OK, last week I traveled again and again I was amazed at how outdated some of the elements of commercial travel remain.
Here are the problems:
1) TSA lines take way, way too much time and line length seems almost random
2) These days announcing that “we have a very full flight” has almost the same effect as shouting “FIRE!” in a theater
3) Most of us check in well before the gate has been announced for the flight, and figuring that out can be a hassle
4) Seat assignments have never been more complex, especially when flights are canceled.
5) The limits on carry on luggage are not enforced
I don’t think any of those are too controversial, and here are my thoughts on how to improve each, and I just hope someone, somewhere, especially at Alaska Airlines, is listening.
1) TSA. If we can’t speed up the line, and I don’t have a good way to speed up the line, but most people these days have a mobile device in their pocket and it just wouldn’t be too hard to have a site that gets updated every 10-15 minutes that says what the typical wait time is so that you can at least plan a little bit for this.
2) Announcement. It’s easy to check how full the flight is when you check in the night before, so I always know, but beyond that the airlines have the message board up above that lists the number of people on standby. Can’t people connect the dots that if there are people on standby (usually) then it’s a very full flight? Give us some credit and for people who can’t figure it out yet, they’ll learn.
3) Gate. The airline knows my e-mail address. I know this because they send me an e-mail 24 hours before my flight with all kinds of information. If they already do that, why not shoot me another e-mail when the gate is announced, and if the gate changes, e-mail me again. Most people check their wireless devices in the airport.
4) Seat assignments. In the rethink talks I give, I help organizations see through some of the industry labels they use to describe themselves to help them really isolate what business they are in and what business they aren’t in. Today their aren’t many things that differentiate commercial airlines beyond price, not the way we check in for flights, and not even the flights themselves or the food we are served. So what’s left? Seat assignments are nothing more than an inventory management challenge. Every flight has a set number of seats, the inventory, and that supply of inventory needs to get mapped to the demand side. It’s really not as complex as they make it. I should just be able to go to the web site of the airline and list out the things that are most, and least important to me about my trip. Take last week, I went to Denver to give a talk to some people from the Qortex company and their friends and clients. So if I could have just told United that I wanted to get there Wednesday PM and leave Friday morning and I wanted seats on the window in the back, it should have been pretty easy for them to pick flights and seats for me and save several clicks. Similarly, if a flight was canceled, I could have let them know that it wasn’t urgent for me to get back Friday afternoon, so rebooking would be easy, but if it had been urgent, they could have just called me. They say they can’t make outbound calls, but that’s a silly policy, but if true, then they should text me – that’s free.
5) Luggage. Argh. This is the reason boarding is such a nightmare. The overhead bins fill up, and checking luggage takes FOREVER to get back and stuff gets lost. But I see lots of people with nothing under the seat in front of them and that’s a big part of why the overheads get full. There needs to be enforcement and it will make things a lot better.
That’s what I think.
What do you think?
-Ric
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