When was the last time you enjoyed an airplane flight? Flying is one time when as a customer the more you consume, the less happy you become. I don’t know anyone flying commercial U.S. airlines that enjoys the experience. It’s amazing, ever since deregulation annual customer surveys point to unhappy customers – and every year satisfaction declines further.
The Locked-in airlines will tell us that customers can’t expect service and low price. And customers keep picking price. That’s not true. Customers really don’t have much choice. Airlines have Locked-in on their Success Formulas, and they pay more attention to their money-losing direct competitors than they listen to customers. When everyone (Southwest accepted) gives lousy service, can’t be on time and loses bags– and they control 90% of the gates across America — it’s not like the customer has much choice. So they blame the customers for being unhappy. Give us a break!
The Chicago Tribune ran front page articles today on just how badly the airlines are performing – looking at plane crowding, delays, lost baggage and customer complaints (see articles here and here). So what are the airlines doing about the situation? Are they creating White Space to try new solutions? Unfortunately, no. Their answer is to do More, Better, Faster and Cheaper operation of an airline system that is cracking all over the place, and producing horrid results. How will we get better service, after 3 decades of decline, by doing more of the same?
The first action the airlines promise is MORE flights. How will that improve the situation when the system is already overcapacity, causing computer breakdowns at the airlines and in the FAA? More flights have never solved the problem.
United reacted by hiring a Walt Disney executive pledging to help the airline be BETTER at customer service. Sorry, but the airlines aren’t amusement parks, and customers are trying to get from A to B on time and with their bags. The solution isn’t about trotting out Mickey Mouse to put a smile on someone’s face when they are 6 hours late, tired of the uncomfortable airport seating, and out of money for the overpriced airport food and lodging. Trying to apply a veneer of happiness on top of a broken Success Formula producing lousy results will only make investors and customers more angry.
The airlines are asking for a change in work rules so they can try to move the airplanes FASTER. When the gates are sold out, and the system is working so close to capacity that even high wind can cause 2 hour back-ups at major airports as ripples flow the system, changing the job description for a baggage handler or gate agent isn’t going to solve the problem.
And, of course, the airlines never tire of talking about ways to cut costs so they can be CHEAPER. They never grow weary of hammering on their employees (often unionized) that they have to take pay cuts – when many no longer even earn a living wage (especially in the major cities where airlines hub.) Haven’t the airlines heard customers? Prices are already low. Lower prices don’t matter when you can’t get where you want to be on time and with your bags!
More, Better, Faster, Cheaper are the 4 words of Defend & Extend managers who have no idea how to do anything other than maintain Lock-in to a broken Success Formula. And in this case vendors (except for the airplane manufacturers), employees, investors and customers are all bearing the brunt of an industry that is more interested in Defending & Extending what doesn’t work than in creating some White Space to develop a new solution.