Originally Posted by
Wasatch Phantom
Back in the day a frequently asked question during the pilot interviews was "Who pays your salary"? The correct answer was (and still is, IMHO) "The passengers".
Maybe a month or two ago I was in DTW on a Friday night flying the last flight to DCA. I saw the gate agent head down the jetway with our final paperwork and maybe 30 seconds later I saw four passengers show up hurriedly to the gate, now with no agent.
It was maybe D-3 and I hustled up the jetway, met the agent and told her I was going to grab the passengers. I think we still pushed on time, but honestly I was more concerned about getting all of our paying passengers to their destination. I told the agent if we were late to blame me.
Perhaps I don't "have the big picture", but those folks got home on Friday night instead of late Saturday morning. They were very thankful when saying good-bye. To me that's customer service, and that's the business we're in.
I remember many years ago, we would always hold the last flight of the night out of ATL, for late connections. We left late, of course, but we got all the connections on and they were very happy they didn't have to spend a night in the ATL.
In those days, Delta led the industry, in CUSTOMER SATISFACTION, not On Time Pushbacks leaving late connections.
Which is more important for Delta's long term survival?
The bean counters have been running the show for too long, looking for any Metric (their favorite word) which will generate a bonus for themselves, when the only Metric they should be concerned with is; CUSTOMER SATISFACTION.
It's still a customer service industry, is it not?
Or are we now Greyhound?