In my first installment of this two-parter (Voice of the Customer: Newsweek Blog Scopes Out Readers on Best, Worst Airlines) I peeled back the onion of a Newsweek Budget Travel blog-survey to reveal customer perceptions of two American airlines that are polar opposites of each other.

What drives such extreme differences in customer perceptions of Southwest and United?

I’m tempted to write a thousand words here on the overwhelming importance of both employee relations and service culture in the airline business, but I’ve already done it. Please read Southwest Airlines: “Put Your Employees First.” Here’s the important gist:

Southwest Airlines is … renowned for the efficiency of its route network (point-to-point flying using secondary airports), the leanness of its aircraft inventory (one aircraft type — the Boeing 737 — in just three configurations), and its ability to hedge fuel prices (purchasing options on fuel at lower prices years in advance) in order to control costs. Southwest pioneered the low-fare segment of the airline industry, has the most fanatically loyal customers of any airline, and has been profitable every year since 1973.

Not bad for a smaller, non-union, domestic airline, eh? Well, it wouldn’t be, except that Southwest is now the second-largest airline in the world, by number of passengers carried; has the world’s fourth-largest fleet of aircraft; is heavily unionized; and will soon undertake international carriage.

So just what is the secret of Southwest’s success?

The answer to that question, which is so simple that it might easily escape you, is a four-parter: 1) Southwest, from day one, is not trying to be like any other airline; 2) the DNA of Southwest’s corporate culture is in the building of relationships; 3) the airline very deliberately puts its employees first; and 4) Southwest practices servant leadership.

Quite simply, Southwest innovates, Southwest serves; Southwest is different. From the top down, every interaction between leaders, employees, and customers is an opportunity to relate, to respect, to serve, to solve problems. (For an in-depth treatment, read The Southwest Airlines Way, by Jody Hoffer Gittell.)

There is no one better than Colleen Barrett to explain the inner workings of the “Southwest Way” and servant leadership. A long-time associate of SWA founder Herb Kelleher, Barrett worked at the airline for over 30 years and retired from roles as president and chief operating officer in 2008. Here is Herb Kelleher, on Colleen Barrett:

“Colleen is primarily responsible for the humanistic culture that we have at Southwest today, where people really look out for one another. One of the really significant things she did was give our people on the front line a lot of flexibility. Basically, she ascertained that we could not anticipate every situation that would evolve in a given station at a passenger terminal. Therefore, she told our employees — and meant it — that as long as you are leaning toward the customer, you are OK. Our employees quickly learned that Colleen is sincere in everything that she does and that they really could go out of their way for the customer.”

The list of awards and accomplishments that can be attributed to Colleen Barrett are many. Here is just a sampling:

•  One of only a small handful of women to have served in top leadership at a major American airline (2001-2008)
•  Only female recipient of the Tony Jannus Award for leadership in commercial aviation (2007)
•  Horatio Alger Award (2005)
•  World’s 100 Most Powerful Women: Forbes Magazine (2005, 2004)
•  Top 50 Leaders: Fast Company Magazine (2003)
•  Best Managers: BusinessWeek (2002)
•  America’s Most Powerful Business Women: Fortune Magazine (2001)

Colleen Barrett is clearly a most unusual, and perhaps unlikely, airline executive. She is not likely to be one of the usual suspects you’ll find running operations or “customer experience” at the likes of United, US Airways, or Continental. Perhaps that is a big part of the problem with regard to the current customer crisis at the legacy carriers — that someone like Barrett is not in charge.

Here she is, in her own words, talking about a very different kind of airline leadership at the 12th annual Wharton Leadership Conference in 2008:

Kate Hanni’s FlyersRights.org issued their 2009 Real Air Travel consumer Report Card yesterday at the Press Club in Washington DC. If I came home with a report card like this when I was a kid, I’d get a spanking.

The 2009 report card for tarmac delays of more than three hours gave all of the major airlines a “F” for their performance. The major legacy airlines themselves — American, Continental, Delta, United and US Airways — were graded as failing; their grades were lower when they were combined with their codeshare regional airline partners.
Read the rest of the story »

Colgan provides feeder services for United Airlines (as United Express), Continental (as Continental Connection), and US Airways (as US Airways Express), serving approximately 50 cities in the northeastern United States and Texas.

Click here to view the program in its entirety on the PBS site:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/flyingcheap/view/

(You may also want to read the alarming comments of a United Airlines mechanic on the same page, who asserts several instances of serious, questionable maintenance practices at United’s mainline fleet.)

A total of 50 people (45 passengers; 2 crew members; 1 on the ground) lost their lives in the Colgan/ Continental incident, which was investigated by the National Transportation Safety Board. NTSB concluded that the crash, first believed to have been caused by icing during bad weather, was avoidable; the root cause of the crash was determined to be operational errors by both pilots, almost certainly exacerbated by both inexperience and fatigue.

Last week, Newsweek’s Budget Travel blog invited its readers to weigh in with their perceptions of who the best and and worst airlines in the industry are. Have a look; there’s nothing scientific about the responses of course, but I thought it might be fun to quantify and summarize the results a bit, in a little “back-of-the-envelope” analysis that turned out to be pretty interesting.

As I write this, 166 Budget Travel readers have posted “Best/ Worst” nominations in comments on the blog; many nominated more than one airline in each category, and some drilled down further to make distinctions between domestic and international carriers. Most of the commenters clearly gave this some thought. I randomly sampled about a sixth of these comments and collected some tidbits to share:

The clear winner for “Best Airline” at the Budget Travel blog is Southwest Airlines. About 30% of commenters rated Southwest as “best” or in their top three. Fewer than 1 in 25 commenters rated it as “worst” or in their bottom three. jetBlue and Alaska Airlines came in second and third place (11% and 7%, respectively).

Some of the more noteworthy comments that were made about Southwest Airlines include the following:

•  “… reasonable prices, timely flights and friendly service.”
•  “Always friendly, 99 out of 100 times on time.”
•  “I always encounter friendly staff, from the check-in agents to the flight attendants.”
•  “… consistent friendly service on numerous flights ….”
•  “Friendly, courteous, and no bag fees.”
•  “No hidden fees, easy web-site booking AND flight changes, friendly employees, a great on-time record.”
•  “Not only are their employees friendly and helpful, they seem to really enjoy their jobs and want to be there.”
•  “Friendly staff, humorous onboard announcements, great on time stats and safety record ….”
•  “… reasonable prices, timely flights and friendly service.”

Sensing the trend? Actually, even those commenters who weren’t so enamored of Southwest still used adjectives like “friendly,” “courteous,” “polite,” and “happy” to describe the service provided by their favorite airline.

Review Newsweek’s Budget Travel post, and you won’t find anyone using those words to describe service on United Airlines. In fact, among Budget Travel readers, United appears to be the polar opposite of Southwest: Over 21% of commenters identified United as “worst,” and fewer than 1 in 25 rated United as “best” or their top three. United’s 30-year “Friendly Skies” ad campaign now appears to be just an ironic memory.

United does arouse customer passions, but those passions are strongly negative, and long-lasting. The words used most often to describe United appear to be “unfriendly,” “rude,” “horrible,” and “terrible”:

•  “They deserve the 3 ‘UN’ awards — unfriendly, uncooperative, undesirable. I avoid them like the plague ….”
•  “Cranky flight attendants snapping about where I stow my bag to rude gate attendants when flights are canceled or delayed.”
•  “Disorganized, the rudest and most incompetent staff in the industry, lost luggage, cancelled flights. Avoid at all costs.”
•  “Both incompetent and rude.”
•  “The people that work there are SO rude, from the moment you check in till you get off of the plane.”
•  “Staff is often rude, delays are the rule rather than the exception ….”
•  “The customer service is rude from the airport to the skies. They think that being professional means that you can’t smile or be nice.”
•  “Their customer service agents are terrible and using award miles is a joke.”
•  “There is not enough room to share the horrible experiences I have had ….”
•  “… the rest of the legacy carriers are all so-so, except United which is horrible.”
•  “Worst, hands-down [is] United … horrible.”
•  “I had a terrible, terrible return flight from Hawaii with United and I swore that I would never fly them again — and I meant it.”
•  “These people are horrible. They even tried to separate me from my son, who was 2 at the time, by putting us in different seats.”

At least one of the runners-up in the “worst airline” category was surprising: Roughly 11% of Budget Travel readers rated Continental Airlines as “worst,” ahead of even US Airways (7%). Given that these three are close partners in United’s Star Alliance, this might be an indicator of where service performance is headed for Star customers. Continental is of course new to Star and its codeshare with United, but I wonder: Is the sharing of gates, routes, aircraft, and employees between United and Continental already having a corrosive effect on Continental?

In my next post, I’ll delve into those aspects of Southwest Airlines leadership and culture that are 1) at the heart of the most loyal customer base in the airline industry; and 2) the foundation of Southwest’s unparalleled growth and success over the past 40 years. Until then, if you want to read more airline reviews or comparative data regarding quality and customer service, check out the links in the “Reviews” section of the sidebar at right.

[Read next » Voice of the Customer, part 2: At Southwest Airlines, a Different Kind of Leadership]