Earlier today, we were at JFK and spotted one of the new Port Authority’s new avatars. The avatars are a projected image of a woman onto a piece of glass, giving it a life sized…video recording that activates based on proximity. It’s interesting…for about five seconds. It’s a recording. And each of the prototypes cost…
Everything in this world changes. As time goes by, we discover that more and more business interactions are being automated. This is simply the way things are going. Talking to a human being is now a perk, a frill. In fact, to many people, it is a customer service failure if automation prevents them from…
In the airline industry, the passenger name record(PNR), is a single record in a computer reservation system that contains a single reservation for one or more passengers. The problem is that PNRs have no memory. They represent one trip. They do not represent the passenger’s relationship with the airline. For that, in the 80s, airlines…
[caption id="" align="alignright" width="150" caption="Image by Getty Images via @daylife"][/caption] Brad Hall “designs systems for improving workforce performance”. Brad Hall has a PhD industrial-organizational psychology. Brad Hall knows that U.S airlines have awful customer service. And Brad Hall knows why- unions. It is a foregone conclusion for Dr. Hall; one he is unwilling to let…
Earlier today, we opened up a blog entry by noted travel writer Christopher Elliott, titled “Airline tells hospitalized passenger people pretend to be sick all the time” [caption id="" align="alignright" width="150" caption="Image by Getty Images via @daylife"][/caption] This is a horrible thing for any business to suggest to its customers, airline or not. But people…
NBC New York has reported that a spokesperson for JetBlue has said that flipped out flight attendant Steven Slater is no longer with the airline, bringing an end, hopefully, to the Steven Slater saga. But that still leaves many flight attendants who wouldn’t do what he did, still frustrated in the sky.
Last week, we talked about a man who had written us over his dispute with Air France. You can find that story here. This week, he sent us a followup, so we thought we would revisit the issue. It included a letter from the manager of customer care for Air France-USA as well as our reader’s response.
The one hundred passengers who were on the JetBlue flight from Pittsburgh to JFK that was halted when their flight attendant slid the coop are receiving $100 vouchers for future travel from the airline.
It is very hard to write these sort of posts. When confronted with being called a Customer of Size, Kevin Smith complained. He was within his rights to do so, and anyone who feels wrongly singled out should.
We hate the debate over large customers, be they big, tall, or both. It never ends. And it invariably gets into an argument about the obesity issue in America. We’ve often said the only fair thing to do is size the seats to the statistically average American and accept that some people, many through no fault of their own, don’t fit the average. Airline seats, as we’ve mentioned before, are narrower than a standard office chair, for example.
The singer, who is Canadian, was flying to Colorado Springs, was forced to fly United again because they were the only carrier he could. For more than an hour on Sunday, he was told he could not leave the international baggage claim area at Denver International Airport, where he had flown from Saskatchewan, because his bag was delayed, not lost, and he had to claim it.
Yesterday, we were reading Chris Elliott’s Travel Troubleshooter blog. He posted excerpts from letters sent and received by a regular flier and US Airways. And we started contemplating the issue of how airlines might handle things when the airline and the passenger cannot see eye to eye.
Image by Jennifer Pickens via Flickr “Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun The frumious Bandersnatch!” In one of our earlier posts, we commented on the issues of customer service. Three years later, there are much to revisit. Why it is marketing departments…
Image via Wikipedia Spirit Airlines, the same airline whose CEO made the mistake of sending a private inconsiderate email back to a customer tried to charge customers a cancellation fee for surviving an airplane crash. Two passengers, Rob and Jeff Kolodjay were scheduled to fly out to Myrtle Beach for a golf trip. Their flights…
Our recent Customer Service Stories from other blogs netted this comment from Joanne. I arrived in Newark airport Sunday, April 17 at 6:45 from Paris to take a connecting flight on USAir from Newark to Rochester, NY. I had booked the ticket on Cheap Tickets back in December. When I and my 2 traveling companions…