When an airline tells you it’s going to focus more on customer service, you think, “OK, and the heroin addict has been clean for, what, two hours?” World record.
The airline industry is the strangest industry on the face of the planet—for a whole host of reasons. Topping the list is that the industry, as a whole, has never made one dime of profit. Even I can make some profit if I stay away from long-term leases! But not them.
What’s more, the one airline that does make money, Southwest, does so by telling you upfront that you’re not getting much in the way of service or goodies on your flight. People flock to Southwest like it’s holding a tent revival meeting. (That’s a human revival of spiritual proportions held in a tent, not the revival of a tent during a meeting. Never mind…) I guess we know we’re going to get crappy service no matter which airline we choose, and we appreciate the fact that at least one is honest about it.
Perhaps the most profitable airline in the world, Ireland’s Ryanair, lets you fly for free. If you want to breathe, that’s $5, but welcome aboard.
This isn’t the worst idea I’ve ever heard of in business. It couldn’t be, because the worst idea I’ve ever heard of in business is the way traditional airlines do things: Maintain a 7,000 percent fluctuation in what you charge for tickets from one hour to the next; invent the maddening concept of “standby” tickets, which means you get a ticket, but maybe not a seat; cancel flights on a whim; fly people from Detroit to Chicago via San Antonio; negotiate union contracts that make pilots wealthy for working five days a month. Oh, and never make any money.
And now some airlines are talking about how they wish they could give better service. Note weasel words, please: They wish they could and they’re talking about their wishes. That doesn’t mean they’re going to do it. And you know why? Because pleasing you doesn’t make them any money. Ticket revenue doesn’t fluctuate all that much, no matter how good or bad customer service is.
But some things do fluctuate wildly. One is the cost of jet fuel. You think SUVs suck up a lot of fuel? They’re trying to find a way to breed new dinosaurs to produce enough fossils to get jets in the air. I know. It’s hard to believe. If you didn’t trust me so much, you might have doubts.
Of course, the airlines can’t do much to control the cost of fuel. Sure, they could try to start some wars to manipulate control of the oil supply in the Middle East—but do you really think these people could pull it off? They can’t even get you to Minneapolis without sitting on a tarmac for four hours pondering the meaning of life. I doubt they could manufacture an international incident (besides, we have enough of those at the moment anyway).
What they can control is their other major fluctuating cost—labor. And boy, do they spend a lot of time on that! I don’t include graphics with my columns, but I will describe one. It’s an airline organizational chart, with allocation of resources represented by animals. See the chipmunk? That represents the resources—time, human, financial and the like—devoted to pleasing customers. See the elephant? That represents the resources devoted to union negotiations.
Oh my God! Look out, Mr. Chipmunk! Jumbo is walking there… Oh well, he never had a chance.
Why do you think airline pilots are always going on strike? And how can anyone even tell they’re on strike, since they usually only work five days a month anyway? Their job is a strike.
A small concession in the cost of airline labor is much more lucrative for an airline than a massive increase in ticket revenue, so they spend lots of time beating up their pilots, flight attendants, baggage handlers and other employees, and relatively little time trying to make you happy. But now some airlines are starting to talk like they’ve seen the light on customer service.
Northwest Airlines CEO Doug Steenland, whose company just came out of Chapter 11 (hardly an unfamiliar place for an airline), recently declared: “Customer service is going to define the winners in the years ahead.”
American Airlines, which is the biggest airline in the industry, recently decided to do something it thinks is customer service. It refused to sell a bunch of its seats.
Huh? That’s service? Well, you have to think like an airline. American has to deal with lots of upset would-be flyers around the holidays every year, because they try to book last-minute flights and there are never any seats available. So American came up with a brilliant solution: Refuse to sell its middle section seats in advance around the holidays. That way, there’ll be plenty available at the last minute!
This is truly fabulous thinking. Now, when people who actually plan ahead call to book travel plans, American will tell them they’re out of luck. And when 1 percent of them show up at the gate to buy last-minute tickets (the other 99 percent having booked with another airline), they’ll have to battle professional last-minute travelers for the few seats that remain.
American Airlines. We’re not the leaders of the world’s dumbest industry for nothing, you know.
For the most part, airlines have always figured they can tank on customer service with impunity, because their customers have nowhere else to go. If you want to drive to Florida, have fun for the next two days. But if you want to get there in two hours, you’re coming with us. Unless we cancel your flight. Or double-book your seat. Or delay your flight for three hours while we’re trying to find a pilot. Or find ourselves dealing with a strike.
I drive everywhere. With the cost of gas these days, I’m not sure it’s really that much cheaper, but I don’t have the patience to be around a bunch of imbeciles. Once in a while, it’s helpful to give me column ideas, but even a business humor column can’t absorb that much absurdity in a single experience.
I may be capable of running a business for 100 years and not making any money. Some of my past business decisions suggest to me I could pull that off. But I’d be dead long before I could complete the task. And far better off.
