AA near bottom of October service rankings

American Airlines' internal passenger surveys put the carrier in last place, tied with Northwest, in overall customer service in October among the largest 11 airlines. That's a significant drop from September, when the airline finished 6th.

The airline's highest ratings were for baggage check-in, where it received good marks for effeciency and courtest of employees. But customers gave American low ratings for delays, legroom, value for the money, the helpfulness and courtesy of flight attendants, and overall travel experience.

In a message to employees, Mark Mitchell, the carrier's managing director of the customer experience, tried to rally the troops:

"While it is disappointing to see a seven point decline from our September results, American has a very clear mission to regain our industry leadership in delivering a positive customer experience.  Every employee, across all workgroups, has a stake in this effort - improving the travel experience belongs to all of us. And with that, my team and I strive to assist all employees to collectively move the dial in their areas of responsibility."

Here's how the airlines ranked for overall service in the survey:

1. JetBlue
2. Southwest
3. Frontier
4. Continental
5. Alaska
6. AirTran
7. United
8. Delta
9. U.S. Airways
10. American, Northwest (tie)

- Trebor

Comments

[KadenaAlum]

It's interesting to contrast AA's abysmal customer service rankings with the million dollar cash bonus paid to the VP of Customer Service.

Much of the rancor on the AMR property--which unavoidably affects customer service--centers around these huge payments to a few execs with no connection to their performance or results.

Most of what AMR calls "leadership" is empty rhetoric, such as the latest ill-fated buzz from Flight Service: "Nice is free." That is, managers are beating "niceness" into employees, because apparently it's "free" in that AMR is not about to pay a cent for anything.

But the harried gate agent who is manning a gate serving 150 people really needs more manning. "Nice" will neither make the passengers' wait any shorter nor the agents' exhaustion and resultant surliness any different.

Until you see staffing, manning and pay plans increase--expect more rock-bottom customer service at AA, despite enormous cash rewards for the supervisors failing to improve their departments.

Don't look for any management firings, reorganizations or god forbid, indexing of management bonuses to management performance.

Because sadly, that's the American (Airlines) way.

[ac130guy]

Sounds like you've been drinking the APA kool-aid since you left Kadena, my friend. What matters is how we perform and that will benefit AA and it's employees. Yes, executive compensation across the nation needs a readjustment but that doesn't give anyone a right to provide "rock-bottom" customer service. AA pays you for what you do and the customers pay AA - you owe them both your best.

[RegardsMark]

I can't help but shake my head at the management gobbledygook: "regaining leadership in delivering" (when were the "Leadership In Delivering" Olympics, and did AA ever beat out Domino's Pizza?) or "collectively moving the dial" (beaten-to-death buzzwords; get some new MBA slang) and the very proper memorization of meaningless talking points.

But never mind your "collective dial"--clean your filthy airliners, staff your gates with enough customer service agents to properly serve all the people whose cash you took in for their transportation, and don't take any more management bonuses until your product is out of the toilet.

How's that for a plan, Mr. Customer Service Cheerleader?