I actually think that software plays a huge role in causing this horrible customer service from airlines as well. I am a frequent flyer on American (125k miles

I actually think that software plays a huge role in causing this horrible customer service from airlines as well. I am a frequent flyer on American (125k miles last year) and have had numerous experiences that led to this conclusion. One experience in particular happened on a recent trip to Europe. On this particular trip I was flying on a code-share BA flight (this means a flight I bought as AA, but flew on a BA plane). Normally with my flyer status I can upgrade to a good seat without issue. I was however booked in a terrible middle seat on my return flight. I called AA and they couldn't figure out how to upgrade me. I called BA, same thing. I called American Express Travel, they couldn't figure it out either. The response I got from everybody was very helpful (I get better customer service than most people, due to my flyer status), but they simply couldn't figure out how to actually make the change in their system. When I got to Heathrow, I asked a BA agent at the counter if she could change my seat. She couldn't figure it out so she called another person over who was more experienced. This lady then 'hacked' away on her terminal for literally 10 minutes. She was giving me updates the entire time on what she was doing. She tried a variety of different options to change my ticket until she found one that worked. While there certainly is a human aspect and a policy aspect to bad customer service with Airlines, I believe that some of the problem is the result of the customer service representatives having to deal with really really bad software. Most of them simply don't actually know how to make the changes that customers want so they just tell them it isn't possible. My guess is that if the airline industry was able to massively upgrade their software you would see a huge improvement in customer service simply because the representatives would actually be able to accomplish the requested tasks.