TravelCommons

Month: June 2007

  • United’s Customer Service in a Free Fall

    The drumbeat of complaints regarding United Airline’s deteriorating customer service continues. In the Trade Your Bags For Another $1/Hr post, I mentioned the results of the recent University of Michigan customer satisfaction survey. If the satisfaction index for the airline industry in general plummeted — they’re now just barely ahead of the IRS — then the score for United Airlines… Continue Reading →

  • Can’t Outsource Responsibility

    The Chicago Tribune‘s Sunday Business section featured a 3,600-word in-depth analysis of a United Airlines flight that went terribly wrong. United Flight 1073 was supposed to leave Montego Bay, Jamaica at 1:55pm on Saturday, March 31, 2007. It didn’t leave the ground until the following Monday, April 2. The article is a very good read, and identifies two cost-cutting tactics… Continue Reading →

  • Podcast #54 – Traveling Injured; How Bad Is Travel Experience Really?

    Recorded in the Grand Geneva Resort and Spa, the former Playboy Club, in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, I talk about the travails of “playing injured” — traveling while sick. A listener comment makes me wonder if I’m exaggerating the state of the US travel experience. We get a good suggestion on how to wrestle with charging all those electronic devices we… Continue Reading →

  • Flight Delays Worst in 13 Years — Tell Me Something I Don’t Know

    The front page of today’s USAToday — the unofficial newspaper of record for the frequent traveler — greeted its readers with an article stating “Flights on U.S. airlines arrived late more often in the first four months of this year than in any other year since the government began tracking the numbers 13 years ago.” Not exactly dawn breaking over… Continue Reading →