I am officially throwing the bullshit flag on the airlines. In my line of work I travel a lot, and I can tell you right now, in almost any other business, if the customers were treated the way that the airlines treat them, there would be no business.
When someone books a flight, and flying is not cheap, I can assure you that the airlines charge your credit card within seconds. You PAID for that ticket immediately. And you would think that since you paid for said ticket, you would be guaranteed a seat on the plane. But that is not the case. I am sure that you have seen footage on-line of passengers being pulled off of flights by security, or members of families being asked to leave the flight but the rest of their family can remain if they so choose.
Why is this possible? It’s possible because airlines can overbook flights by a certain percentage to make sure that the flights are full despite cancellations. I get it, flying a jet costs a lot of money and the airlines need to stay profitable to stay in business, BUT when this practice blows up in their face, they need to handle these situations much better. After all, who is the customer? Who paid for a ticket that they now are being told is irrelevant?
During the process of taking care of the jaded customer, the airlines should do everything in their power to make things right. Hotels, meals, free airfare, etc. The recent incident with the man they pulled off the flight and broke his teeth and his nose in the process, is a perfect example. EVERYTHING we do is being recorded these days, so it is absolutely mind boggling that this stuff happens, but I digress. When that video hit the internet, the airline went from shelling out a couple a thousand dollars to get someone to come off that flight voluntarily and HAPPILY, to a company that asked that gentleman what size check he would like?
If you recall, immediately after the incident, the man’s lawyer and daughter went on TV and lambasted the airline in question, and a few days later they were on TV saying how wonderfully the airline handled the unfortunate situation. Let me translate, “They wrote us a big ass check! I mean BIG!” Sound like they were a penny smart and a pound foolish to me.
So airlines, here is my message to you. If you are going to play the overbooking game, when you lose, make it an opportunity to shine and make some customer very happy with a free ticket anywhere in the USA or something similar. And train your employees specifically for this type of situation, because they are the face of your company and they are being recorded. If you don’t take heed to what your customers are trying to tell you, I see some more big checks being issued in the near future.
By the way, for the 99% of the flight attendants that I have met and have taken extremely good care of me, I salute you and thank you from the bottom of my heart!
Keep putting one foot in front of the other. PEACE! Joe the Runner
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