Waveflyer wrote:If I didn't trust the competence of the crew to make the right decision I wouldn't get on the aircraft.
My own experience has been that things aren't always quite that black and white.
There are some places in the world where I've used airlines with a relatively poor safety record. And others with a less than stellar customer service reputation. Sometimes you don't have an alternative if you want to visit a certain location, and it is worth remembering that even some of the worst airlines are still a safer way to travel than many alternatives.
Often, the customer service can be good on airlines with poor safety records, and sometimes the customer service is lousy on safe airlines. And, sometimes the customer service on the ground is poor, but good in the air, and vice versa. Sometimes, it is the service at the airport itself that is bad, but you don't always have a lot of choice if you want to travel to some places.
I mostly try to pick an airline with a safe reputation, and then trade off other factors such as price, comfort on the aircraft, service on the aircraft, and treatment on the ground. However, if I particularly want to visit somewhere I have made compromises on all of these. Further, my own actual experience affects my choice, as do what I see and read about airlines.
As an example, I used to have a United frequent flyer card, and have never had any safety concerns, but I have found their cabin service to be mediocre. I've found that true of the major US carriers generally. Given the latest news about the good doctor, United have moved down a notch on my selection list, but I'd still fly on them.
BA used to be high on my list of preferred airlines, but a bad experience on the ground moved them down my list a bit. I've always liked their cabin service. Maybe it isn't as gentle as many of the Asian and Middle East carriers, but I've always found it competent and professional. That is one reason why I think the account of the topic of this thread in the Wail is almost certainly inaccurate. That said, I was once downgraded at check in on a long haul flight, and when I suggested that such overbooking was poor customer service, the BA lady at check in replied by telling me BA was making record profits so it must be doing things right. The insensitivity and arrogance of that particular lady who showed me she put her airline's profitability above my customer satisfaction has lived with me since, and cost BA a fair bit of my travel budget, but I'd still happily fly on them. First world problems, of course, but incompetence in my eyes nonetheless.
I've flown on many relatively high risk airlines, and had mostly good experiences. Garuda, Air China, some regional African airlines, and Air India ( on which I had one nightmare experience). In the right circumstances, I'd use them all again because the risks still remain low even though they are definitely not the most competent in some aspects.
Likewise, I recall as an example a round the world trip on Air New Zealand from Heathrow to Los Angeles to Auckland to Hong Kong to Heathrow. I don't like Heathrow, but I hated arriving in Los Angeles in the middle of the night to be finger printed and interrogated before being allowed into the transit lounge. I don't like Auckland because the queue at immigration can be hours long (and as I used to visit New Zealand regularly, always tried to enter via Christchurch whenever possible as you were through immigration in minutes). In contrast, arriving and departing in Hong Kong is a breeze - I'm never more than five minutes in immigration, and then the baggage arrives very quickly after. None of these factors stop me travelling to these places. If you think Los Angeles is bad, the security people in Honolulu are ten times worse, but as Hawaii is such a great place I put up with it.
I've travelled on very few airlines where everything comes together well. Air New Zealand are great, as are some of the Japanese airlines I've flown on. But, most of my travel has involved compromises at some stage of the service chain. And, to make matters more complicated still, it is a constantly moving feast. So, I continually reassess. Further, on most airlines there is a high degree of variability of service from one crew to the next.
For me, though, the destination is far more important than how you get there. So, in my own case certainly, I've got onto aircraft where my expectations and confidence were balanced against my desire to travel.
FLYER Club Member
