American re-evaluates its service after a rough summer: American regrouping to improve its service
Sep. 25--Officials at American Airlines Inc. have one thing to say about their summer service: We must do better.
Although it couldn't control the storms that plagued the Fort Worth-based carrier's operations during its busiest months, officials are working on a plan to improve their response to such events and minimize schedule disruptions.
After five years of aggressive cost-cutting and eking as much efficiency out of its operations as possible, American is making adjustments to better weather the storm, so to speak.
The carrier has built an extra five to seven minutes into flight schedules at its busiest hubs and is looking for better ways to identify open seats during the last flights of the night to accommodate stranded passengers.
Officials are also re-evaluating ground operations, flight routing and scheduling. And the carrier is studying maintenance scheduling and how it stages aircraft overnight for the next day's flying.
American's systems operations control -- its operating center -- has implemented changes to better handle crews, airplanes and passengers when the carrier's schedule is disrupted by weather, congestion or other problems.
"We're going to make sure next summer is better than this summer was," said C. David Cush, American's senior vice president of global sales.
Mr. Cush said he's been visiting the airline's biggest corporate clients and getting "an earful."
"They're not satisfied with the experience that any of the airlines have delivered over the last few months," he said.
Last month, the airline named Mark Mitchell to a new position as managing director of customer experience to spearhead the efforts.
Mr. Mitchell said an overloaded air traffic control system, full airplanes and an unusually high number of storms -- particularly at its largest hub, Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport -- combined to hurt American's operations this summer.
"You look at any one of those three -- we probably could have handled one or even two of those combined," he said. "The fact that we had all three of them on top of us, we have to figure out how to tweak the airline to get better at managing those events."
American was perhaps most hurt by the weather, which caused summer delays among all airlines at D/FW Airport to skyrocket from 1,722 in summer 2006 to 4,379 this year.
Even before the crush of summer travelers and weather woes, the airline was getting knocked by customers on its service. American ranked 10th out of 11 airlines in a Survey America study released in May, beating out only Delta Air Lines Inc.
And its individual scores fell for all of its key service points, including keeping on schedule, how it handled delays, courtesy, onboard service and giving customers timely information.
No respect
Leonard Berry, a longtime customer service expert and marketing professor with the Mays Business School at Texas A&M University, said airlines as an industry have among the worst reputations for customer service.
"There's just a fundamental lack of respect for the customer," Dr. Berry said.
Dr. Berry said tense labor relations at some airlines and extra charges for services such as booking tickets by phone or at the ticket counter have left a bad taste in customers' mouths.
He pointed to restrictions on nonrefundable fares and the Saturday night stay requirement as examples of approaches over the years that may have meant short-term revenue but lacked common sense.
Such policies reflect rules that "the traveling public does not understand, does not like, does not agree with and is pained by," Dr. Berry said. "When a company has a policy designed to save money that customers hate, that policy will wind up costing the company money."
If an airline wants to get serious about customer service, Dr. Berry said, its executives should seriously rethink all of its policies that make customers angry. "I'd have to have a very good reason to keep those policies, or I'd eliminate them."
Airlines must also find better ways to handle disruptions they don't have control over, such as weather, Dr. Berry said.
"The airline's response to weather delays is under their control," he said.
Dr. Berry, who flies about 75,000 miles a year, mostly on Houston-based Continental Airlines Inc., said he dodged the worst of the summer woes, and his longest delay lasted three or four hours.
Even so, "every time I get to where I'm going on time, or reasonably close to on time, I feel like I've won the lottery," he said.
Overburdened system
Airline officials are quick to blame the nation's overly burdened, outdated air traffic control system for creating a difficult operating environment. But with fixes several years away and the nation's passenger volume growing, Mr. Cush said, American must make changes to keep hiccups of its own from worsening the situation.
"The system is unforgiving now, and if anything breaks down in our system, the air traffic control system doesn't have the ability to let us make up that time," Mr. Cush said. "We recognize we're operating in a different environment, and we may be for the next few years."
Three years ago, American realigned how it scheduled maintenance and crews for its aircraft. Flight crews -- both pilots and flight attendants -- were scheduled on the same plane as much as possible so that one late arrival didn't delay departures for more flights. And certain aircraft would spend the day flying back and forth between key cities, an effort that helped contain delays to a smaller geographic footprint.
"We made a lot of good adjustments that worked pretty good for us," Mr. Cush said. "But now we're in a different operating environment."
The airline plans to tighten its operating protocol to be more disciplined about getting routine maintenance finished in time and the plane in position for its scheduled flying.
And when weather does disrupt schedules or cause diversions, airline officials will rely on a less aggressive timetable for how quickly operations can get back to normal.
Recovery time
"There is no recovery [time] in the system," Mr. Cush said. "We have to go back and build some of that slack into our own system."
Mike Boyd, an aviation consultant based in Evergreen, Colo., said airline service is still relatively good when you consider the volume that the nation's air system is handling.
Even so, he said, airlines have become "paralyzed" by computer systems and policies that annoy their customers.
"Airlines are nickeling and diming their customers, and that's the wrong direction to go," Mr. Boyd said.
Mr. Boyd said airlines need to figure out how to better communicate with customers when operations hit a snag.
"The main cause of customer anger and frustration is anxiety," Mr. Boyd said.
American's Mr. Cush said the airline is looking at ways to get updated flight information to customers faster, including through mobile devices.
"The biggest frustration is not being able to modify and react when there is a disruption," he said. "They want to know when we know."
Mr. Boyd said American's recent moves signal positive changes ahead.
"The fact that American is looking at this means it's half-solved," he said.
or tmaxon@dallasnews .com
To see more of The Dallas Morning News, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.dallasnews.com. Copyright (c) 2007, The Dallas Morning News Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email [email protected], call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
