Airlines are trying to be nicer
Travelers say they’ve noticed a difference.
On a recent flight from Los Angeles to Newark, Caleb Ellis saw something striking: a flight attendant being nice to a passenger. Really nice.
As the American Airlines flight boarded, he noticed a mother and her disabled son who was “not in the most hygienic” state, recalls Ellis, who works for an organic beauty products company in Farmingdale, N.J. “Their would-be seat partner acted highly insensitively, loudly and harshly insisting on a seat change.”
The flight attendant calmly ushered the offended traveler into another empty seat. Then she sat down next to mother and son, who were visibly upset by the episode.
“She told them she would love to sit with them all flight long if she could and that they were wonderful companions to fly with,” he says. “This small act of kindness preserved the feelings and dignity of two passengers who were clearly undeserving of embarrassment.”
Airlines are not exactly known for terrific customer service. In 2017, the industry scored a collective 75 out of a possible 100, a gentleman’s “C,” according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index. That’s up a few points from 2016 but hardly something to brag about.
So airlines are trying something new: They’re being nice.
In the past few weeks, the number of positive anecdotes I’ve received from passengers has mushroomed — evidence that behind the scenes, airlines are urging their employees to be more friendly, accommodating and to go the extra mile. Now, that may sound easy, but consider that if an airline is too nice and waives too many rules, it loses important revenue.
When Fred Ackerman boarded a recent flight from Buenos Aires to Miami, a gate agent took one look at him and shook his head.
“I’m 6-7,” explains Ackerman, who owns an adventure travel company in San Leandro, Calif. “I fit in an economy seat, and that’s what my budget is, so that’s what I buy when I travel.” But the kind airline employee said, “We need to get you a different seat.” And he sent him packing — to a premium exit row seat. “It really helped make that red-eye flight much better and certainly exceeded expectations,” he said.
Daniel Oppliger, a travel agency owner from Surprise, Ariz., was stunned when he asked a ticket agent to help him when, flying from Phoenix to Santiago, he missed a connection in Dallas because of a flight delay. He wanted to know if the agent could change his return date to a day later so he could make up the lost time in Chile.
“The agent changed my return date to a day later without a fee,” he says. “To top it off, customer service later refunded my upgrade fee for premium economy — the entire trip, not just the one segment I missed.”
Kimber Smith Fidler also experienced an act of generosity from an airline when her husband had to fly to Australia to handle his late mother’s estate.
“It was a total mess, and things didn’t get done by the time we thought they would, and we needed to change our return flight,” says Fidler, a communications consultant from Incline Village, Nev. So she called United Airlines and explained the situation to a representative.
The change fees alone would have come to $300 per ticket, and that wasn’t including the fare differential. But instead of piling on the extras, her agent listened compassionately, waived the fees and changed the ticket at no charge.
Airlines know they have a PR problem and are doing their best to lessen their passengers’ pain, one case at time, according to Worldwide Airlines Customer Relations Association (WACRA), an international group of airline customer service professionals.
“We understand the challenges that our industry faces,” says Douglas Stolls, a WACRA spokesman. He says airlines believe passengers will forgive them for any past customer service lapses when airline employees are “transparent and caring.”
It seems many passengers agree.