Survey: Airlines Lag In Customer Happiness
In this April 10, 2012 photo, cartoonist Tom Batiuk, creator of the comic strip Funky Winkerbean, inks a strip at the drawing table of his Medina, Ohio home studio. During its 40-year run on the funny pages, the characters and Batiuk have evolved and so have the story lines, from high school hijinks and awkward teen dating moments to dealing with adult issues like alcoholism, suicide and cancer. His latest hot topic story line during May: two boys who want to go to the high school prom together. (AP Photo/Amy Sancetta) / Amy Sancetta
Bankruptcy can be a wake-up call for airlines about the need to run their operations more efficiently, but it also can shine a light on a more basic challenge like making customers happy.
UAL Corp.'s United Airlines and DeltaAir Lines Inc., both of which restructured under Chapter 11 in recent years, ranked last and next-to-last, respectively, among airlines in terms of customer satisfaction in a survey to be released Tuesday by the University of Michigan.
Marks were only slightly better for AMR Corp.'s American Airlines, which teetered on the verge of bankruptcy before winning employee concessions in 2003, and Northwest Airlines Corp., which is currently in bankruptcy.
"The first step in improvement here is to recognize that something is wrong," said Claes Fornell, a University of Michigan business professor and director of the research center that compiled the data.
The airlines said they are working hard to improve the experience of their customers.
"We know the service is not where it should be as far as baggage delivery," said Betsy Talton, a spokeswoman for Atlanta-based Delta. "We're concentrating on that this year so that we see significant improvements."
Tim Wagner, a spokesman for Fort Worth, Texas-based AMR, said there isn't much the airlines can do when weather delays flights.
"The one thing we can do is focus on the things we can control, and that's our face-to-face interaction with customers," Wagner said.
There were some bright spots for a few airlines in the survey. Dallas-based Southwest Airlines Co. ranked first, and was one of only two airlines mentioned by name in the survey that improved in terms of customer satisfaction this year compared with last year. Houston-based Continental Airlines Inc. was the other.
"We've done as well as we have up to date by making sure our customers have a rich experience, and that's largely due to our people," said Beth Harbin, a spokeswoman for Southwest, which also is one of the few consistently profitable airlines.
About 20,000 people were asked during the first quarter of this year to rate their level of satisfaction as customers of companies in a variety of industries, including the airlines. An American Customer Satisfaction Index, on a scale of 1 to 100, was created based on the responses to questions about overall satisfaction, intention to be a repeat customer and perception of quality, value and expectations.
The index for the airline industry as a whole fell to 63 from 65 last year. Southwest had the highest index with 76, up from 74 last year. United's was the lowest at 56. Bringing up the rear was Delta at 59 and American at 60. Eagan, Minn.-based Northwest was only slightly better at 61.
"The same problems that have pulled airline passenger satisfaction down the past few years — disenchanted employees, increasing fuel costs, bankruptcy, and now also record levels of lost, delayed, and damaged luggage — cause it to drop again," the researchers said in their analysis.
UAL spokeswoman Robin Urbanski said the Elk Grove Village, Ill.-based parent of United knows it needs to do a better job giving customers what they expect.
"Work is under way to make this a priority," Urbanski said, adding that the airline appointed an executive last year to lead a new customer service division.
Talton said Delta, which exited bankruptcy on April 30, has added new in-flight entertainment and other products to give customers a better experience.
"The morale of Delta people has improved," Talton said. "We know that's important to our customers. That's not only what makes our business run smoothly, but it also is what provides a good experience to our customers."
© 2009 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. UAL Corp.'s United Airlines and DeltaAir Lines Inc., both of which restructured under Chapter 11 in recent years, ranked last and next-to-last, respectively, among airlines in terms of customer satisfaction in a survey to be released Tuesday by the University of Michigan.
Marks were only slightly better for AMR Corp.'s American Airlines, which teetered on the verge of bankruptcy before winning employee concessions in 2003, and Northwest Airlines Corp., which is currently in bankruptcy.
"The first step in improvement here is to recognize that something is wrong," said Claes Fornell, a University of Michigan business professor and director of the research center that compiled the data.
The airlines said they are working hard to improve the experience of their customers.
"We know the service is not where it should be as far as baggage delivery," said Betsy Talton, a spokeswoman for Atlanta-based Delta. "We're concentrating on that this year so that we see significant improvements."
Tim Wagner, a spokesman for Fort Worth, Texas-based AMR, said there isn't much the airlines can do when weather delays flights.
"The one thing we can do is focus on the things we can control, and that's our face-to-face interaction with customers," Wagner said.
There were some bright spots for a few airlines in the survey. Dallas-based Southwest Airlines Co. ranked first, and was one of only two airlines mentioned by name in the survey that improved in terms of customer satisfaction this year compared with last year. Houston-based Continental Airlines Inc. was the other.
"We've done as well as we have up to date by making sure our customers have a rich experience, and that's largely due to our people," said Beth Harbin, a spokeswoman for Southwest, which also is one of the few consistently profitable airlines.
About 20,000 people were asked during the first quarter of this year to rate their level of satisfaction as customers of companies in a variety of industries, including the airlines. An American Customer Satisfaction Index, on a scale of 1 to 100, was created based on the responses to questions about overall satisfaction, intention to be a repeat customer and perception of quality, value and expectations.
The index for the airline industry as a whole fell to 63 from 65 last year. Southwest had the highest index with 76, up from 74 last year. United's was the lowest at 56. Bringing up the rear was Delta at 59 and American at 60. Eagan, Minn.-based Northwest was only slightly better at 61.
"The same problems that have pulled airline passenger satisfaction down the past few years — disenchanted employees, increasing fuel costs, bankruptcy, and now also record levels of lost, delayed, and damaged luggage — cause it to drop again," the researchers said in their analysis.
UAL spokeswoman Robin Urbanski said the Elk Grove Village, Ill.-based parent of United knows it needs to do a better job giving customers what they expect.
"Work is under way to make this a priority," Urbanski said, adding that the airline appointed an executive last year to lead a new customer service division.
Talton said Delta, which exited bankruptcy on April 30, has added new in-flight entertainment and other products to give customers a better experience.
"The morale of Delta people has improved," Talton said. "We know that's important to our customers. That's not only what makes our business run smoothly, but it also is what provides a good experience to our customers."
Obvouisly you have neve work in an airline. First employees are treated like sh---t, no respect for the work they do, put one person to do the job of three, so the CEO can save money. I think the airlines employees during this decade has done a lot of sacrifice to avoid their airlines company become banckrupt, this including pay cuts for several years and this employees who have sacrifice for more than 4 to 6 years don't see any improvement in the near future.
So you can theoretically speak on customer service or mgmt or arbitration, but the goal of keeping customers coming and paying is made or broken everyday by each and every employee. Remember that when you observe one of your peers mistreating a customer--no matter where they sit. After all, they may be in economy--but they may be related to or know the people in first class--guess what happens when they return home with a horror story?
1999--very pretty girl on plane is given an opened plate of food with the foil pressed down but you could tell it had been opened, at least 3 FA stand near grinning and try to see what is going on when the girl starts to eat. I leaned over and offered my unopened food to her and told her that hers had been tampered with. We traded and the FA quickly came over and asked what was wrong. I told her that the one tray had been tampered with. She tried to give it back to the girl and I insisted on keeping it. She was furious. I did not eat the food and gave it back to them later. this also was BA airlines
Some FA are Nasty people with agendas, that girl did not know those people--but they wanted to pull a prank at her expense. These are some of the reasons the airlines are going down. I do not fly BA anymore, or Northwest or KLM (unless I have to)
1994, TWA flight to Paris: FA is angry pass. complained about cold and hardened spaghetti and asked for another, he reaches across the row, grabs a handful of pasta with his barehands and flings it in the aisle and says "There! are you satisfied" person refuses to eat remaining pasta and other pass complain--he gives out another and states at top of voice: "somebody is not going to get any pasta because we have a prima donna on board who just HAS to have everything there way!!!" The rest of the crew and that person removed their name tags and refused to id the loud mouth FA.
2003--NOerthwest Airline: Person with brain condition asks for water several times in the flight. On the 3rd time, the mother was told they could not have any more water. When asked why the FA hissed " first I am not your personal slave and second, you knew you had a crippled child and you should have brought your own water!" The mother was in her late 60s, the 'child' was a 32 yr old woman who had suffered several strokes. They were on their way to the Mayo Clinic.
Is it not rather foolish for management to vent their satanic and infinite greed and disrespect for God and man by destroying the company they work for, and the country they live in, but you don't question that, do you little toady.
Julie Ann Brown, you have a point. But then one wonders if its not rather foolish for employees to vent their annoyance at management by destroying the company they work for. Perhaps the problem is that the only people as shortsighted and foolish as airline management are airline employees.