
what happens, it isn't the airline's fault.
And it also seems that anything good that could be
enjoyed on a flight is now being eliminated, or charged for.
Part three of a three part
series on why fewer people are flying - please
also visit
1.
Facts, figures, fares and fees
2. Full and fewer Flights, better alternatives
3.
The total unpleasantness of air travel today |
Let's face it - these days a
visit to the dentist is more pleasant than a flight on a
domestic airline.
Are the airlines deliberately
making the air travel experience as nasty as possible? And
why do they hate us so much?
Most of all, why are they now
surprised when, in response to the insults and injury they've
heaped on us, we now attempt to use their services as little as
possible, and - when we do - we no longer see any sense in
paying anything more than bottom dollar for the rock bottom
service levels they offer?
This is most starkly shown by
the recently reported increase in intercity bus travel.
Yes, some people are now preferring to take a long distance bus
rather than fly. That's how bad things have become.
Reason 6,7,8 :
Alternatives to Flying Are Now More Appealing
What does it say about air
travel when people are
switching from planes to buses? Yes, things have now got
so bad that people are choosing a bus journey as preferable to a
flight.
There are at least three reasons
why this is so.
6. Airlines have become
capriciously adversarial and treat their passengers like enemies
Do you remember the story of
the attractive woman who was refused permission to travel on her
booked Southwest flight because a flight attendant decided her
skirt was too short?
Or the woman who was
arrested and taken off her JetBlue flight because she filmed
some video on board?
Or the passenger who wasn't
allowed to wear his T-shirt because it said something in Arabic
on it, also on a JetBlue flight?
Or the nine passengers removed
from an AirTran flight because a teenage girl onboard thought she overhead
them saying something threatening - and they were subsequently
refused permission to fly on an alternate AirTran flight, even
though the FBI had cleared them of all wrongdoing?
Or the passengers falsely
accused of threatening flight attendants on various different
flights?
And so on and so on.
If you complain about poor service, you know you now run the
risk of having the flight crew gang up on you and accuse you of
being a security threat, and arranging for the compliant TSA and law
enforcement authorities at the very least to arrest you and grill
you for hours, and possibly charge you with draconian
federal crimes that will cost you huge amounts of money and time
to defend.
When we travel, we risk
becoming the victim of a terrible system that makes us guilty
until we can prove, beyond any reasonable shadow of a doubt, our
innocence, and subjects us to the capricious and sometimes
dishonest accusations of airline staff, with little or no
recourse on our part. We're terrified to do anything
except sit meekly and humbly accept whatever poor service is
dished out to us.
Who wants to risk this if they
can possibly avoid it?
Message to airline
executives - Okay, you don't need to fully copy the Nordstrom approach
to customer service, but at present you treat us like we're all
convicted criminals being flown to a federal penitentiary, not
like the often senior business people we actually are. We
deserve respect and courtesy and fair treatment as your customers and as the people who actually
provide you with the income you desperately need.
7. Air travel has become
unreliable
The good news is that the
cut-backs in flight numbers are slightly relieving some of the stress in
the nation's overloaded air traffic control system and airports,
as can be seen from this chart that shows the total number of
domestic US passenger flights, both per month and on a 12 month
rolling average.
The number of flight delays
has slightly dropped during 2008. But - and now the bad
news - the average length of delay has increased. Plus,
with nearly full flights, if your flight is cancelled, it might
take a lot longer to find an alternate flight with available
seats to accommodate you.
Bottom line - things are
worse, not better.
The ugly reality that we all
know, and which many of us experience at first hand, is you
can't rely on any flight getting you anywhere at any time
with any degree of certainty. If you're traveling for an
important meeting or event, you really need to schedule a flight
to arrive the previous day 'just in case'; and even then,
there's no assurance of getting where you need to be in time.
News flash to airline
executives - air travel is supposed to be a quick and convenient
way to travel. You're making it slower (scheduled times to
fly between many city pairs are now longer than they were ten
and twenty years ago), much less convenient (remember the good
old days when we could get to the airport 20 minutes before a
flight and still be certain of making the flight?), and vastly
less reliable. You're marginalizing yourselves out of
relevance.
8. Service cutbacks make
even a 'good' flight bad
Most of us remember the (in)famous
example, some years ago, of the airlines discovering they could
save money by removing one of the leaves of lettuce from the
first class salads.
Since that discovery, the
airlines have continued to take away service after service,
amenity after amenity. Want a pillow or blanket?
These days you'll find they're likely unavailable, or if they
are available, you'll have to buy them rather than borrow them
for the flight, for free.
The latest example of a
service cutback would be laughable if it weren't so trivial and
pathetic. US Airways has
removed the coat hangers it formerly had in first class to
hang passengers coats with.
The cost saved is probably too small to measure (how much does a
coat hanger cost, and how long does it last?). The impact
on the first class travel experience it offers its passengers is
also minor rather than major, but when combined with all the
other reductions in the once truly first class experience, it
provides yet another reason for passengers not to pay extra to
travel first class.
This is a telling
example of how the airlines have become obsessed with removing
every possible 'frill' on a flight, no matter how petty the
removal of the frill may be, or how inappropriate it may be to
remove it. Yes, the airlines are focused on service, but
they are focused on removing and reducing their service rather
than improving and enhancing it.
Most of us now perceive
first class as being nothing more than a bigger seat at
the front of the plane, perhaps with a free drink and bad food too,
and there's less and less reason to pay over the odds for these minimal
benefits.
It seems to me - I don't
have the data available to back this up - that the airlines have
recognized this too, with smaller premiums being attached to the
extra cost of a domestic first class ticket than back in the
'good old days'. With all the many different ways you can
upgrade to first class for free or at discounted rates, one has to
wonder just how many first class fares are ever sold these days.
Which begs the question : If
cheapening the first class product has brought about a reduction
in the income associated with selling first class fares, has the
airline really benefitted at all? The answer is clearly no.
Airline executives, please take note.
Reason 9 : The Security
Charades in the Terminal
Five year old children and
US Senators are told they can't fly because their names are
similar to those of possible terrorists.
Senior US government
officials and foreign dignitaries subjected to 'secondary
screening' when going through airports as if they are potential
terrorists (as well as little old ladies). While, at the
same time, a refusal to 'profile' passengers causes the
politically correct TSA to look the other way when people
matching the same profile/background as that shared by most
recent terrorists and hijackers are allowed through security
without hindrance.
TSA staff - and their
supervisors - refuse to accept as ID official US Passport cards,
even though they are listed on the TSA's own website as a valid
form of ID (they are the second item on the short list).
We have to take every piece
of metal off our person (and remove our non-metallic shoes, too) to go
through a metal detector, but the metal detector can't detect
(non metallic) explosives we might have wrapped around our
waist.
We are limited to no more
than 3 ounces of liquid per bottle, because more than that might
be dangerous, we're told; but apparently a terrorist with 9 ounces
of dangerous liquid would not think of splitting it into three 3
ounce bottles and then recombining it once passing through
security.
We are allowed to travel
with a pair of scissors with pointed blades less than 4" long,
but not a 3" pocket knife or a box cutter with a 1" blade.
Any time the TSA are tested
by their own people, more than 20% of guns slip through their
system undetected.
We can never be sure if
we'll have to wait five minutes or fifty minutes in line to go
through this security nonsense.
And so on and so on and so
on. The security charade is an affront to our intelligence
and common sense, but if we try and make fun of it, we run the
risk of being thrown in jail. No jokes allowed.
That's a great way to start
any flight, isn't it. Sure makes me want to fly some more.
Reason 10 : Frequent
Flier Rewards No Longer Reward Us
Remember the good old days,
when 20,000 flown miles would get you a free ticket anywhere in
the US? And, by 'free' I mean totally completely free?
And remember the good old days when the airlines would sometimes
do amazing things like have a triple-mileage bonus promotion all
year long?
Ah yes, the good old days.
Flash forward to the
present. Now you'll find yourself liable for all manner of
fees and taxes and other charges and surcharges when you try to
redeem miles for a free ticket, and you'll find
that you need to use plenty more than 20,000 miles to get the
ticket, too.
Most egregious of all
charges is a new charge, added on 1 December 2008, described as
a fuel surcharge fee, by British Airways on their award tickets
issued by Alaska Airlines (and possibly through other airlines
too). With a great sense of timing, this fuel surcharge
fee was introduced at a time when BA was paying about one third
the cost for fuel that it had been paying six months before, and
less than at any time in the last three years.
This fee - between $300 and
$600) - actually exceeds the fare they sometimes charge for
discounted tickets they sell.
Yes, your free ticket,
requiring 65,000 miles or more to redeem, costs you more than
you'd pay to buy a normal ticket.
We all know of people that
have truly taken additional flights in the past just to earn the
extra miles they'd get from those flights. Does anyone
care so much about frequent flier miles now?
Frequent flier miles were
formerly the golden handcuffs that tied us to airlines and
encouraged us to pay extra money to fly with our preferred
mileage partner. By reducing down to almost zero the value
of these miles, the airlines have removed the incentive for us
to fly more, and to pay over the odds for airfares in return for
getting valuable miles with a preferred airline partner.
Just like the airlines are
zeroing out any reason to pay more to fly first class, they're
also zeroing out the last shreds of brand loyalty we might have
had for one airline over the other, and the last remaining
reasons to pay extra to fly on a preferred airline compared to
an alternate airline. Even if passenger numbers remain the
same, we are less willing to pay any sort of premium for our
flights, because there's nothing extra we get in return for our
extra payment.
Our paradigm has shifted
from viewing some airlines as better than other airlines,
to now viewing all airlines as being as bad as each
other.
The airlines are not only
discouraging us from flying, but they're also discouraging us
from paying anything other than the lowest possible fare when we
do fly.
Conclusion
The last five years have
seen a steady erosion in airline service. Is it any wonder
that passengers are finally saying 'Enough already' and reducing
their air travel plans any time they can?
We have all had to endure
poor or nonexistent service, unexplained delays, rude and
abusive personnel, staff that were even absent from where
they should have been (including unattended gates in the
hour before their flight time and in cases as much as an hour
past the scheduled flight time), additional fees that were
poorly explained and often arbitrarily or improperly
implemented, damage and or loss of our luggage, airplanes with
defective seats, lights, videos, etc, onboard personnel who
would ignore the simplest request, flight schedules that are
mostly works of fiction, flight cancellations announced with
little or no warning (often with explanations that proved to be
false), extensive delays in retrieving baggage when in fact it
actually did arrive with our flight (but was thereafter
'misplaced'), excessive hold times on the phone for the simplest
requests, arbitrary changes in fares (online) that often were
increased (but never decreased) in the minuscule seconds
between when we decided on a flight and when we tried to book it
just a few keystrokes later (can anyone say 'bait and switch'),
and so on and so on.
Add to this massively unfair
fees and high fares, and there's nothing positive at all about
the thought of having to fly anywhere.
Remember when flying was
glamorous (as were the flight attendants, too)? When we'd
dress up for a flight? Now we dread a flight, and dress
down, because we've nowhere to hang our jacket, and might have an
uncaring
flight attendant spill something on us.
Is the startling collapse in
air travel due to the economic problems we're facing? Or -
do you possibly think - the ten preceding factors might have
something to do with it as well?
Part three of a three part
series on why fewer people are flying - please
also visit
1.
Facts, figures, fares and fees
2. Full and fewer Flights, better alternatives
3.
The total unpleasantness of air travel today
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Originally published
9 Jan 2009, last update
30 May 2021
You may freely reproduce or distribute this article for noncommercial purposes as long as you give credit to me as original writer.
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