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Yet the industry that built its business in the 1960s and '70s by stressing customer service (remember when passengers could change flights at the last minute?) has become an arrogant and forbidding behemoth. Written complaints to the Department of Transportation for the 12 months ending in July were up 15% over the previous year. Consumer advocates say it's worse than that. Paul Hudson, executive director of Aviation Consumer Action Project, a watchdog group founded by Ralph Nader, estimates that complaints have nearly doubled and claims "the level of intensity in complaints is greater than I've ever seen." Hal Salfen, director of consumer affairs for the International Airline Passengers Association, an advocacy group based in Dallas, asserts, "Service has totally gone down the tubes."
Consider Benito Martinez, who set out for Albuquerque, N.M., from Burbank, Calif., aboard America West with his wife and toddler earlier this month. The plane was delayed 90 min. by weather and an additional 25 min. because the pilot missed the gate when parking the plane, so of course the Martinezes missed their connection in Phoenix, Ariz. They waited several hours for the last flight to Albuquerque, only to discover, after trekking to the other end of the terminal for a "gate change," that the flight had been canceled and they would have to spend the night in Phoenix. "All I want to hear is, 'We're sorry,'" says Martinez. "Instead I hear, 'You have to go downstairs,'" to wait in line again.
Then there's the executive for a bottled-water company who booked a round trip from California to Greenville, S.C., and decided, on his return, to drive to Atlanta and pick up his connecting flight there. Though Delta agents in Atlanta assured him that he could do this, agents at the same airport on his return trip insisted he buy an entirely new ticket--an extra $671 for not taking one leg of his flight. An NBC Sports employee, flying Delta from Salt Lake City, Utah, to New York City in June, was delayed first by problems with the plane's air conditioning, then by malfunctioning radar. He finally arrived after midnight at the wrong airport (JFK instead of LaGuardia). His luggage didn't follow until four days later--plopped, inexplicably, on the doorstep of his traveling companion, who lived more than 50 miles away.
And pity this unhappy young woman looking for satisfaction at a US Airways ticket counter in Boston:
Passenger: Things like this make me realize why Delta is my favorite airline.
US Airways agent (overhearing the conversation): So go to the Delta terminal.
Passenger: I wasn't talking to you.
Agent: I'm a supervisor, and I can join in any conversation I want.