It is just before 5am in the San Jose airport. I am sitting in the very seat where I sat yesterday afternoon when, 20 minutes before we were supposed to board an already delayed flight, it was abruptly announced, “Your flight has been cancelled.”

No explanation, just “It has been cancelled.” Only later, after probing, did someone explain that it was a “crew problem,” but no real information was shared about what had really happened.

The remaining flights to Phoenix were both oversold, so I could either wait standby for a connecting flight for Phoenix that I probably not get on anyway, or wait for an early morning flight. I opted for the Friday night in a cheap hotel. Only after I complained about the $10 dinner meal voucher was I offered a second $10 voucher. The two vouchers almost covered a simple meal in the hotel restaurant.

Perhaps, you say, I shouldn’t complain, that many other passengers were affected the same way.

However, I remember several years ago that I was stranded overnight at Dulles airport by a freezing rain storm that left the taxiways so slick that airplanes couldn’t even get to the runway. United Airlines could have blamed it on the weather, but they put us all up in an upscale Marriott hotel and provided a wonderful buffet dinner in the hotel ballroom.

What has happenend since that time? I think two factors are particularly relevant:

• Airlines in general have lost the concept of putting customers first. It has become an ingrained culture to trivialize the impact airline decisions have on real people. Passengers are just necessary irritants, to be herded around and treated as chattel. I don’t mean the usually kind and courteous people on the front lines who have to put up with the pressures from above and the frustrations of mistreated passengers. I mean the management of the airlines who exploit the very people who keep them in business.
• There is absolutely no margin for error. Any hiccup in the system disrupts any hope for predictability. Flights are too often way oversold. Crews are scheduled so tightly that there is little flexibility. And the weird seniority issue that still separates US Airways and America West policy is ridiculous.

I guess I’m old enough to remember when customer service was the hallmark of business, not an oft-trumpeted but seldom-executed mantra. Focus on the customer, we used to say, would yield positive business benefits. Service, rather than exploitation, was the watchcry.

“High fuel prices! Too much competition! Wall street expectations!” Airlines act like petulant teenagers – blaming their failures on external factors rather than admitting the consequences of their own actions. External factors are important, to be sure. But as one who travels the unfriendly skies nearly every week, I believe that airlines are prime examples of the modern business trend to forget the hands that feed them.

Travel safely, my friends.

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