Just returned, mercifully, from the road trip to hell & back. Air travel isn't what it once was. My itinerary said I was to fly out Sunday night for a meeting in Oklahoma City on Monday, then to upstate New York for a two day seminar on Wednesday & Thursday, arriving home again Friday evening. Sunday night started out fine. Except that I made my connection in Denver, and my checked bag didn't. After that the trip degenerated into sequence of increasingly frustrating horrors. A delayed departure Monday evening segued to a canceled flight, which segued to an over night stay in a grungy motel near the airport. And still no checked bag. Was a time not too long ago when the airline would put you up in a hotel and provide you with a meal voucher when they stranded you over night. No more. The hotel room and dinner were on my dime. The alternative would have been to spend the night in the airport waiting area.

The airline had me on standby for the early Tuesday morning edition of the evening fight that had been canceled Monday. Of course, the morning flight was full, and left without me. Will Rogers World Airport is not exactly a hub. Not even busy. So my options were pretty limited. I could either wait till late evening and take the Tuesday edition of my flight that was canceled the day before, or I could hop a mid day commuter flight down to Dallas, where my connection options were an order of magnitude broader. Time was getting tight with respect to making my seminar, and I was way past the refund on cancellation point. And still, my checked bag hadn't arrived.

While I awaited the commuter flight, the airline agent, a woman who looked to be in her late thirties, took the information on the hotel I'd be staying at for my seminar. She promised my bag would be forwarded when it turned up. Her demeanor was something I'd seen more frequently over the past decade or so, as domestic air carriers absorbed one financial hit after another, and quality of service suffered. In contrast to earlier times, where airline personnel were energetic, and treated all passengers like valued customers, what I experience now brings to mind a pair of train rides I took long ago.

In the mid 1950s, my family took a cross country train trip. The train was sleek, clean and beautiful. Service was great. Conductors, porters and the dining car waiters (who served us on china and silver place settings atop linen table cloths) all went out of their way to cater to passengers. We were treated like valued customers. And the trains were always on schedule.

Again, in the early 1970s, our family took the same cross country rail trip. This was just before Amtrak assumed operation of passenger rail service in the U.S. For years prior, the private sector railroad operators had experienced increasing losses on passenger service as they lost ridership to air carriers. The differences between the first and second rail journeys was stunning. There was no sleeper car. There was no formal dining car. We rode in shabby, dirty passenger cars, and dined at a long Formica counter eating cold sandwiches from a vending machine. The train was always late due to freight taking precedence over passenger trains. The few harried conductors and porters were neither friendly nor helpful.

What I saw in the demeanor of railroad folks back then is the same thing I recognize in the demeanor of many airline agents now: they’re demoralized. What would a person do if the outfit they bet their career on was possibly folding, and they had no future there? Delivering good customer service, and energetically resolving passenger problems is just a matter of course when there’s an obvious direct connection to a regular pay check. But when losses mount, staff is cut (you may be next), and the organization becomes unable to execute effectively, the volume of problems become insurmountable. Demoralization sets in. Service goes to crap.

Meanwhile, back in Dallas, I got on to an afternoon flight that would take me, by way of Chicago, where I needed to be. And with time to spare. Things were looking up. I even had the optimism to imagine my wayward bag waiting for me at my hotel.

After the brief stop at O’Hare, things went back into the toilet. We were in line to take off when the pilot announced we were returning to the terminal due to a mechanical problem with the aircraft. After we deplaned, we were informed that a replacement part for the plane would arrive on the next flight in from DFW, and to expect a 90 minute departure delay. At least I’d arrive at my destination in time for a shower and a few hours sleep.

Almost three hours passed, with no further announcements, and no apparent activity around the aircraft. The plane was fully visible through the floor to ceiling waiting area windows. A group of visibly agitated passengers had clustered around the unattended ticket counter. I wandered over.

An agent finally showed up, and the crowd pounced on her. A deluge of questions flew. When do we leave? What about my connecting flight? What the hell’s up with you idiots? And worse. The agent said she’d check with her manager, and bid a hasty retreat. I got on my cell to try to rain check on my seminar, rather than just eat the tuition. Then a call to my travel agent to book a flight home. While on the phone, I watched a tow vehicle hook up to our aircraft and take it away. An overhead announcement, not from the nearby ticket counter, informed us that our departure was delayed for an additional four hours. The reaction of the waiting passengers was a collective “GOD DAMMIT!!”

At 3:40 AM Wednesday, I boarded a flight for home, on another airline, by way of Salt Lake City. At a little before 8:00 I crawled, exhausted, into my car for the three hour drive home. Still, no carry on bag. It was probably either behind the desk at a Holiday Inn in Elmira, or sitting on a tuck in Denver. I didn’t care.

I empathize with airline employees trying to make the best of a bummer situation, just as I empathized with Santa Fe and Union Pacific employees almost 40 years ago. Amtrak is no panacea, but it has survived, and in some markets, provides very good service. But what can replace the airlines? The present state of affairs certainly can’t be sustained. I for one am looking into products that provide the capability for virtual meetings over the internet. I’m in no hurry to travel by air again any time soon. Maybe Star Trek style transporter technology will make the airlines obsolete just as the airlines did long distance rail travel. Maybe, but not right away. I’ll consider that, and Jeff Goldblum’s remake of “The Fly”.

The airline industry has not yet realized that their model of inexpensive air travel of the masses is over. It’s time to return to the glory days of air travel when the wealthy flew.

We could build a good ground travel system of trains and buses. In fact, we need to do that. There is not need to fly only four or five hundred miles. Those of us who want to fly will simply have to save our pennies and fly when can afford to fly--probably for some of us,not often.

Even long before the current fuel crisis, I experienced poor service as long ago as 1999. But I live in Baton Rouge, a city that barely provided air service.

The airlines still waste money. Look at the billions that American pays its 900 exectives while it rips off pilots and other employees.

What we need to do is rethink transportation. We will rethink it if the price of fuel remains high. I don't know what the best means of transporting people are. If my income were what is was three years ago, I would still be able to fly even now. In Baton Rouge, we now have small regional jets that take us to hubs. We no longer have the old jets that the airlines once flew here. Frontier Airlines tried to introduce low cost service to our city. It could not afford to provide the service.

We took many flights that we don't need to take. We wasted a lot of time on the ground and in the air. We flew too fast and wasted fuel.

What place does improved ground travel play or might play. I can fly to Atlanta in less than fifty minutes but the flights are always longer. I can fly from Atlanta to New York in two hours but the flights always takes much longer when I include time waiting for the flight and time involved in layovers when I have to fly from Baton Rouge through Atlanta to New York. I can drive to Atlanta is in nine or ten hours. I cannot drive to New York in less than two days. There is a difference in how one thinks about travel to different places.

I am glad to see the airlines retire many old planes. Some of them were not efficient and were never efficient. I don’t know what we need to do but the cost of fuel might make us consider comparing costs of various forms of transportation.

I have read that the world use of petroleum is 85 million barrels a day. The United States uses 21 million barrels a day and produced seven million of those barrels, about eight percent of total production. What is our potential to increase our production? I don’t know.

The drive for super low cost fares might be over. That is not necessarily bad.

Capitalism cannot solve the coming problems of the world!

Capitalism is unable to respond to global warming except in a token way.

In France and Japan they built super fast trains through the state railway system and those two countries have the best public transport system in the world.

I cannot imagine the U.S.A. investing in public transport on the same comparative scale. The current mindset of the U.S. congress is incapable of taking that in, as it would mean having governmental regulation over the airlines.

The same is true of the current credit crises, can you imagine re-regulation of the banks even with a President Obahma

The net result of an AmAir would be what Amtrak has given us, limited service to a few major cities and those places that just happen to be along the line between two other points. A return to an expanded rail service would be great but the major railroads will and do oppose it. The only reason passenger service was abandoned was that it did not generate the profit that freight produced. Today no carrier is forced to give more than 30% of their track rights to moving people as opposed to goods. I have an Official Rail Guide from 1948, the zenith of post-war passenger service and I can warm my hands over the names of the trains alone. Beyond that practically everyone could get there from wherever. We could have had decent rail service today and better air service save that "in our best interests" these industries were virtually allowed to regulate themselves. Railroads were particularly egregious in their fight to abandon passenger service. They would so deeply cut the quality and frequency on a particular route that when they applied to the Federal Trade Commission and the Interstate Commerce Commission for a right of abandonment, they could easily show practically no riders and deep financial losses. Beyond those two problems, we've constructed a highway system that hasn't been properly serviced and is crumbling. Before any more tracks are abandoned and airlines are allowed to price themselves out of business it will be necessary to decide how to apportion commercial transport. In many countries there are levels of bus service that go from the luxurious to the horrible, but, if nothing else, they provide a method of getting about and they use existent facilities. Ultimately the railroads are going to have to provide more passenger service with or without Amtrak. Not everyone has access to an airport and the costs associated with driving for more than short distances are becoming prohibitive.

Find out what trackage exists near you, where it goes and which carrier controls it. Then write your congressional representatives and ask that they review the situation of the areas they serve and make some sort of necessary plans for the very short future. It has been my experience that a hand written letter inspires awe to an elected official. In its' own way it's better than a petition or a form you can sign and electronically forward. Your own hand writing suggests an urgency and a motivation that little else can. Remember the pen being mightier than the sword? Pick up yours and use it.

Think about this - when was the last time you went anywhere and actually got good SERVICE? From airlines right down to the gas station, service is definitely a thing of the past. It's all about profit now.

I recently switched where I buy my gas and smokes, etc., and it's because of one thing - service. The station is owned by a family from India, which didn't go over very well here in Redneck Central. As I've said before, most of the hillbillies around here can't tell an India from an Asian from an Arab. They're all "ragheads" or "sand-n*ggers". Hateful, yes, but that's the attitude. A lot of people won't stop there anymore. I do, because the staff is soft-spoken, polite, and they stock what I want. Their gas prices also run about 10 cents/gallon less than anywhere in town. I can get service there when I can't at the other stations.

Back to airlines, I've only flown once. I will be forced to do so again this summer for the MOM. If gas were $2/gallon, I would drive. I hated flying THAT much. Poor Fraj had a worse time of it than I did, too. I only had to threaten the life of ONE employee, though, to resolve my problem!

I agree, what we need are better bus lines and trains. In fact, a train service that caters to the smokers, drinkers, and "Hooters crowd" would be nice. We could set up a BBQ car and cook steaks and all get loaded on Lite beer and fine red wine from California! And would it really be all that hard to build a hybrid engine that isn't 100% dependent on diesel fuel?

(Yes, I do have enough testosterone in my system to appreciate grilling and beer, still!)

Jesus has invited me, several times, to come to his side of the country and bring 'my' 10 year old with me. However, given my experience with airlines and the horror stories I hear from others, there's no chance of that.

The main problem, however, is how to bring back the service. I don't really know how we could go about doing that.

Paolo wrote: Sun Jun 22, 2008 6:58 am Think about this - when was the last time you went anywhere and actually got good SERVICE? From airlines right down to the gas station, service is definitely a thing of the past. It's all about profit now.

I recently switched where I buy my gas and smokes, etc., and it's because of one thing - service. The station is owned by a family from India, which didn't go over very well here in Redneck Central. As I've said before, most of the hillbillies around here can't tell an India from an Asian from an Arab. They're all "ragheads" or "sand-n*ggers". Hateful, yes, but that's the attitude. A lot of people won't stop there anymore. I do, because the staff is soft-spoken, polite, and they stock what I want. Their gas prices also run about 10 cents/gallon less than anywhere in town. I can get service there when I can't at the other stations.

Back to airlines, I've only flown once. I will be forced to do so again this summer for the MOM. If gas were $2/gallon, I would drive. I hated flying THAT much. Poor Fraj had a worse time of it than I did, too. I only had to threaten the life of ONE employee, though, to resolve my problem!

I agree, what we need are better bus lines and trains. In fact, a train service that caters to the smokers, drinkers, and "Hooters crowd" would be nice. We could set up a BBQ car and cook steaks and all get loaded on Lite beer and fine red wine from California! And would it really be all that hard to build a hybrid engine that isn't 100% dependent on diesel fuel?

(Yes, I do have enough testosterone in my system to appreciate grilling and beer, still!)

Jesus has invited me, several times, to come to his side of the country and bring 'my' 10 year old with me. However, given my experience with airlines and the horror stories I hear from others, there's no chance of that.

The main problem, however, is how to bring back the service. I don't really know how we could go about doing that.

Well,

We could electrify the railroads again and throw out the FUCKING railroad union. :-\

...but don't hold your breath on that one.

Actually, I don't really know who was the worst... the POMPOUS, ARROGANT ASSHOLES who were in railroad management, or the union bosses who made their BIG money from kickbacks from law firms that made thir money suing the railroads for workers allegedly injured on the job.

...to make a long story short, don't expect much out of a railroad if they are the same today as they were in the 1980's...

...you'd be in for a BIG dissappointment...

There was once a time when business, even big business, knew the meaning of quality customer service. But like Paolo said, today it is only about profit. You are only money to them. The goal is to provide the least amount of service for the most amount of money.

They honestly don't care if you are unhappy with what you get and decide to take your business elsewhere because one person doing so makes no difference whatsoever in their overall profits.

Part of the problem is the typical American consumer today. We no longer care about quality service ourselves. Our goal is to spend the least amount of money, and we will take our business to where we get poor service as long as it saves us a few bucks. Business knows we have that attitude, and they take every advantage from it that they can.

I've been saying for some time now that the government will eventually have to take over air travel if it is going to stay in operation. Now, the passenger railroad went out of business because something supposedly bigger and better, air travel, came along. But the airlines will not go out of business because something bigger and better comes along. They will go out of business because no one will be able to afford the prices they will have to charge to turn a profit.

I paid $600 for domestic airfare to get to this year's MoM, which I think is ridiculous. I've done some research, and even the cheap tickets (early morning/late night hours, many connections, etc.) are hard to come by for under $500 now. A ticket on my flight now goes for $800.

This oil problem is going to hurt just about everything, but the airlines will be hit especially hard, and if no one can afford to fly anymore, that will be the end of them unless the government steps in. I find that Amtrak's service is definitely not among the best (at least the commuter trains - I haven't taken Amtrak long distance in many years), and I don't see any reason to believe the service AmAir would provide will be any better. But I know we will accept it if it gets us where we want to go and saves us a few bucks.

I wanted to take the train to the MoM, or even the bus, just to have that experience that I think so many people have forgotten. But I was told by everyone on this site that those methods of travel would take "too long," and that I had better not do it. So I gave in and spent $600 on airfare. Both train and bus would have been cheaper.

And so arises another problem, that of how hustle and bustle American society is today. We have become incredibly impatient, and sacrificed so many important experiences in the process I think. This is mostly how the plane killed the train. When a quicker form of travel came out, we abandoned the cross-country train trip experience complete with all of that top-notch service you used to get in exchange for getting to our destination faster. We seemed to care nothing about the experience you get traveling across country by train, but only about saving money and getting there faster. Who knows what else we are missing out on by living our lives so fast paced now?

The only way to get customer service back is stop using that product, the message will be loud and clear. ie don't fly, take the train which is a wonderful experience with great food.

River

I would like to apologize for the awful experience you had. I work for a major airline, and regardless of what's going on with the company you work for, there is never an acceptable excuse for providing your customers with bad service. It is unfortunate, however, that not everyone feels this way. Personally, I do whatever I can to help out my passengers. Unfortunately, due to the rules we are restricted by, sometimes there's not much we can do.

I don't know why your original flight was delayed, but the circumstances determine whether or not the airline will pay for your hotel/meals. If the flight delays or cancels due to an uncontrollable circumstance, such as Weather, No. We will not pay for a hotel or meals. However, should the aircraft be broken, or if we had a crew member show up late, or what have you, and we cannot transport you to your final destination same day, then yes we would offer at least hotel accomodations.

I understand that customer service in the airline industry is on a downward spiral, and fast. A big part of that isn't that we aren't treated well as employees, but that the selection of potential employees really sucks. In the past three months, we have hired seven people. Of those, we have one left. It really irritates me how people lack work ethic and the general common sense ideal to treat others the way you'd like to be treated. It's just so hard to find quality customer service employees. It bothers me, because I do work hard, and I do care about what happens to people, and it makes me look bad when others don't.

Anyway, I'll not harp on.. Just know that there are those of us who do care. We too have been in your shoes.