Airlines hate to be made to institute any changes in how they treat customers.  They have a loathing for being required to do something by rule or law.

Mind you, they have absolutely no problem with change.  Any time a change can bring about greater revenue or reduce liability, they will happily institute the change asap.  Just look into how much airlines have changed their contract of carriage for what their liability is in lost or damaged luggage.

If I consider just how much the airlines shouted, stamped their feet and groaned over the 3 Hour Tarmac Rule, I have to chuckle a bit.  Airlines and their CEOs in particular made viscious threats about how much this would raise costs and impact customers negatively.  Even my fellow bloggers jumped on that bandwagon and decried the rules.  Some people insisted that the customer really wanted to get to their destination at all costs even if it meant staying on the ground in an airplane for 9 hours.

And then the rule was instituted and these delays have largely just gone away.  There really has been very little muss or fuss.  After more than 2 years of this rule, we see no evidence that the customers costs are raised or that the customer is negatively impacted in a worse way.

To the contrary, airlines are planning and executing these plans to avoid storm induced problems and delays in a great way.  Flights are cancelled earlier resulting in passengers being able to properly reschedule themselves.  Airlines are positioning their aircraft better to recover from delays as well.  Everything really got better.  Few airlines have actually been fined and certainly the industry hasn’t raised airfares because fines raised costs.  (Airfares have gone up, just not because of these fines.)

In fact, the fines are so rare that we’re surprised to hear about them when they do happen.  \

There remains many things that are bad or negative for the industry but the actual service experience for most customers today is vastly improved over what it was just a few years ago.  And largely because of the government getting involved and asking for change that resulted in a more humane, more appropriate approach on the part of the airlines.

Filed under: Airline Service by ajax