Sunday, June 28, 2009

more US airline shenanigans

Does this ever stop?
Please allow me to catch you all up on the latest airline changes that will affect you;

1. many carriers have increased their airport baggage fees by $5, justifying this by allowing you to pay in advance by checking in online
2. some EU carriers are considering charging for toilet privileges
3. I have taken more than a dozen flights in past 3 months. They are all 100% full and the airport are packed but yet I continue to read about reduced load and therefore the carriers are reducing their capacity; recently by 4% which now means about 12% for the year.
4. An overall increase in using aircraft that have deferred maintenance issues. Some are small like an AV system being inoperative so no movies or sound system is available but some may be an items such as an inoperative window defroster.... not important in Phoenix but very important in Denver.
5. Last week, United announced that it will discontinue to allow some travel agencies to issue United tickets on their plate (or specifically, the merchant account used when agencies issue a ticket in our global distribution system). This limits the agency to the type(s) of payment it can receive for a United ticket and will increase costs to the consumer.

Why should #5 bother the traveling consumer & corporate travel account? Because it is the beginning of what could amount to a fundamental shift in the payment of merchant service fees; the cost paid to a bank for the use of your credit card, from the merchant (in this case the airline) to the consumer. That would amount to a 4% increase in fees. The travel industry has been speculating the airlines might try this since 2006 and now it seems like a small litmus test is here. To put this in perspective, think of everytime you use a credit card; retail store, grocery store, etc. Now, think about a 4% administrative cost added to your bill each time you want to use that credit or debit card.

Historically, the traveling public and corporate accounts have been "sheep" about accepting changes by the airlines that have amounted to rapidly increased costs and reduction in service while their management report losses but take very large compensation packages and bonuses. Will this be one more time we will just lay down and take it?

Saturday, June 20, 2009

grats, tips and service charges; a manifesto

I understand our nation/culture expects certain hourly wage jobs to earn gratuities & tips for a job well done or going above & beyond in service. But, there is the key point for me; going above & beyond recognition..... not a gratuity for simply doing the job as stated.
The gratuity rate rule of thumb used to be 10%. Slowly, it crept up to 15% and 20% and now, in some hotels exceeds 22%! In the last 10 - 15 years, I would say that I have noticed a slow progression to this being an expectation rather than a judgement and that expectation is now not only from the hourly employee but from the company that is artificially offering low wages to the worker expecting them to make up the difference in gratuities.
I am tired of this trend! I am tired of reaching into my wallet for every single person that comes in contact with me. It feels like panhandling.
My manifesto; businesses should stop putting worker wages on the backs of the public and pay staff a reasonable wage for the job without depending on gratuities. A gratuity should simply be a bonus. Businesses that are adding them to your dinner check or hotel bill without you choosing have just crossed the line from gratuity (discretionary) to service charge (mandated) and then it should be a taxable item. Additionally, what if the gratuity is added to the our bill but the service was horrible? Should we feel obligated or should we challenge it? I always chose to challenge.
Lastly, if I am paying a gratuity as part of my contract; dinner bill, hotel fees, etc..... I expect then to be paid to the worker.... not pooled and allocated after the business (hotel) takes a cut and then other servers get to equally share. Again, this violates the service recognition part of offering the gratuity; I was served by the dinner staff and my server should receive it and not the lunch staff whom I never met and certainly never provided service to me.

My final solution would to just drop gratuities and tips entirely from our culture / cultural expectation. Pay living wages, hold staff to service standards as expectation of the job and recognize above and beyond service differently... not using compensation. This would make for happier employees and more comfortable situations when we come in contact with service staff.

Thursday, June 4, 2009

AF flight 447

It is always devastating to hear of the loss of an airliner. As a private pilot, I am also very interested to know the exact reasons why. The Discovery or Nat Geo channel has many shows that gives airline accident causes post the event and I always try to watch those shows. In this case, it was a A330 (newer, heavy passenger jet) that last reported some equipment failures and electrical losses. As with all newer aircraft, Airbus makes a quality airplane with many redundancies, but it is a glass cockpit. If this aircraft lost all electrical, it would be very difficult for the pilots to deal with that for a prolonged period. The aircraft systems depend on inputs and these inputs are driven by electrical sources. It wasn't well know that an A330 took a 1000ft nose dive, in recent months, for no apparent reason and then recovered. It was later discovered that the computers were reacting to bad input data. (you know the adage, good info in, good info out and visa versa). I was on a TAP Air Portugal flight from Lisbon to Newark on May 10 and, in our descent over NY, we hit strong buffeting winds. The aircraft rolled, pitched and the tail sank and rattled. All of this while we were in a turn lining up for landing. All the girls around me, about 4 of them, were clutching and using the air sick bags. The cabin erupted in screams and the planed seemed out of control. I knew that it could handle stresses many many times worse than this but it does always cross my mind; are the computers flying, are the pilots, how ready are the pilots to react to something catastrophic.
No pilot boards an aircraft expecting to fail at his or her job of safety and we, the passengers, depend on manufacturers, pilots, airline management, safety personnel and a host of activities that are meant to keep checks and balances in place and keep us safe.
We should all be attentive to know what were the catastrophic failures that lead to the loss of AF447 and do what is necessary to avoid them in future flight. Learning from terrible lessons thios way is what has lead us to the air safety we have today.