Subscribe
Do Airlines Know How to Do Math?
Author: Jeannie Walters
June 24, 2008
I was recently in Houston, TX meeting with a potential client to see how we can help with their overall customer experience strategy. I flew in that morning and my return flight to Chicago was booked for 5:40 p.m. I arrived at the airport at 3:19 p.m. and noticed a 3:30 p.m. flight, so I hustled to E17 – of course the last gate of the wing – and arrived at the gate around 3:25 p.m. I was greeted by an attendant who said I was too late for the 3:30 p.m. flight. She also informed me that unfortunately, she wouldn’t have been able to help me anyway. Turns out, as of June 19, Continental Airlines doesn’t allow you to go directly to the departure gate and attempt to get on an earlier flight. If there’s room on an earlier flight, you have to go to the Service Center (way back at the entrance of the concourse), pay a $50 change fee and get a new ticket issued.
I thought about this for a few minutes. On my morning flight to Houston, the attendants were begging passengers to give up their tickets because they overbooked the flight. They were offering a $250 flight voucher and a breakfast voucher for any passenger willing to take a later flight.
So here’s the deal…
Airlines intentionally overbook flights, making them painfully crowded, (with the new checked baggage fee on other airlines, the overhead bin situation is ridiculous) and then reserve the right to bump people at will. Then, they routinely offer $250+ in compensation to those willing to switch flights. Yet airlines charge passengers wanting to switch to an earlier, and not fully booked, flight $50.
Yep, makes perfect sense.
The irony is that I was happy with my Continental experience on the way to Houston – nice people, didn’t seem to be charging for strange things like a muffin or checked baggage…
But guess what I’ll tell people about now?
I’d like to sit in on some of the board meetings where they make these decisions. “You know what? We could charge $50 to all those travelers who use up empty seats on earlier flights! What a great idea!” Arrrgh.
4 Comments »
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI
I understand that you were inconvenienced, but do you realize that if you’d stopped to notice that earlier flight before you checked in–or if you’d asked the service agent at check-in time–you’d have known for sure before you hustled to a gate for a flight that had departed? (FYI: the check-in kiosk will offer you an earlier flight if it’s available; that it didn’t means that you weren’t going to make the earlier flight.)
So, tell people whatever you like, but you might want to keep things in perspective. It doesn’t just “seem” like Continental doesn’t charge you for a muffin or a checked bag; they DON’T have a first-bag fee and they’re the ONLY domestic airline that provides free meals in coach. To me, those things–along with the outstanding way that Continental management treats its employees, as any of them will tell you–are the reasons to fly with them.
Comment by Jamie — June 25, 2008 @ 10:46 am
That’s a great point and a perfect example of how companies get mixed up when they stop thinking about customer experience. There’s a guy named Hanks from Mindshare that was interviewed on Fox about that very thing. It’s an insightful interview.
Comment by Ed Peaslee — June 26, 2008 @ 8:53 pm
The airlines are dooming themselves. Everything about them, and how they operate is overly complex, and just plain stupid.
The airlines use anything as an excuse for being completley inept. It was 9/11, then too much competition, and now petroleum prices.
What’s it going to be next? Global warming, Somali pirates, mercury in lighbulbs?
The more airlines that fold, the better. I’m sick of their nonstop whining and finger pointing.
Comment by Raymond "Raydar" Darr — June 30, 2008 @ 10:07 pm
Airlines excel at doing really illogical and irrational things. I’m not sure why we trust them with our lives.
Comment by Robert Wyatt — June 30, 2008 @ 10:13 pm