Overall, airline deregulation has been a good thing. Passengers have more flight choices, fares have plummeted from their pre-1978 levels.
But no one can deny the fact that customer experience seems to be lacking when it comes to air travel. Lately, we have had a string of incidents that highlight many areas of mismanagement and extremely poor handling of customer service issues by airlines.
Would greater regulation solve the problem?
Forbes ran an article this week detailing 6 changes to increase regulation in the airline industry that would potentially solve the woes of many airline customers. My reaction to the list is mixed. I will freely admit that I’m a firm believer in letting the free market determine business behavior. Let consumers vote with their dollars. The free market allows innovation to be rewarded and poor service to be penalized.
Yet I do see a least a nugget of potential in some of the regulations and suggestions posed. Here are my take on the six:
Regulating congested or “premium” airports
Many heavily-traveled airports are funded by tax dollars, whether by direct bond measure or through tax breaks. The argument here is that because taxpayers have essentially funded these airports, there should be minimum standards of comfort. Most of these airports are located in heavily populated areas, so enacting regulations on passenger comfort would potentially affect many people.
However, adding regulations that are unique to each airport could wreak havoc on airline operations. Imagine for a moment if all jets flying in or out of Newark were required to have 32″ or greater seat pitch. If an aircraft is delayed or requires maintenance, finding a suitable replacement may not be possible if not all aircraft are equipped with the necessary pitch to meet the airport standards.
The cascading effect might be airlines changing the seat pitch so that al aircraft can operate at all airports. The issue here is that it would make them less efficient, thereby driving up fares. Would people be willing to pay a bit more for a guaranteed level of comfort? Possibly. But there are others who simply want to get from point A to point B as cheaply as possible. There are already choices for people who want increased comfort. It’s called flying Virgin America instead of Spirit.
While the idea of minimum regulated comfort sounds good in theory, I hope it remains a theory. I don’t want to see it put into practice.
Through-checking baggage for itineraries on separate tickets
Man, this would be phenomenal. Requiring airlines to through-check baggage at the request of passengers on itineraries with multiple tickets would add a whole new dimension to finding deals on fares. If I found a cheap ticket from San Francisco to Chicago on United, then another ticket from Chicago to Cincinnati, and have it come out cheaper than simply booking a ticket from SFO to CVG, United would be required to through check my baggage.
This would allow passengers greater flexibility when shopping for tickets. It would also save them money on bag fees. Personally, I think this is a great idea. The impact on airline systems shouldn’t be great, and it is only a boon for passengers.
Booking passengers with competitors during irregular operations
If I’m not mistaken, this used to be far more common in the past than it is now. If your United flight was canceled because of operational issues, the airline may have been so kind as to rebook you on American. Pre-1978, this was actually mandated by law.
Now airlines won’t book you on anything except their own flights, even if it means you travel literally days later (SEE: The huge problem flying Frontier). We’ve seen a few crazy operational meltdowns in the past several months.
Requiring airlines to fly you on competitors is a step back toward the pre-deregulation days. It would greatly increase the cost to the airline when things go awry, and would certainly increase fares across the board. However, it would guarantee (for the most part) that passengers arrive at their destination much sooner.
Providing lodging and meal vouchers during lengthy delays
This used to be a part of airline operations. I remember flying solo to the East Coast at 16 years old, back in 2005. Weather over Atlanta caused me to miss my connection with Delta, and I got stuck in Hartsfield-Jackson overnight while waiting for the next flight back to Sacramento. A Delta agent offered me both a hotel voucher and a meal voucher for the night (although I couldn’t accept the hotel voucher since I was still a minor).
Now the airlines won’t offer anything. The article argues that they should.
If airlines were required to provide accommodations during overnight delays, it would certainly help travelers. But at what cost? Everyone who buys a ticket would end up footing some of the bill, as hotel rooms aren’t exactly free.
Holding CEOs accountable during problems
I’m not sure how we could ever enforce this, or honestly what the use would be. The article argues that CEOs should provide an update every 3 hours during major operational issues. The argument here is to promote transparency, along with inclining the CEOs to have better plans in place.
Overall, I’m really not sure how I feel about this sure about this suggestion, as it seems pretty benign.
Create an environment that safeguards good employees
You’d think that providing great customer experience would be the goal of any service industry. Obviously, an airline is in the business to make money, but providing a good customer experience should be (in theory) high on the list. Evidence suggests that it really isn’t…
The article argues for additional protections for employees that go the extra mile for customers, even if it means bending or breaking airline policies.
Conclusion
The author ends by ensuring us that this isn’t a call for re-regulation of the airlines, but that these are simply suggestions that would “provide a better industry for workers and customers as well as management and shareholders.”
The result of many of the suggestions would certainly be a better customer experience. But we would undoubtedly see an increase in fares.
What is your take on some of these suggested regulations? Let us know in the comments
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If I found a cheap ticket from San Francisco to Chicago on United, then another ticket from Chicago to Cincinnati, and have it come out cheaper than simply booking a ticket from SFO to CVG, United would be required to through check my baggage.
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If both flights were on United they’d through check your bags anyway. UA’s policy is they will through check bags to separately ticketed flights on UA/UAX and Star Alliance partners. However you don’t get irrops protection if you miss the (non) connection.
In the bigger picture, airlines can’t through check bags to OALs if there’s no interline agreement between them. So with say UA/AA/DL to WN it’s not possible.
I completely agree that the free market is the best avenue to solve issues like these. However the airline industry is not a free market. There are four major carriers which have oligopoly power over average consumers. Consequently it is necessary to re-regulate certain aspects of the travel experience.
The first issue to be addressed is a irregular operations. Absent some sort of major storm weather like thunderstorms hurricanes or tornadoes, airline passengers must be accommodated on other carriers or the airline must pay compensation in the event that the carrier who sold the ticket cannot provide transportation.
Second the air travel infrastructure is a complete fiasco. I flew out of JFK on Friday. The weather was perfect up and down the East Coast which meant there were no cancellations. Consequently we waited in line for one hour and 40 minutes to take off on a 40 minute flight. Simply unacceptable in the United States of America to schedule more fights than an airport can accommodate. it shows a complete disrespect for passengers time on the part of the government , the corrupt and incompetent Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and the airlines themselves. One possible solution is to restrict regional jets from airports that don’t have the capacity to operate their flights in a reasonable fashion. 150 passengers on my flight lost one and a half hours out of their life . That’s 225 man hours flushed down the toilet because we can’t operate the air travel system in good weather! Multiply that by the 30 other planes that were all trying to depart and you have a huge cost.
i’ll deal with the checked baggage issue on separate tickets if we can fix the first and second problem listed above.
There is ‘some’ competition, but it’s not all that much. Considering the ‘major’ carriers follow each other with pricing, loyalty programs, seats, amenities, etc., there really isn’t much competition at all. All of them align nearly perfectly with each other rendering any competition non-existent.
Yes there are ‘low cost’ carriers that can offer some basic services. Glad they are there, but they cannot offer the levels of protections and accommodations that a larger airline can. Look at what happened to Frontier a couple of months ago with a complete meltdown of their Denver hub.
The major carriers: match seat pitch, match coach offerings, match business offerings, match loyalty programs nearly identically, match airport club offerings, and basically everything else. There really is not much difference between them all.
As for regulations, I’d personally like to see seat pitch get regulated. It’s gotten out of hand and it’s time someone steps in and creates some standards. The entire seat really should be re-examined. The ONE thing that people are spending the most amount of time in is the seat. Airlines put them as close as (in)humanly possible, have the tiniest width they can squeeze in, and practically no cushioning at all. Heck, old MD80s were far more comfortable than new gen 787s. De-cattle cattle-class. And yes of course with competition this wouldn’t be an issue. But with three carriers matching each other identically, there is no longer any level of competition.
It is true that the ‘Big 3’ seem to operate in sync, which does put a damper on full competition.
As the other side of the coin to Spirit/Frontier/Allegiant, we have JetBlue and Virgin America, both great airlines for people who want full service in economy. Granted, they don’t compete in the over-ocean space. We need a new U.S.-airline who will beat the Big 3 at this. There is a reason United, AA, and Delta are afraid of Norwegian and other low-cost European airlines that are making in-roads into the U.S.
There is no free market in our commercial airline industry. The only way you can vote with your dollars is to charter a flight. The rest are all trusts that need to be busted.
I completely agree that seat pitch needs to be regulated. Can you imagine being on a burning plane jammed packed with people stuffed into 28 pitched seats trying to evacuate? FAA safety engineers need to determine a safe seat pitch not airline bean counters.
I can see the safety side of things for seat pitch regulation. It is honestly a great argument.
I’ll still argue that the free market operates in the airline industry. There was a reason Virgin America was so popular. Some people were willing to pay for the service and amenities the airline offers. There are also people who simply want to fly from A to B for $20. Thus, we have Spirit.
As long as new airlines can enter the market and provide fresh competition (which is not something I’m all that familiar with), some ingenious person will launch a new idea, even if it is as innovative as simply “treat people with respect and not like air cattle.”