It’s been a particularly frustrating summer at the airport. The NY Times called it “a summer marked by widespread flight cancellations and delays, and the most crowded planes in the history of jet travel.” Flights were so overbooked and the aging air-traffic control system so overburdened that when severe weather hit it was like tipping the first domino in a nice orderly row. But, as a business traveler, you probably knew that already.
Thankfully, there is some evidence that all those angry exchanges with deeply unhappy airline representatives at the service desk are beginning to pay off. The Wall Street Journal reports that airlines are actually changing their ways:
Some say they will now hold back empty seats at peak travel periods, starting at Thanksgiving, to be able to more quickly re-accommodate travelers who miss connections and get stranded. Several carriers are stretching out schedules, adding minutes to scheduled time between flights. More spare aircraft will be available next summer, airlines say. New technology at a few airlines will help rebook customers more quickly and less painfully.
That’s great news for business travelers, but is it good news for the airlines’ bottom line?
The changes will drive costs higher for airlines. But they reflect a new reality: Late flights, stranded travelers, misconnected luggage and angry customers all have a price, too. And congestion in the skies is likely only to get worse.
The airlines’ new strategy boils down to a shift from a short-term fixation on maximizing profit by shaving off every minute and filling every seat, to one more focused on the long-term goal of customer satisfaction and retention as well as good business practices to deal with increasingly crowded skies. Let’s hope this new strategy works for the airlines so that it can start to work for business travelers too.
(Image of airport by furryface, CC 2.0)
