Quality of Service
Though I am sure she has been scared away from this thread now, I wanted to offer some comments on the lower standard of service The Russian claims Southwest provides. The following are my recent experiences:
(1) My last flight on one legacy carrier was cancelled right before takeoff. After being rudely told by the gate attendant to proceed to the help desk I waited in line 30 minutes and found out I had no chance of getting on the next and last flight of the evening to my destination. They offered no apology or benny like a free drink at the bar. I had to rent a car one-way to get home.
(2) Flying the same legacy carrier the previous trip my baggage didn't make it onto the aircraft and didn't arrive for a week. I had to call myself every other day and waste 30 minutes each call fighting through a very-user-unfriendly phone tree to actually talk to someone regarding my bags. I had to drive back to the airport to pick them up.
(3) Flying another legacy carrier (who may or may not fly red and white planes predominantly out of Minneapolis) last summer my flight was cancelled after waiting IN THE AIRCRAFT for 3 hours due to weather (something beyond their control). We were promised vouchers and ticket discounts that never materialized (we were basically lied to). After waiting in line for THREE HOURS at the service desk manned by only one person I was told there were no more flights and they, unfortunately, couldn't put me up in a room anywhere but "good luck
." I slept on the floor at the airport. The next day they acted like they were doing me a favor by getting me on another flight to my destination. No apology, voucher, nothing. On this flight one of the flight attendants was the absolute rudest, meanest, person I have ever met and I watched her demean ever passenger she talked to and drive a young mother with an infant to tears because she had the gall to ask for some water for her child.
(4) Flying yet another legacy carrier to South America they announced that for some reason half of the required flight attendants didn't make the flight so we would have to be OK with "getting food and drink service if they find time." Well at least they were really grumpy.
(5) Flying a discount airline (that may have once changed their name from ValueJet) I had an employee at their counter rudely chastise me for not arriving earlier even though the flight wasn't due to leave for another 2 hours.
The above constitute 5 of the 7 trips I made in the last 18 months on airlines other than Southwest. This was the service I received from the legacy airlines, being the "bar" that according to The Russian Southwest fails to meet. How have my experiences been on the 10 times I have flown Southwest during this time period?
(1) Each and every time I have called SWA I got to talk to a real, live human being IMMEDIATELY. And in EACH case that real live human being was friendly, extremely helpful and accomodating, and made me feel like they valued my business.
(2) Each and every flight left ON TIME and had crews that were ridiculously friendly, helpful, and made sure all aboard knew our patronage was appreciated. All were extremely professional and courteous and made the flight and enjoyable as possible.
(3) My luggage arrived EACH and EVERY time.
(4) I never had to wait in line at any Southwest counter more than 5 minutes and each employee was friendly, courteous, and more often than not went well out of their way to help me out.
If these experiences are what The Russian calls "lowering the bar" lets all try to drop that dad-gum bar throughout the business world. I am pretty flexible and understand that flights get delayed, cancelled, etc, but a common theme through most of my experiences is that in general Southwest employees care a whole heck of a lot more about the customer than other carriers, where many (but certainly NOT all) of their employees have acted indifferent and taken my business for granted.
I have a really hard time believing anyone who claims Southwest and other discount airlines that focus more on satisfying the customer are "lowering the bar" have really flown much with them.
My point here was certainly not to denegrate any of the legacy carriers but just to attack the ridiculous notion that Southwest service is sub-standard (a ridiculous assertion I know many have already attacked.) Admittedly, I have had a share of significant bad luck of late flying with the big boys but what has been frustrating through it all is how little so many of their employees cared.
