Profile: cochranels
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What's Happening Now
July 20, 2010 11:48 am
Thank you for your comment cochranels. You raise a good point about disclosure, many of the proposed rule changes would require additional mechanisms for disclosure of new information to consumers. How do you think this can best be done. Should airlines be required to display information about flight/fare changes only on their website? Should third party ticket sellers also be required to disclose new information to consumers?
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TELL THE TRUTH immediately, boys, and treat passengers like valued human beings. That’s it.
Southwest does it, and they have the most loyal passengers in the industry. It CAN be done, if you have the will to do it. The price SW shows online is the REAL price, not a teaser fare that shoots up rapidly when the taxes, fees, surcharges, etc. are added. SW does not charge me nuisance fees (baggage, changing a reservation, one-way flights, etc.). If they can do it, so can the rest of you. I just wish BWI were closer to the Northern VA location I frequent, so I could use SW all the time.
I fly at least once every week, usually between Columbus, OH and the DC area. During the past year the Sunday night delays on USAir (DCA-CMH), United (IAD-CMH), and even SW (BWI-CMH) in that order have… more »
One brief example will illustrate. On Sunday, June 13 I was scheduled on US3234 DCA-CMH at 4:55 pm. When I arrived at the gate the plane and crew were there. Good start, eh? At about 10 min. before boarding time the gate agent said they’d made a minor repair to the plane, but the paperwork had not arrived from BRAZIL! “We’ll know more in 30 minutes.” This went on until after 7 pm, at which time I re-booked for the next morning and went home. The plane did eventually fly, 3 hours late, but meanwhile I’ve wasted 5 hours sitting at an overheated, overcrowded, hopelessly noisy National Airport because USAir can’t get paperwork faxed from BRAZIL. Why did it have to come from Brazil? Why don’t they have back up plans/management solutions for such routine problems. They are bound to occur. Plan for it and head off these problems.
During last winter’s blizzards in the East, SW was the only airline that told the truth and notified us many hours in advance that flights were cancelled. United and USAir constantly insisted the flights were going, when in fact they were not.
If the carriers want the privilege of using our air space and our public airports (supported with tax-payer subsidies), they should be held to this standard. TELL THE TRUTH AS SOON AS YOU KNOW IT, and fix the problem promptly if it’s anything other than severe weather that is truly beyond your control. PERIOD. Why wait 30 minutes unnecessarily? « less