Flying Friendly Skies Again?

Sometimes hard times can bring about good change. For a long time now service in many industries has been declining. Be it the guy bagging your groceries to the airline representative checking you in. It seems that people just don’t care as much about customer service as they used to. The old saying goes: “Good help is hard to find.” I think that it is more likely, “Good help is expensive to train and implement.”

That being said, there are others who recognize this as a way to retain the dwindling amount of passengers flying the skies today. Several major airports around the nation are making their focus a more friendly and helpful staff. Among these airports are LAX, JFK, Miami, and “America’s Friendliest Airport” Phoenix Sky Harbor. These airports will be offering training to employees that will stress the importance of offering more helpful, proactive service to passengers no matter your role at the airport.

The training will also me made available to non-airport employees as well such as the airline representatives, TSA personnel, retail and food service professionals.  The object being; a cohesive attitude and level of service across the board at these airports.

We look forward to seeing this implemented, for too long service has been so far gone that finding smiling helpful employees would be a welcome change. Especially if it comes at no extra charge. It’s too bad it took hard times to fall on the industry for this to come about but, good change is good change. Welcome back Friendly Skies . . . we hope.

www.CaptainNowhere.com

Tags: airline representative, America's Friendliest Airport, checking in, customer service, flying, Friendly Skies, Good help is hard to find, industry, JFK, LAX, major airports, Miami, passengers, Phoenix Sky Harbor, proactive service, professionals, training to employees, TSA

Ground Handling Companies VS Airline Employees

Airlines are using ground handling companies more and more these days over their own employees. I think this has a big part to play in poor customer service most receive today. First off, for those of you unfamiliar with what a ground handling company is, let me define it. They are a company that handles the ground operations for an airline. This can be ticket counter, gate, and ramp (baggage handlers, push back, etc.). Airlines contract out this work either fully or just in part. For example they may have the airline’s own employees working the counter and the gate but a ground handling company working the ramp.

When you have an airline’s own employees working the flights you see a big difference in the quality of service. Airline employees care more because they usually have benefits such as healthcare, flight benefits, and profit sharing. Sometimes they are paid better but not always. The biggest reason they provide better service is because there is a sense of ownership and identity. If you work for Delta, you are Delta. When an employee takes the companies identity as their own they work harder and care more about the image and service that is provided to you. The sense that the airline takes care of them is passed to the customers and they try a lot harder to take care of you.

Contract companies, by contrast are just working a job, usually for the lowest bid with little to no benefits. The airline or airlines they work for don’t care about them only that they provide service for the money paid. This means the airline only gets involved when things get bad. This creates and adversarial relationship. Employees don’t try to help out passengers any more than the bare minimums. They rather let a passenger go away unsatisfied as means to hurt the airline or don’t  care at all one way or the other. Ground handling companies usually have a lower standard for hiring employees as well.

I have seen where a whole station of airline employees with high service marks was let go and a ground handling company came in and took their jobs because they were slightly less expensive in a bid for the work. The airline employees had been mostly college grads and aviation students. The ground handling company that took over didn’t even require a high school diploma. The service dropped significantly to the point where that station was ranked the worst in the airline’s system. The cost saving for the low bid was gone due to delays and improper customer care.

What can we do? Complain about the poor customer service every time you fly to a customer service office of the airline itself. Nothing comes about through inaction. We have accepted the baggage fees and they remain. Don’t stand for poor service let the airlines know what you feel. Tell them you want their own employees working flights. Who would you rather was responsible for getting your flight safely off the ground? Employees who care and are held accountable or a contract company that just wants to get rid of you and the flight? The choice seems very clear.

www.captainnowhere.com

Tags: airline, customer service, employee, flight, fly, ground handling, saftey