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Shouldn't travel be optimized for the traveler than the airline?
So much repetition in the airline services, and yet travel is a nightmare with overbooked flights. Every gate has announcements for volunteers to take airline voucher and take another flight, so the rest can travel! When a flight is delayed the overworked ground staff are clueless (they only know how to scan boarding pass) and stressed, are unable to provide any reasonable help, other than advice to call an 800 number.
Could airports function better, completely doing away with custom airline kiosks. Private airlines own the shuttles between airports. Airports provide users a single view from the source, including the ability to redirect between routes out of that airport, and give passengers a reasonable chance to get to their destination with their bags. We have solved tougher problems at much larger scale, why do we accept this technology failure?
Airports have become malls rather than a travel provider, with airlines each providing subpar duplicated services with no change in sight, spawning industry of travel insurance (for passengers to pay and compensate bad service).
- bombcar 3y agoTravel is optimized for you if you pay first class. Anytime changes with no fee, lounges, etc. Most don’t value it enough to do it.
- elmerfud 3y agoAirlines very much do optimize for the traveler but not for the occasional traveler. The experience is optimized for the person who travels all the time and is loyal to a specific brand. Having top status with an airline changes everything you get greeted by name. Complimentary upgrades are showered upon you. Even if you don't get upgraded on a flight it's guaranteed that the head purser knows where you're sitting on that flight. I've been on an full international flight we're the only seat I could get was some cheap one in the back and before take off the head purser came by and introduced themselves offered me complimentary drinks asked if I needed anything and if I did to ring them at any time. Everyone around me looked at me like they had no idea what was going on. Top tier status also usually conveys dedicated support numbers where the wait times are either non-existent or in the minutes. When airlines staff see your status their attitude changes. Sometimes the airport personnel don't seem to care like in one instance they had closed the door to the jet bridge but not to the airplane and they wouldn't let me board. A call to the 800 number resulted in a call to the person within about 45 seconds and the jet bridge door was opened up again. Maybe this isn't the answer you're looking for but the more money you spend the better your experience is this is generally the case with anything. Because if you only fly occasionally and you're searching out the cheapest fares regardless of airlines you have no loyalty to them therefore why would they have any loyalty to you?
- philo-dh 3y agoPhone providers would force you to buy a device from them, if anybody remembers. We live in a world that is not necessary. Why are we encouraging business models that worked in 80s, even possibly 90s. Time to change.
- NoZebra120vClip 3y agoThis reminds me of Up in the Air, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up_in_the_Air_(2009_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up_in_the_Air_(2009_film) with George Clooney as the professional in a soulless career who ultimately achieves his greatest victory of 10 million miles, yet it is a Pyrrhic one. He is awarded an absurdly customized solid-metal card with his own personal toll-free hotline number. But he doesn't get the girl, and he doesn't really get to go home. Tragic.
- neximo64 3y agoIt is optimised for all travellers but no single individual traveller.
- philo-dh 3y agoHow? It is optimized for the airlines as a business. You as an end consumer are required to fit their business priorities.
- neximo64 3y agoIf you want to look at it from that point of view, even with that as a business it needs to maximise the number of successful trips in the smallest amount of times possible, as a whole in aggregate as that will lead to the maximum revenue. Airline margins are razor thin, and it is a commoditised industry so an airline company can only compete on scale and efficiency. Which means that it has in aggregate the most number of people transported to their destinations in the shortest possible times, as a whole.
- arlattimore 3y agoThe costs of running an airline are astonishing, they operate on very low margin and must optimize against that. Many of the behaviours you refer to are a direct result of that.
- cratermoon 3y agocustom airline kiosks are on their way out, and being replaced with the CUSS kiosks. But overall the airline industry is so far behind in tech. The ground staff are aren't clueless, they in fact know so much about how to get people onto flights when they can it's almost scary. Paradoxically, their knowledge is largely tribal, so then when things go wrong at the system level, the ground staff probably could work things out, but the computers and the overall system in the background have no information about the current ground state and they prevent crew from making fixes they can see right in front of them.
- chewz 3y agoIf you own private jet its is optimized...
- gregjor 3y agoAirlines optimize for profit, like almost all businesses do. Otherwise they don't stay in business. All of the supporting businesses -- the concessions in the airport, the car rentals, the shuttles, etc. operate according to the same principle: make money. They may prey on their captive audience with $7 bottles of water and terrible service, because they can. A traveler who wants to have an experience catered to them can pay for premium class, or a charter or private plane. The rest of us tend to optimize for spending as little as possible, so we get what we pay for.