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Lyin' Airlines
Cheap Charlie · December 29, 1999

It is the time of the year when many folks make New Year resolutions -- like, I'm going to lose 10 pounds, or I'll start a regular exercise routine.

Of course these resolutions never seem to pan out, but the intentions are good.

Unfortunately, the airlines all face many of the same problems, and the results seem to be the same -- good intentions, but the resolutions never pan out.

In some cases, I might even have a more cynical point of view. Sometimes, I think people make public New Year resolutions but never mean to keep any of them. They do it to declare their good intentions.

Again, the airlines are marching down that road. We have all heard the hoopla and fanfare surrounding the new airline passenger service initiatives, but anyone in the travel industry knows that hoopla and reality, in this case, bear virtually no similarity to each other. A few months ago I wrote about the coming "new" customer service programs that were touted by the airlines in the face of congressional inquiries.

At that time, I and virtually every other travel columnist stated that there was nothing "new" being offered to airline passengers. Just more of the same.

Now I have to eat my words. It seems some of the airlines have instituted programs that only sound passenger friendly. Service is actually being eliminated under the guise of "improvement."

Take calling airline customer service officials. In the past, the most difficult part of initiating a customer service complaint was finding the right person to speak to concerning your problem. In my book Travel Rights, I included a detailed directory of customer service offices and their phone and fax numbers. Once a passenger had these numbers, they could speak with a customer service representative whose job was to make them happy and solve their problem. In most cases, based on my experience, the system worked well.

Now, with the new customer service programs started in mid-December, the telephone numbers are much easier to access.

This would seem to be an improvement. Hardly.

Now that customers are being given the "customer service" telephone numbers, reports have reached me that some airlines have put voice mail systems on those lines and insist that passengers with problems send faxes to get customer service.

Where is the improvement? Excuse me if I sound disgusted. Just when the airlines have an opportunity to do something positive about customer service, they find a way to turn it into a negative.

Please give us real people we can speak to when we call in with airline service problems. It always worked in the past when customers took the time to find the right person and correct phone numbers. It can still work in the future.

Let's make this new customer service initiative more than another broken New Year resolution. Let's try and make this resolution work between airlines and passengers. We all deserve it.

Charlie Leocha is the Boston-based author of Travel Rights: Know the Rules of the Road and the Air Before You Go. Cheap Charlie appears every Monday on this site. E-mail him at charlie@ticked.com or access his Web site.