Dear Herb,
I swear I was ready to stop ranting about airlines, air travel and customer experience, and go back to writing about the more mundane issues in my life. If you have read any of my previous posts, you know I was a boy who saw the magic of flight as a child and 911 killed all that for me.
I don’t want to become some kind of “air travel critic.” But Herb, Wednesday evening, I read an interview with you (the retired Chairman of Southwest Airlines) by Matthew Malone for Portfolio Magazine, and I find I cannot let some of your comments go by without an answer from a passenger.
You may wonder what qualifies me to write about commercial flying. I’m certainly not an industry insider or expert. I am not even, like my brother – a retired Air Force pilot now flying for Southwest Airlines.
I do have some aircraft credentials. I grew up an Air Force Brat, living on base with pilots and navigators all around (including at home.) I absorbed a lot of it. I can still see the silhouette of an aircraft in the sky and tell you what it is – just like my Dad, Uncle, brothers and sisters – but that is no indication I have any airline business sense.
I’d like to think that my experience as an Aircraft Maintenance Specialist, Mechanic, Technician, Manager and Instructor for the U.S. Air Force and Reserve means I am not completely unfamiliar with aircraft and runways. My business and customer experience credentials (earned since then) are impeccable, but not airline related.
But to the more relevant point: I am a passenger! I have been an air traveler since my birth, logging many thousands of hours in the web seats of C-130s and the commercial (but not much more comfortable) seats. I’ve flown in pretty much every variety of commercial aircraft in the airline inventories for domestic and international flights over the last half decade.
Why one year I flew so often I was averaging more than two flights a week …
And that is the crux of the matter! I am not an insider or expert despite my Air Force experience. I am a very experienced passenger. And you and your experts don’t pay enough attention to the passenger and the passenger experience. And do you know how I know that? I know because if you did pay more attention it would be a better experience.
In my last post I described the current Senior Management of Airlines as moribund.
I may have been too kind.
Herb, please understand that I have been a big fan of yours. In the Portfolio interview, you were pretty much the maverick we have come to love and expect.
You managed to raise my ire when you said:
“If you stop to think about it, we’re really a little slice of salami in a governmental sandwich. The F.A.A. tells us what we can do with the airplane, right? You can’t push back from the gate, can’t taxi, can’t take off without the F.A.A. telling you. Our passengers on the ground are processed by the Transportation Security Administration. And guess who owns the airports. Government bodies.
That’s why we have so little control over our destiny. Don’t misunderstand me – all those things are needed. But it would be interesting if you said that all department stores are now going to have X-ray machines. You’re going to have to take your shoes off, your coat off, before you get into Macy’s. That might cut back patronage just a little bit.” (In for a Landing, by Matthew Malone, Portfolio Magazine, August 2008, page 93.)
You think this is unprecedented? You speak with marked impotence in the face of so much government intervention. Do you think shareholders pay you and others like you millions of dollars to whine and simply react (poorly) to the forces around you?
With this post, I am calling you and the rest of the Senior Airline executives out. You’ve abdicated your responsibility for the EXPERIENCE at YOUR GATE and on YOUR AIRCRAFT, and you use the government and 911 as the excuse!
Unfortunately for you, I know these conditions are not without precedent. I was 20-years old when I had the experience of going through not only a metal detector to enter Marks and Spencer (M&S) in Belfast, but also experienced numerous “pat down” searches – from the rough to the almost pleasant …
In 1977, the Provisional IRA and opposing paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland were blowing up or assassinating soldiers, the police and civilians up at a pretty good clip. This was real in-your-face terrorism. Everyone in Northern Ireland in the 70s knew what terrorism was because it touched them personally, and not just in terms of increased security.
All the shops and shopping were located in Town Centre, and were the targets of a variety of bombs – the most popular being the 500, 1000 or 2000 pound timed, gelignite, bomb in the boot (or trunk) of a car or truck parked in front of a business.
The town centre of most Northern Ireland towns and cities were barricaded off from outside traffic (think cement filled 55-gallon drums and steel pipe.) To enter and shop you had to pass through a security-checkpoint equipped with metal detectors supplemented by fairly intrusive (and sometimes quite rough) frisk searches performed by the Royal Ulster Constabulary and/or the British Army. There were tables to search the bags you carried. What you could carry in changed almost daily.
Those businesses that felt especially vulnerable (those of English origin like M&S) added their own metal detectors and security, police or army personnel to repeat the process for added assurance.
And Herb, people still shopped. They didn’t slow a bit. Most people in Great Britain in 1977 had to shop for their “messages” daily. And more importantly the service didn’t become grim and foreboding because of the presence of the police, army, guns, fencing, barbed wire, and metal detectors. It actually became more like “white noise” (always present but rarely noticed.)
And lest you think that the military intrusion was limited to entry and airlines are somehow especially picked on, I could tell you several hours of stories about the sudden appearance of armed and shouting soldiers or police – waving weapons, clearing a shop, detaining, questioning and searching patrons, and making arrests on the spot while you shopped.
Despite these conditions, the experience in the store remained the responsibility of store management and personnel even if the experience to get into the store was less than ideal.
The clerks, rattled as they may have been from time to time, did not use the presence of armored vehicles on the streets and extraordinary security measures as an excuse to mistreat their customers.
I’d not probably have been so disgusted by your surprising comments had I not recently read an interesting blog by Seth Godin titled, “Bait and Switch.” Seth “feel(s) bad for the airline industry” because “they are caught in a never-ending price war due to online websites and their own commodification.” Seth then goes on to describe a recent experience he had with Air Canada. He then he made this very important point:
“But the purpose of this rant isn't to hassle Air Canada. The purpose is to learn a key lesson from Disney: When there is both pain and pleasure associated with your service, work extremely hard to separate them by time and geography.
Disney charges a fortune for the theme park, but they do it a well before you get there, or at a booth far, far away from the rides. By the time you get to the rides, you're over it. The pain isn't associated with the fun part.” (Seth Godin’s Blog – July 24, 2008, http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/07/bait-and-switch.html)
Seth is right on point (as usual.) Compare the experience of a Southwest Flight with Disney’s “Soaring over California.” It is now $94 for a one-day park hopper. Not cheap Herb. The lines at Soaring never abate. Not wonderful Herb. And yet, when you are inside it is pure magic and you can hardly wait to return to the lines and do it all over again. That is not how anyone I know feels about flying commercially. Even on your airline (and I think you do it better than most!)
There is no doubt that the government has done a stellar job messing up the commercial flying experience. The market forces acting upon the airlines have not been favorable for many years. But accountability for the experience at the Gate and inside the plane sits squarely in the lap of the airline management.
Airline CEOs have used the cost and regulation morass to excuse their lack of focus on the passenger and the passenger experience. And Herb, while you created a wonderful business model to attack cost and price concerns – no one has truly addressed the passenger experience model.
Inside that painted aluminum tube it is all pretty much the same, one carrier or another – other than logos and uniforms, and it has killed the magic of flight.
Like so many others I speak with, I fly ONLY when I have to fly and I hope to have one of those rare, acceptable experiences.
It is pretty sad when a set of customers hope for an acceptable experience and rarely get it. You ought to face up to that, accept accountability for what happens at Your Gates and in Your Aircraft, and then fix it. If you don’t know where to start, I’ve a few thoughts in my last post.
Make the regulators more like white noise. Stop pretending you are not in the "Experience Industry." Dazzle us! Frankly, it won’t take much – the bar is pretty low right now.
We know you can’t fix the economy. It looks like the TSA is here to stay. The F.A.A. will continue to be, well, the F.A.A. We may grumble, but we don’t hold you responsible for those things. We know they are outside your control. What we do hold you accountable for is the part of the experience in your control. And we hold you responsible for your visible reactions to the regulations.
When we walk down your fly-ways, let the magic begin! It is not like we are getting on a City Bus. It is, after all, flight …
Sincerely,
Lon Tibbitts
Experienced Passenger
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