Quote:
Originally Posted by The_Jazz
I fly 60,000+ miles/year on average. Weather happens. You can't deplane down a metal jetway in a thunderstorm with lightening strikes nearby. You have to expect snow and rain to make things run a little slower. It's pure safety and there are piles of wreckage to exhibit why those are important lessons.
But everyone who pays a fare is entitled to good customer service. I get it because of my loyalty, but I know full well that the folks in the back of the plane deserve the same, especially when they need help when weather strands them. That's the part of the system that needs to be fixed.
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Exactly. The weather that hit Chicago when I was there was severe - 60 mph winds, lightning, etc. I'm not saying the planes shouldn't have been delayed - there was no way anything was taking off and landing in that weather.
But here's what gets me: the complete and total lack of information released to the passengers. Gate changes without announcements, pushing back departure times 3 times before finally canceling the flight at midnight when it's too late to get a hotel or book another flight, giving people incorrect information about where to find information (gate vs. customer service desk vs. phone), having 2 customer service agents on hand to serve thousands of people when you KNOW the weather is likely to strand everyone, having airplanes without crews and and airplanes without gates and gates without planes and crews without planes and being unable to put the pieces together. It was my experience, sitting there in the airport listening to the flight crew talking to the gate agent talking to someone on the phone, that the left hand and right hand were not on the same body.
^^^^ is not a business model issue, it's a customer service/information management issue. There have been times when my flight was delayed or canceled and I got such excellent customer service (Southwest airlines comes to mind) that I was not even moderately disgruntled. We all know shit happens, but sometimes just hearing a
sincere apology makes all the difference. I know the gate agents are facing down hundreds of pissed off people and it makes it difficult to do their job cheerfully, but it does make a huge difference. It seems that if there was a better system for informing the workers and having them inform the passengers, everyone would be a lot happier.
So does anybody have inside information on why the information management and communication is so insanely horrible?