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Like A Cattle Car In the Sky...

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Is there anything else that the airline industry can do to make flying a less dignified experience? Short of asking us to come to the airport dressed only in our bathrobes asking us to bend over and spread our butt cheeks for inspection, I don’t think there’s any room left for the industry to make the experience of flight any worse than they have done today.

I’m not complaining about TSA security measures, that’s not the point of the post. My complaint is with the mentality of the airline industry as a whole.

“Flying somewhere”, which was once thought of as the experience of a lifetime has become a version of ‘scared straight’ for adults. Once upon a time, Flying was considered dangerous and only for the eccentrics of society. Flying from place to place was done in questionable aircraft with poor maintenance records operated by airlines that would fail with a regular pace. It sounds like today, but that was the state of aviation in the 1920’s.

Yet, it’s as if we are right back where we started.

In those days, the airline examined their industry and decided to make any money at all they would have to change their image. Airlines figured out they weren’t in the transportation business; they were in the hospitality business. They had to provide safety, but they had to sell the glamour and excitement of “going somewhere”. Average people had to be convinced of not just the utility of flying but that it was a joyful experience. Posters like the image on this post were made with great regularity. Travel agents weren’t burdens to the airlines; they were front line sales organization for the airlines.

Today airlines don’t feel that they have to convince anyone that they should fly. Airlines today consider flying to be a commodity. They feel that the public has no other choice except to fly.

What they don’t realize is that they have made the experience so awful, that people only travel when they have to and not because they want to. Flying is something to be endured not enjoyed. What airlines have failed to understand is that the flying experience doesn’t begin at takeoff and end at landing, the whole trip from the purchase of the ticket until your arrive at your destination is what the customer is buying.

Let’s examine the “total flight experience”

Ticketing:

As a maker of automated systems, I applaud the use of websites. However, it would be very nice if the concept of “non refundable – super saver” tickets would die the death they deserve. The support of the bizarre and inexplicable booking codes is one of the key points of contention with the flying public. Before you even step on a flight, you are made to feel like you are a sucker. You just know there’s a better deal that you missed out on, that the airline is only keeping for their favorites, of which you are not a part of.

In the idea world, all seats in each class have one price. Perhaps you could support some form of early purchase discount but the boundaries should be clear and very simple to understand. Full price if you buy and fly today, 10% discount of you purchase up to 7 days in advance, 20% if you purchase 20 days, and 30% if you purchase 30 days or more in advance. Don’t make it any more complicated than that.

If you issue “frequent flyer miles” don’t have blackout dates. What the point of a perk that you can never use? My advice would be to end all “frequent flyer miles” programs. When I was a “road warrior” I had a ton of free ticket. It literally took me several years to use them all up, even when I gave many of them away. Why? If you fly with any regularity, the last thing you want to do on your own time is travel. Frequent flier miles exist for two purposes, bribing spouses and first class upgrades. So lets limit first class to just frequent fliers and cut to the chase.

Here’s another thought, if the airlines knows that there is to be a weather hold or an aircraft maintenance issue on a flight that you are on, then why not call you before you leave and tell you about it and give you a status update afterwards.

Airport Check-in.

If you can reserve a $30,000 rental car, get it and drive off with only so much as showing your drivers license as you drive it out of the lot, then airlines should be smart enough to end the soviet style, last roll of toilet paper, roof of Vietnam embassy style baggage check-in. I still think a part of me is waiting in a line at Newark for a flight that should have left 10 years ago.

I applaud United and Alaska for the use of Kiosks, However, would it be too much to ask to have a supervisor near by to help with the questions that may arise?

Under no circumstances should there ever be more than a few minutes waiting to get your bags checked. It’s just not that complicated a process.

1. Who are you?
2. Are these your bags?
3. Here is your claim ticket
4. Is there anything else we can do for you?
5. Have a Nice Flight.

Airlines should consider extending their services to picking up their passengers and dropping them back at their homes after the trip not just flying them but actually transporting them as well. All passengers everywhere struggle with the airport shuffle. Imagine being a parent with small children having the airline pick you up at your house, where at that point your bags would start the check-in process and you would begin your ticketing. Imagine on the destination end having the airline resolve the issue of “How do I get to…”


Security

Security is a real problem for one reason, carry on baggage. Carry on baggage is a problem for one reason, because airlines have done such a horrible job ensuring that your bags will arrive that no one dare trust them with the essentials of your trip. You trust them with your life by boarding their aircraft, but you wont let them handle a garment bag. Airlines could certainly take your carry on baggage and have it placed in the overhead baggage on the aircraft after its been cleared by security, thus eliminating your dilemma of schlepping around with your bags for an hour.

What does that leave you with? Take your shoes off and walk through the metal detector portal. An airline gate agent on the other side would greet you with your carry on baggage or if you choose inform you that it’s already been placed onboard the aircraft. Obviously, that means more than one gate agent for every 3,000 people, which is probably not a bad thing.

Gate agents should be available to assist passengers through the security process. I’m mobile, I’m of good health and I can manage to speak English and not require the use of a cane. When you go through security, take a look at the face of the older folks or the infirmed. It’s the face of people who are otherwise proud made humiliated by the process of going through security. This week’s trip required no fewer than 5 bins at each stop and the removal of my shoes, belt and wallet and watch to be able to clear security. The older couple behind me, he with a metal plate in his head and her with a hip replacement and the use of a cane were in a sad kind of living hell as the TSA was unable to provide them with much help at all to clear this indignity.

It would go a very long way to have a representative of the airline at the security portal to help guide the passengers through the process. The airlines aren’t responsible for providing security, but if they want your business, they need to make it as painless as possible.

Boarding.

Again, Take the time before boarding to organize the people who are about to fly. Rather than have a cattle drive, why not set up the seats in the waiting area to correspond with the boarding group – color code the seats for example. Here’s another idea, lets provide enough area to be able to accommodate the passengers, shall we?

Here’s another clue for the airlines to catch. If you board the aircraft, it’s because you intend to fly somewhere. If there is an ATC hold due to bad weather, don’t board the aircraft. If you have to be stuck somewhere, its much more pleasant to be stuck in the terminal rather than the narrow tube of an aircraft fuselage. I was once on an aircraft in Chicago that loaded everyone and then backed out of the gate 50 feet and sat there for 6 hours. Why? Because there was an ATC weather hold in Chicago. Why did we back out of the gate? So that they aircraft could be said to have had an “on time departure”.

Flying.

First, Let’s talk about seats. Seats should have adequate space for 6 foot 2 inch people as a baseline and you should be able to bring the table down while you are sitting in your seat. . I also like the Midwest Express approach, which is that every seat is a 1st class sized seat.

Second, if you provide little TV screens, lets try to put something on them besides commercials. Third, what happened complementary magazines?

I’m not going to cover airline food as its been done much better by others. I don’t actually want airline food, but for gods sake people were peanuts soooooo expensive that we had to go to pretzel mix?

Overall.

If you treat people like cattle, they will act like cattle. If you run your business like it’s the airborne Greyhound Bus system, you can’t be surprised if the customers act like they were paroled from Sing-Sing as early as that morning. If you treat them like valued customers they will respond to that too. Try it, you might find that they come back more often. Airlines today have simply forgotten what business they are in and they don’t honestly believe that people have a choice.

In my business, to do anything you used to have to fly to the problem. I don’t have to do that anymore. I’m not the only one who has been making the Internet work for me. Airlines think I don’t have a choice, but I do, and increasingly I’m choosing not to fly.

Airlines – I’m your biggest fan, and even I don’t like you. This is a problem.

Posted @ December 09, 2004 09:33 PM | Current Events

Comments

Pricing: The "early bird" shopper should be offered a discount to help plan how big a plane, or how many, to put on a route on a given day. Yes. The traveler who books between 30 and 3 days before departure should pay the "standard" rate -- whatever the market will bear that clears costs and lets the airline put another plane in the air in the future. BUT, the quantum nature of the thing is that to accomodate all the expected travelers there must be some variable slack, or excess, seating available ... and that needs to be "clearance" priced more and more steeply as departure time approaches. The opposite approach is OVERbooking the plane and bumping the "no-shows"; who statistically, sometimes show up after all. Overbooking may be more profitable for the airline but it's certainly less comfortable for the travelers. Stand by or discount last-date pricing should be worked into your models.

Your points about baggage are excellent, but why is "carry on" needed beyond the stuff you need during the flight? A purse, a portfolio -- something to read or work on or maintain your health and comfort for the hours in the cabin -- that's it. A ten pound, one-cubic foot limit is generous. I would suggest a step toward eliminating carry on would be to charge for it -- and to offer discounts to travelers who use some kind of standard shaped baggage which easily fits thru scanning and containerization schemes. The odd-shaped piece of luggage -- the cello case, the golf bag, the bike -- these need to bear extra costs for extra handling. By the same token, the airline should post huge bonds to pay for damaged, late, or wayward bags.

Peanuts aren't expensive -- somebody decided they're allergenic. One molecule of peanut dust in the re-circulated cabin air can, it's said, poison the unlucky passenger. I dunno how to fix that. Special once-a-month extra kosher-peanut-free HPPA filtered flights, maybe ...

On board WiFi would be nice. Or USB ports to the non-RF network.

But the big change for me would be smaler planes going more frequently point to point instead of monster jets on the spoke and hub model. For that, though, you need more and cheaper labor. (And more fuel efficient small planes.)

Posted by: Pouncer at December 10, 2004 08:08 AM

You make many good points, but there is one I don't agree with, and that is that we should let them handle our carry on luggage. I too was a 'road warrior' for a number of years. I flew Delta out of Atlanta mostly. I saw the people they hired as baggage handlers. I watched them out the window of the plane (surely they must know we can see them?) and how they treated the bags. There is no way in hell I would ever trust them with my carry-on, even if I didn't bring my laptop with me. I try never to check a bag, unless I am really going to be gone so long that I must bring a lot. And when that happens, everything I care about - laptop, valuables, antying fragile or containing any kind of personal nformation, plus one change of clothes, goes in my carry on. Usually I check nothing but clothing. Anything important I can't bring on board, I consider mailing to myself. And my carry-on still manages to always be nice and small. A large percentage of the few times I actually checked a bag, something went wrong. The bags were delayed, or went to the wrong airport, hence the single change of clothes in the carry-on.
I could understand maybe enforcing the carry-on rules much better. You always see these people with their rolling luggage that you could fit a corpse into, nearly destroying the overhead bin and anyones else's carry-on unfortunate enough to be next to them as they stuff their monstrosity inside. They have these little measuring devices called 'size-wize', and in eight years I have never seen anyone but me use one. Or the people who have 5 bags but think that because they managed to strap them all to one roller they count as one. And these people have the nerve to get pissed when the overhead bins are full.

Posted by: GyorgLyquor - American at December 10, 2004 02:39 PM

I didnt think about the peanut thing, I suspect you are correct about that. Of course, before you get on the plane you walk by a dozen vendors selling things with peanuts in them and theres nothing stopping anyone from bringing a peanut butter sandwich on the plane. I suspect that it was the legal issue that ended honey roasted peanuts.

On carry on baggage, like I said, if you trust them to take your whole body on board but not your luggage, there is something wrong with that.

I also do carry on bags, not because I want to, its just that they have mismanaged the luggage part of the business so badly that I cant afford to go through the hellish nightmare of letting them deal with luggage.

Airlines are failing to deliver for every part of the business that doesnt involve actual flying. When it comes to flying and safety, they are doing pretty good, all the other parts of the business are a study in disaster.

Posted by: Frank Martin at December 10, 2004 03:33 PM

On the scheduling and seating side, SouthWest is closest to the ideal. They are a bus service in the sky. Their scheduling is done by software emulating complex adaptive systems, software that is shown to be much less expensive than empty planes everywhere.

Online ticketing and check-in are wonderful. I will stay up till midnight day of travel to print my A group boarding pass (though I'm often working till then anyway.)

Boarding? Moo.

More often than not, SWA gets you there on time and with minimum fuss. And they do have peanuts if you ask them.

But...I hate TSA. Security lines feel more like camping, concentration-style than herding, cattle-style. Guidelines that are supposed to be consistent across the country are anything but. (WHY does my keyfob cause secondary inspection only in Denver?)

Going to the Frank's earlier post, I travel now only when the B,C, and D players want to see butts in seat to "prove" that work is being done. I fly when I have to and most of that only commuting. Going to work is heading downstairs and checking email/IM for status. Much as I like the coffee cup & boxer shorts uniform of modern consulting, I do miss my United perq's. ;)

Posted by: Bennie Reddin at December 10, 2004 04:32 PM

And how!

You have been blogrolled

Posted by: TheCO at December 10, 2004 07:33 PM

I use carry on, and pack very light, for a very simple reason. In order to get from Toledo Ohio to Newport News Virginia I have to take three different planes (toledo-cleveland, cleveland-philly, and philly-NN) and two different airlines. There's no way in hell I'm trusting others to see that the correct bags get off and on the correct planes.

Posted by: Robert at December 13, 2004 03:39 PM

Dunno about any of the other 'upstarts' like Ted, but whenever I can, I fly Jet Blue. Leg room, comfy seats, one price (OK, a bit of a discount if you buy online), and helpful folks at the check-in kiosk (you can even check you baggage in at the kiosk). No food service, but since when is that a bad thing?

And peanuts... the folks who are terminally allergic to peanuts took care of that. (Wa, wa, wa.... Ya know, natural selection is there for a reason.)

Posted by: leelu at December 14, 2004 10:52 AM

Pouncer,

You're getting one of your wishes. The new, so-called "Regional Jets" are getting more and more common. Hub and spoke was the result of people with no imagination trying to emulate the ones who did -- Juan Cole (Pan Am) wanted big airplanes to carry lots of people to the destination, so everybody else wanted big airplanes because Cole did. Donald Carty just figured out how to make big airplanes work in a system that really needed little ones; unfortunately h&s only works when everything works perfectly the first time.

There's clearly nothing we can do about TSA but endure it (and avoid flying.) But my two wishlist items for the airlines are enforcement of carryon regs [yes, I hear you howl -- but if it had to be done, a way would be found] and define "departure" as the moment the squat switch closes [i.e. the weight is off, so the wheels are allowed to retract.]

I'm a tech -- when I travel it's with the max weight of tools, and I'm forced to let the baggage smashers do their thing. Baggage is actually better than it used to be; the security regs result in much better tracking. I don't tend to lose things except when riding Untied and its cronies -- don't get me started on Air Canada. And don't lie to me about security re your carryon. You just don't want to have to stand around waiting with the plebes for your bag to show up. Five kilos, half a cubic foot; one free, second $20, third $200, and so on up. Among other things it would half boarding and deplaning times.

One thing the airlines could do easily is to extend the sideline checkin system used on commuters to all flights. Have an attendant at the foot of the jetway ready to take oversize carryons and stow them separately.

As for the departure bit, I too have sat on the ramp for hours so the airline could claim an "on-time departure." Bullshit. "Departure" occurs when the thing leaves the ground and not before. Changing the definition would make life easier for us _and_ the airline, which has to burn fuel to keep the plane warm or cool while it sits on the ramp. Cheaper to let the cattle sit in the terminal, and better for us, too, so it's the definition that's the problem.

Regards,
Ric Locke

Posted by: Ric Locke at December 14, 2004 08:01 PM

Now that I'm in business for myself, all my flying is done by Beechcraft (1991 TurboNormalized F33A).

No way I'd trust my work and travel schedule to airlines (and, yes, I've had fewer delays due to weather in my non-all-weather capable Bonanza than I did with the airlines/commuters).

Posted by: Sharpshooter at December 15, 2004 07:48 PM