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Service quality and customer satisfaction in the airline industry
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Introduction Many US companies have closed operations following a dismal performance, which primarily stems out of unhappy customers. It therefore goes without saying that the success of any company or organization is deeply rooted in the happiness of consumers. Many America companies have come under sharp criticism for the wrong reasons. Some like Wells Fargo recently rubbed shoulder with clients following a damning revelation of employees creating phony accounts to meet sales quotas and in turn siphon money in the form of fees from unsuspecting clients. Spirit Airlines is no safer when it comes to America’s most hated companies. It is currently ranked the worst America Company with poor customer service, according to the American customer satisfaction index (ACS1, 2017). Problem Statement The poor employee-employer relationship at Spirit airline is making customers have longer waits at airports leading to low customer satisfaction. Low customer satisfaction not only shreds customer loyalty, but it is also leading to millions of losses in revenue as customers turn to competitor airlines. More about the Issue Spirit Airline has been in the public limelight for the wrong reasons. Many passenger flights have been delayed for over six hours …show more content…
Most of the time, passengers have to struggle to get clear directives from the airline whenever there is a delay or when a scheduled plane developed a mechanical problem. Flight passengers only learn about flight delays and unreported mechanical problems when a gate which they were to use is shut leaving them with no option other than to seek help from other open gates. A survey conducted by ACSI reports that a majority of customers who have once or twice been caught up in the airline mess swear not to use the carrier the next time (ACSI, 2017). Currently, the carrier has the worst customer satisfaction rating, something which might lead to a significant decline in
The objective of this research report is to provide a thorough analysis of Alaska Airlines. In order to do this we chose to compare a similar company against them. The company in comparison is Spirit Airlines. Both companies compete in the same type of business through airline transportation. Many of their services include; security, safety, transportation of passengers as well as luggage, ensuring vehicle safety while in transit, concierge services, providing entertainment aboard plane, checking weather conditions prior to flight, and much more. All of the data gathered for this report was obtained from the company’s 10-k filings with the SEC.
Along with the low stock index numbers of September 17th, the airline industry and travel stocks were also rocked. One of several airlines announcing layoffs, US Airways said that they would be terminating 11,000 jobs. These heavy losses were contributed to airlines “being grounded last week [week of September 11th], plus passengers have been apprehensive to fly, in the wake of the hijackings” (Stock Markets Reopen 1).
Spirit makes our fares so low because they know that draws in the attention of the consumer. Once they have your attention you’re shocked at the price so you go for the deal, oblivious to the fact that you walked into their trap. Southwest’s symbol for shareholders is LUV while Spirit’s is SAVE. They are not the only companies to start to enter into these paths. Hotels, rental cars and cruises are all faced with the same choice to embrace the LUV or the thriftiness with SAVE (Elliot
Southwest Airlines has come from an underdog to being one of the best airlines in the industry. This reputation translates from its strategic management of resources. The Co-founder and former CEO, Herb Kelleher, established a unique corporate culture that leads to high customer satisfaction, employees’ morale, and one of the most profitable airlines in the industry (Jackson et al., 2012). The corporate culture concentrates on empowerment the workforce. It shows through Southwest Airlines core values that “happy employees lead to happy customers, which create happy shareholders” (Jackson et al., 2012). Since its first grand opening in 1971, Southwest Airlines has shown steady growth, and now carries more passengers than any other low-cost carrier in the world (Wharton, 2010). To expand the business operations, Southwest Airlines took over AirTran in 2010 as a strategy to gain more market share for the Southeast region and international flights. However, the acquisition of AirTran brought upcoming challenges both internally and externally for Southwest Airlines. In this case analysis, the objectives are focusing on the change process post the merger with AirTran, and evaluating alternatives to address the impacts of the merger.
Spirit Airlines has long been considered an unorthodox airline. They, of course, address all four P’s in their marketing strategy; however, they focus a large amount of their effort on price and promotion. They focus on cutting price through “unbundling”. They focus on promotion through taking advantage of social issues and breaking news. Many advertisements and deals promoted by Spirit have given the public a definite shock-factor. Spirit has made two objectives very clear: they are furious at getting the customer the lowest fare possible by any means necessary, and they will similarly use any means necessary to get those potential customers to notice those fares. Such a blatant marketing strategy works. Even going up against some big competition, Spirit finds ways to be competitive and successful in flagrant fashion.
The Airline Industry is a fascinating market. It has been one of the few industries to reach astounding milestones. For example, over 200 airlines have gone out of business since deregulation occurred in 1978. Currently, more than 50% of the airlines in the industry are operating under Chapter 11 regulations. Since 9/11, four of the six large carriers have filed for and are currently under bankruptcy court protection. Since 9/11 the industry has lost over $30 billion dollars, and this loss continues to increase. Despite the fact that the airline industry is in a state of despair, JetBlue has become the golden example, a glimpse of what the industry could be.
The airline industry is very competitive, amongst them lies Spirit Airlines. They were born in 1964, originally as a trucking company named Clippert Trucking Company, which was a corporation based in Michigan. They actually didn’t begin their air operations until 1990, which is when it was renamed to Spirit Airlines Inc. Later in 1999, Spirit moved their headquarters to the orange state - Florida. Spirit Airlines provides competition by promoting low fares and making it very affordable to travel. Spirit offers around 300 flights to 56 destinations all over the Americas (“TDAmeritrade” 2015). Their business model permits them to compete mainly by offering customers their “Bare Fares” (“Spirit Airlines Annual Report” 2015), which are costs that offer
Since 1987, when the Department of Transportation began tracking Customer Satisfaction statistics, Southwest has consistently led the entire airline industry with the lowest ratio of complaints per passengers boarded. Many airlines have tried to copy Southwest’s business model, and the Culture of Southwest is admired and emulated by corporations and organizations in all walks of life. Always the innovator, Southwest pioneered Senior Fares, a same-day air freight delivery service, and Ticketless Travel. Southwest led the way with the first airline web page—southwest.com, DING, the first-ever direct link to Customer’s computer desktops that delivers live updates on the hottest deals, and the first airline corporate blog, Nuts About Southwest. Our Share the Spirit community programs make Southwest the hometown airline of every city we serve.
Airline and travel industry profitability has been strapped by a series of events starting with a recession in business travel after the dotcom bust, followed by 9/11, the SARS epidemic, the Iraq wars, rising aviation turbine fuel prices, and the challenge from low-cost carriers. (Narayan Pandit, 2005) The fallout from rising fuel prices has been so extreme that any efficiency gains that airlines attempted to make could not make up for structural problems where labor costs remained high and low cost competition had continued to drive down yields or average fares at leading hub airports. In the last decade, US airlines alone had a yearly average of net losses of $9.1 billion (Coombs, 2011).
“A Tale of Two Airlines” by Christopher Elliott brings good versus evil to a whole new level. It depicts Southwest Airlines as a hero, who only cares about the well-being of its customers. On the other hand you have the “villain,” Spirit Airlines. Spirit attempts to deceive its customers by advertising the lowest possible price, however underneath that cover is hidden fees. The purpose of this essay is to analyze “A Tale of Two Airlines” to see if Elliott can pull passengers out of Spirit’s evil grasp and back into the trusty hands of Southwest Airlines.
hurt United. The point is, now we live in a world where YouTube videos can go viral, airlines need to think about how to improve customer service. Another example of an airline that has suffered from bad customer service practices during the digital age is American Airlines. There are so many dissatisfied American Airlines customers out there that they have created a couple of very active Facebook pages.
The Last Flight of Hawker 818MV Incident Hawker Beechcraft Corporation 125-800A, N818MV, operated by East Coast Jets and designated as Flight 81, departed Atlantic City International Airport at 0713 central daylight time on 31 July 2008. Flight 81 was transporting employees of Revel Entertainment to Degner Regional Airport in Owatonna, Minnesota as part of a five-leg trip sequence. During the landing on runway 30, the captain initiated a go-around late in the landing roll, striking the localizer antenna of runway 30. The two pilots and six passengers were killed, and the airplane was destroyed upon impact with the ground (Accident Report, 2011, p. 1).
Caribbean Airlines is a young state-owned airlines company having its headquarters in in Iere House in Piarco. The airlines company was founded in 2006 and began flight operations on 2017, operating through the Caribbean, Central America, North America, and South America from its base at Piarco International Airport. The airlines company initiate a simple one-way fares that provided a flexible fare combination and extended stay options for the global passengers. The exclusive program also featured a permanent discount facility, no change fees for students, and senior citizen discounts.
Prior to 2008, it looked as Alaska Airlines might follow the path of other major airlines and file for bankruptcy. The numbers were dismal, at the lowest point only 60% of flights were on-time and seven per 1,000 customers’ bags were mishandled. The system was broken; there was a lack communication amongst the different roles and the goal of the company was to provide mediocre but “nice” service to customers. Major problems included delays mishandled baggage and long waits at carousel. These problems laid deep-seeded in the ideology of Alaska Airlines.
Let your Dreams take the flight with Frontier Airlines. Call 1-888-301-5548 for more updates. About us: Frontier Airlines is an American ultra-low-cost carrier headquartered situated in Denver, Colorado. It is the 8th largest business airline in the US. Frontier operates flights to 70 destinations throughout the United States and five international goals.