The Customer Service Survey
VocaLabs' weblog providing news and commentary on the challenges of providing good customer service.
My Favorite Airline in Trouble? Say it Ain't So!
Tuesday - July 29, 2008 01:20 PM in
by Peter Leppik
Longtime readers will recall that my favorite airline is Midwest Airlines, thanks to the personal attention, comfy seats, human-scale hubs, and (of course) fresh chocolate chip cookies served on board. I fly Midwest whenever possible, and I will pay a premium for those cookies.
(Though paying a premium to fly Midwest isn't much of a premium anymore, since the major carriers have been larding on the fees. It's not unreasonable to expect to pay an extra $50-$100 to fly Northwest over the price of the ticket, by the time you include baggage fees, "premium" seat fees, and so forth.)
Sadly, though, nobody is immune to $125/barrel oil, and Midwest recently announced that it is cutting a number of cities from its flight schedule and a big chunk of the staff. So far the cuts don't directly touch the cities I usually fly to (they're mostly cutting vacation destinations to focus on business travelers), but it still makes me nervous.
Frankly, I've gotten spoiled by Midwest. I can hardly stand to fly any of the major carriers any more. I don't know what I would do if they went away.
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