[Anonymous]

[AMcWhirter]

Interesting piece in the New York Times about the decline in service standards now being witnessed for US domestic air travel.

The advent of ancillary fees means: “The aviation experience is being chopped these days into a series of discrete moments and each moment becomes an opportunity to upsell: You can stick with the dismal base model or you can upgrade. The result is that American air travel has become a class system as intricate as some in the ancient world.”

I fear the US experience will arrive in Europe in the years ahead.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/24/world/americas/air-travel-is-not-what-it-used-to-be.html

[canucklad]

Morning Alex…

You would think United would learn their lesson…

See below, and more importantly see the hits + take into account we now use United as a case study on how not to treat customers…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo

And on the back of 1 particular training session, a family of six after considering UA chose KL instead for their Mickey Mouse trip !

[SimonS1]

http://www.untied.com

Always a good read.

[alanorton]

Has the experience in the US not already arrived in Europe when you look at recent introductions by KLM, BA out of LGW etc…
Plus European stalwarts like Ryanair and Easyjet pioneered ancillary charges in aviation.

IMHO it wasn’t all that long ago that US carriers jumped on this bandwagon, but now they are on it they’re pushing and pushing at it.

And I suspect these carriers make quite a bit of money off of it, which will please their shareholders, which likely means its here to stay.

I have the dubious pleasure to fly a fair amount domestically in the US. If you give an airline a degree of loyalty, you can avail of many of the ancillary items free of charge and simply decline the more ludicrous ones.

The whole experience of travelling in the US (if you get to fly plenty elsewhere) is not great. However, it doesn’t take long to figure out how to make the best of it, and if you’ve got to fly, best to approach it as glass half full rather than half empty.

In terms of customer service, I can only speak in my own experience, but when I’ve ever needed anything from UA (change fees waived, refund on non refundable ticket, getting free economy plus for 3 family members rather than the 1 I’m entitled to), I try and speak as nice as possible to them, treat the other person as a human, and often they can be more than helpful.

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