I agree that customer service is extremely important, but like someone said before, you get what you pay for. I used to work for Safeway Grocery when I was 16--Safeway is the same company as Vons, Dominicks, Randall, etc. They pushed customer service on all employees and we were regularly graded by 'secret shoppers" on our individual customer service performance. This was all in an attempt to increase customer retention. I remember talking to the manager of our store once. He said that in this particular store's lifetime--it was about 7 years old at that point--it had never been able to make a profit. Why? Because the Walmart across town was too difficult to compete with. The last time I checked, it is almost impossible to find help in a WalMart and customer service is virtually nonexistant. BUT, people still shop at Walmart everyday for those low prices. It's the same with the airlines.
In my opinion, making customers pay extra for drinks, checked bags, and all the other crap is a great business move. Why? Because with Orbitz, travelocity, and all the other travel sites, they can then have a lower ticket price--and that franky is what most people care about. Sure, they will b$tch and moan when they get to the airport and find out that they have to pay extra for checked bags, but by that time the airline already has their money. AND, I can guarantee that almost all those people who get off an airplane saying, "I'm never flying on them again!" because of something that happenned, ie. a flight attendant looked at them wrong, the flight was delayed 23 minutes, the landing was "horrible", will still buy a ticket from that same airline next time if, surprise surprise, the price is right
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Lastly, maybe it's just because Im still young or maybe because I don't fly all too often, but I feel like most airlines' customer service is atleast satisfactory. Pretty much there is always someone there to say, "Welcome aboard" and then there is someone there to say, "Thanks for flying with us." Someone comes by in the middle of the flight and says "Would you like something to drink?"( the fact that the drink might cost money is NOT the flight attendant's fault, so dont blame him/her for just doing their job). Really, what else do I need????
Lastly, people need to realize that it is probably hard to consistently give what many people consider "great" customer service in the airline industry. There are so many things that are out of the airline's control that can negatively affect a flight: Weather delays, maintenance delays, security delays, etc etc.