[jimworcs]

Hi Airhead,
I think I have become cynical. I have been a fairly frequent traveller over the last 25 years, and the decline in service standards has been dramatic. I know that as the airlines have cut staff and costs and reduced the ability of their agents to use their discretion, the whole travel experience has become fraught and stressful for both staff and passengers. However, in the last 5 years, I have experienced more hostility, rudeness and a lack of care for the passenger than I experienced in the whole of the previous 20 years. I enjoyed travelling and accepted delays and problems as part of the experience, because on the whole I found staff willing and able to assist when problems arose.

Today, you find that many of the ground staff, in Europe at least, don't even work the for airline and when problems arise often disappear and actively seek to avoid their passengers. Airlines in both the US and Europe seek to do the very minimum statutarily required and frankly are at times dishonest in their dealings with customers. Ryanair in Europe for example deceives their passengers about the causes of delays and often loses in court, but I suspect they think the number of people who will go to the trouble of suing is much lower than the cost of compensating a whole flight in accordance with the law.

After the horror of 9/11 the whole travel experience became even more difficult; for staff and passengers. But there has been a hardening of the attitude of many staff towards passengers, and frankly staff sometimes hide behind the "security" excuse to be rude to customers.

I do appreciate your point about constructive criticism, but to be honest I think this is not the purpose of this website. I believe that it is useful to have a website where people are able to vent, in technicolour if necessary, their feelings and experiences when flying. This should be the raw, visceral feelings and frustrations. It is then the job of the airlines to consider why their customers feel this way. Let me give you an example: the two largest lo-cost airlines in Europe are Ryanair and Easyjet. The cost of their flights and their route networks are largely comparible. If however you go on the Skytrax website and look at their customer reviews you will see a dramatic difference between the airlines... ryanair is universally slammed and the customers report their visceral, raw emotions at their sense of abandonment and the hostility and contempt with which they are treated. Easyjet has it's fair share of problems, but as a company the culture of the airline and staff is much more akin to Southwest.. at least an effort to be customer focussed whilst keeping costs down. It is not for me, as a passenger, to tell airlines how to conduct their business.. but rather for airlines to hear directly what customers think and to act on it within the context of their own business model. If that makes me cynical, I plead guilty.

One last thing... no matter how stressed the situation becomes, it is important to remember there is a big difference between the passenger and the employee. The passenger has paid money out to be in the situation and the employee is being paid money to deal with the situation. That is psychologically a big difference and the positions are not equal. I have many times experienced a situation in which on employee of an airline has either a) lied to me or b) told me something is not possible when seeking a small service (such as this lady in asking for an aisle seat). Later, another employee has then been able to do the exact same thing the earlier employee had told me was impossible. This type of inconsistency is endemic in the industry and the lack of any real regulation means that airlines can get away with this conduct. On many routes, the airline is effectively a monopoly. So here is my constructive suggestion: In the US, write to your congressman and demand that the airlines be regulated. In the UK, write to your MP or the MEP. I cannot think of anything else that will make an impact, because there is so little difference between the airlines and so little choice.