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Tags: Airline Hell / JetAmerica / Flight Delays / Customer Service / Travel Gripes / → All Tags

Minister, Hopeful Lawyer and Others Forced to Pay More Thanks to JetAmerica

UPDATE: More new "grievances" have been filed below.

Last week when we broke the news that JetAmerica would be canceling its flights, less than 11 days before they were scheduled to take off, we asked readers who had booked a JetAmerica flight how this delay would affect them. And several of you wrote in to tell us just how inconvenient this all was.

We'll be posting some of the letters after the jump, but before we get into that we are thinking that JetAmerica's refund of the passengers' flights is not enough. Because flights typically tend to be more expensive when you book under 14 days before your desired departure date, we think JetAmerica should refund the passengers' difference in price for the new flight as well.

For example, if you paid...oh let's say...$89 for a flight on JetAmerica but because of the cancellation, you had to pay about $250 on another airline, JetAmerica should pay the $89 and the difference which would be $161. Just something JA should think about. Now onto the stories....

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Tags: HOWTO / Travel Tips / Customer Service / United Airlines / → All Tags

How to Receive Better Customer Service at the Airport

So we missed our LAX to O'Hare flight this morning. The details aren't really important. They involve the Hilton's long term self-park lot, a hotel shuttle, and the lax relationship that Italian tourists have to concepts like "not holding up a bus for 25 minutes by refusing to obey passenger limit restrictions."

Anyway, when United says that they won't let you check in if you're even 90 seconds late on their 45-minute cutoff, they mean that literally. Like we said, not really important.

What is important is that the well-known rule of customer service - "find the people who can say 'Yes'" - is as true inside airports as anywhere else.

We tried to check in, failed, and then waited in that understaffed line that airlines keep open for people who don't use kiosks. After a 40-minute wait, the United employee kindly informed us that she would be happy to put us on standby. Only problem: as of 6:30am all of United's flights, up through late afternoon, were already overbooked. Her best alternative: a $150 fee for a confirmed seat some time after 4pm, an option that would also preclude us from waiting standby on any of the earlier flights. Obviously we accepted the rolling standby and proceeded to mope our way through the metal detectors and into the terminal.

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Tags: Airline News / Airline Hell / Customer Service / → All Tags

Airlines Claim '08 A Banner Year For Customer Satisfaction: What Do You Think?

Are you better off than you were last year? According to an independent watchdog agency, customer satisfaction with airlines went up in 2008 for the first time in 5 years and rebounding after a survey-wide low in 2007.

Hawaiian finished on top (buoyed no doubt by an 80.1% on-time rate) and Atlantic Southeast brought up the rear in the annual Airline Quality Rating, an independent survey that tracks the number of customer complaints, on-time performance and rates of denied boarding and mishandled baggage. All 17 airlines improved on their quality scores from 2007. The biggest improver in terms of overall rating was US Airways, but it also had the highest rate of customer complaints; Southwest can crow about its mere .25 complaints per 100,000 passengers. JetBlue had the fewest denied boardings, while budget carrier AirTran lost the least luggage.

Frankly, we feel too numbed by bad service to really be able to tell whether last year was notably better on the road. But in terms of their quality ratings, the airlines still have an uphill battle as far as public perception. Wouldn't it be great if 2009 were the year that airlines took advantage of the downturn to re-invent themselves as truly customer-facing?

What do you think -- did you feel better flying in 2008 than before?

Related Stories:
· Airlines earn higher marks for quality in 2008 [AP via Yahoo!]
· Read It And Weep: AQR Reports [aqr.aero]
· Hotwire Booking Site Tops in Customer Satisfaction [HC]

[Photo: kevincrumbs]

Tags: American Airlines / Customer Service / Speculative Reservations / Lifetime Passes / First Class Travel / → All Tags

Should This Guy Get His Lifetime American Airlines Pass Back?

Umm... maybe?

In 1987, Steven Rothstein paid American Airlines nearly $250,000 to be able to fly first-class anywhere in the world for the rest of his life. Two years later, Rothstein paid American Airlines an additional $150,000 entitling him to take a companion along with him during his flights.

On Tuesday, Rothstein sued American Airlines for $7 million claiming the airliner illegally revoked his lifetime pass after the the airlines claimed he fraudulently used the flight passes, according to a lawsuit filed in Cook County Circuit Court Tuesday.

The passes were revoked in December 2008 because American Airlines claimed "Rothstein had a practice of making 'speculative reservations' for companions." The airliner deemed Rothstein was fraudulently using the passes, the suit said.

The $7 million figure comes from the adjusted cost of the original pass plus the cost of first class tickets for the rest of Rothstein's life.

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Tags: Airline Customer Service / Customer Service / United / → All Tags

How To Bitch: Complaining Successfully to Airlines in the No-Call Era

They'll never admit it, but recent evidence suggests that United Airlines is getting sick and tired of listening to customers bitch and moan about every damn thing. In one extreme case, a serially-disgruntled passenger was frozen out of his Mileage Plus Account for calling to complain more than 200 times in one year. Calling that many times certainly seems obnoxious to me, but come April, even your run-of-the-mill complainers are going to have a harder time finding a sympathetic ear. That's because United has announced plans to disconnect a phone line dedicated to fielding customer compliments and complaints.

According to an interesting column on msnbc.com, United says the move is designed to encourage customers to write letters or emails instead of using the phone, a tactic that they believe increases customer satisfaction. The cynics among us might think they're doing it for the cost savings, but since the move seems inevitable, now's a good time to hone our whining skills to get the most positive results.

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Tags: Airline News / United / Customer Service / → All Tags

United Will No Longer Listen to Your Phone Rants

United Airlines giveth, and they taketh away. Just when they stunned us all with the news that by the end of this year, 13 of their 757s will have in-flight wifi, United has returned to their trimming down by announcing that they are closing their complaints call center.

Although this will not affect the US-based phone reservations centers, the closure of the complaint hub in India means that perturbed passengers will have to resort to email or snail mail for venting. We're feeling some serious pity right now for those booking agents, who will no doubt have to deal with both complex reservations and distraught post-flight callers.

United explains that the move away from a telephone line is a result of "a lot of research," whereby customers had a higher rate of satisfaction with the outcome of written complaints versus those dealt with over the phone to India. We wouldn't trust sending an actual letter, but so long as our emails are met with an automatic response that assures us that action will be taken, we'll give them the benefit of the doubt. What has not been determined, however, is if long and ranty emails have any better chance of scoring you a full roundtrip credit.

Related Stories:
· United to Unplug Number for Complaints [Forbes]
· United Adding In-Flight Wifi to 13 Planes [Jaunted]
· United Airlines Coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: MoneyNing]

Tags: Spirit Airlines / Customer Service / Airline Hell / → All Tags

Airline Hell: Spirit Airlines and the Disappearing Reservation

An anonymous concerned Spirit Airlines customer (or is that ex-customer?) has written in to Jaunted to share his (her?) grievances after a recent booking gone horribly awry:

In pure frustration, I thought I would pass this info to you......I made a reservation for me and my family (a total of 7)......everything was fine, until I had to choose our seat assignment on the day I was told (90 days prior)....that went well.....Then I received an e mail from Spirit saying that the itinerary had changed, and to re-confirm the seat assignment, which I did.............then received another e mail a week later saying the itinerary had changed once again, and to re-confirm the seats.........THATS WHEN ALL HELL BROKE LOOSE.....

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Tags: Ben Baldanza / Spirit Airlines / Customer Service / → All Tags

Spirit Airlines CEO Learns The Dangers of 'Reply All'

Everyone who sends email for business oriented purposes has a "reply all" story. 'Reply All' has taken down many a good worker. However, Spirit Airlines CEO Ben Baldanza's story just might take the cake.

It all started when a dissatisfied first time Spirit Airlines customer wrote a long complaint to Spirit Airlines outlining a terrible experience on the airline. The customers biggest complaint? Throughout all the delays he endured Spirit was uninformative and downright rude to the couple:

On multiple occasions, we observed your employees talking rudely to customers and just in general, exhibiting extremely poor customer service skills. My husband and I have flown other discount air carriers before and have never had the kind of problems we experienced with Spirit.

While far more egregious transgressions have obviously occurred in the annals of airline customer service, what really caught our attention was Spirit Airlines unintended response:

Please respond, Pasquale, but we owe him nothing as far as I'm concerned. Let him tell the world how bad we are. He's never flown us before anyway and will be back when we save him a penny.

Wow. Turns out the customer must be right. That is a downright rude way to respond and shows extremely poor customer service skills. Even though this message was obviously meant to stay in-house, it is time for Baldanza to contact this customer and make things right. In his defense, maybe he was reeling from the fallout of the monkey-snuck-on-plane deal.

Related Stories:
· Spirit Air CEO Learns the Dangers of Hitting Reply All [Consumerist]