We keep hoping that airline pax complaints will diminish and eventually go away. But, as the old, old joke said, “Not so fast, Gonzales.”
Sadly, the U.S. Bureau of Transportation received 1,605 customer complaints about airlines’ services, an increase of nearly 7.7 percent from 1,490 complaints received a year earlier.
Many pax complaints are caused by chronic flight disruptions of scheduled flights. The report also stated that airlines’ on-time travel rate in June fell to 76.2 percent, compared with 78 percent a year earlier.
At the same time, Airline Weekly — a fascinating publication all about airlines — has a great high-tech article in their August 14 issue, beginning “Airlines weren’t born in Silicon Valley. And their executives don’t wear hoodies. But airlines are indeed some of the global economy’s most zealous adopters and even innovators of advanced technologies.”
The article names names and provides info about which major airline is investing over $500 million dollars more in high tech, and which airlines are hiring top-dog techies and assigning them to big titles and big jobs. Obviously, the word is that many airlines believe even more high tech can still improve the industry and the customer experience.
Is it true? Could more high-tech technology actually help lower pax complaints?
As ‘Liza Doolittle sang, “Oh woudn’t it be loverly?”
