The Airline and Passenger Disconnect

[Hvr]

An interesting article from one of our favourite travel writers.

Should airline management be forced to pay full price for tickets?

Why are frequent flyer programs constantly changing? Before we get to the nitty-gritty of frequent flyer programs logic, consider the following scenarios: You pay full price business and first class tickets. After buying that ticket, you meticulously spend 15-minutes scouring through the...

www.traveldatadaily.com

The paragraph I've quoted and used as the thread title is IMHO the core issue.
The Airline and Passenger Disconnect

The disconnection between airline employees experience and the frequent flyer experience is so much, that many airline employees have no idea what premium passengers go through and experience at the airport or inflight.

This leads to a common occurrence — where the frequent flyers know ticketing rules, loyalty benefits and airline access policies better than the airline staff (whose job it is to know this stuff).

Basically our expectations are not congruent with the airlines. When sellers of a product don't really know what their best customers want then there is conflict.

 

[dajop]

Some truth in that. IMHO, one of the big demotivators around loyalty programs is the reduction or removal of aspirational rewards (such that award points required is proportional to fare), l particularly when coupled with spend based earning. When that is the case might as well just earn vouchers or go with % rebates or discounts ....

 

[Melburnian1]

Some truth in that. IMHO, one of the big demotivators around loyalty programs is the reduction or removal of aspirational rewards (such that award points required is proportional to fare), l particularly when coupled with spend based earning. When that is the case might as well just earn vouchers or go with % rebates or discounts ....

dajop, don't airlines know well that so many of us have an "obsession" with collecting airline FF points because we fantasise or "know" that redemption will lead to us being treated as Kings or Queens for eight, 12 or (ultra long haul) 17 hours (plus lounge time)?

Even when programs have the spend required to attain each flight reward rising, I doubt there's much hard evidence that the majority of Australian passengers switch to searching BFOD on alternative airlines that may be every bit as good (or better) than the airline with which one has accrued tens/hundreds of thousands of FF points.

We salivate at the thought of redemption. Not always logical, but hard to cut ties with emotionally.

 

[Mattg]

A very interesting and well-written article.

 

[ozfflyer]

airline employees that I know, fly subload(standby) & have to be very careful, what time of day & what day or travel, they try to get on a flight. Yes they get cheap fares, but have known some that have had to sit around all day & in one case, for 3 days overseas, waiting to get on a flight. One even told me, there were plenty of seats on a flight, but captain/airline put on more freight instead & as flight was weight restricted, flight went out with many empty seats.

 

[trippin_the_rift]

airline employees that I know, fly subload(standby) & have to be very careful, what time of day & what day or travel, they try to get on a flight. Yes they get cheap fares, but have known some that have had to sit around all day & in one case, for 3 days overseas, waiting to get on a flight. One even told me, there were plenty of seats on a flight, but captain/airline put on more freight instead & as flight was weight restricted, flight went out with many empty seats.

Staff waiting 3 days on standby further proves they are disconnected from the passenger experience.

 

[jb747]

airline employees that I know, fly subload(standby) & have to be very careful, what time of day & what day or travel, they try to get on a flight. Yes they get cheap fares, but have known some that have had to sit around all day & in one case, for 3 days overseas, waiting to get on a flight.

It’s not so much that airlines are disconnected from their passengers, but rather there are many disconnects, some intentional, right through an airline.

Upper management are disconnected from all staff. Office staff are disconnected from the airline (i.e. those that actually make the machines work). Management, at all levels, rarely has any actual interaction with staff at any level. This simply filters down.

One even told me, there were plenty of seats on a flight, but captain/airline put on more freight instead & as flight was weight restricted, flight went out with many empty seats.

I always told the check in staff that no staff were to be onloaded ex LA. Not for more freight, but so that I could carry more fuel. It’s all well and good to get the staff on (or freight for that matter) but if that forces a diversion, then it’s not a good call. Once the fuel load was decided, then I’d look at allowing some extra passengers. Staff travel is so reliable that I’ve walked away from my long service trips. It’s so much easier to be a ‘real’ passenger.

 

[suze2000]

I have a friend who's a QF pilot and was upset because they had to travel Y for staff travel one day.

And then we wonder why the Y seats get smaller and smaller - the staff are all travelling J!

AJ and the like should all have to travel in the Y product they expect us to endure.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

I have a friend who's a QF pilot and was upset because they had to travel Y for staff travel one day.

And then we wonder why the Y seats get smaller and smaller - the staff are all travelling J!

AJ and the like should all have to travel in the Y product they expect us to endure.

you could say the same about the business class product. I bet you no aviation ececutive sat in those old angled business class seats for anything more than 10 minutes.

But aside from domestic travel, that's why we have competition.

JAL flies out of MEL and SYD with beautiful cabins - heaps of legroom, an economy class that's comparable to QF's premium economy.

Cathay, Singapore and Garuda fly full flats to their hubs in business while Qantas is flying 737s and A330s with angled 2-2-2 seating.

Yet passengers choose to fly Qantas and won't budge.

you can lead a horse to water...

 

[dajop]

AJ and the like should all have to travel in the Y product they expect us to endure.

Be careful what you wish for. He’s not the tallest man out there and he well could take a different perspective .... this isn’t bad we could lose an inch of legroom here and maybe fit another seat in across the plane without too much impact

 

[suze2000]

Okay, then, they should have to sit in the middle seat of row 20 between two rugby players.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Okay, then, they should have to sit in the middle seat of row 20 between two rugby players.

touche!!

 

[eastwest101]

Okay, then, they should have to sit in the middle seat of row 20 between two rugby players.

... in a 9 abreast B787 on a nice long flight to the US or Europe.

 

[tdimdad]

Okay, then, they should have to sit in the middle seat of row 20 between two rugby players.

Please also add the small kids behind kicking the seat and the maximum recliners in the row front. Project Sunrise return flight, flight review provided by AJ...