Comments on: American Airlines Restructuring: Hundreds Of Layoffs In Customer Service To Serve You Better?

By: AAnonymous

AAnonymous — Wed, 31 Jan 2024 01:36:22 +0000

It’s sad watching what has become of this airline after nearly 35 years as a flight attendant and purser. I never supported the merger with US and was a huge fan of the improvements to the service offered when Horton took the reins for an all-too-brief period. His right hand man, Virasb Vahidi, was taking the company in the right direction and I had high hopes. Improved catering, video screens were to be installed on all aircraft at all seats, beautiful cabins (for the time in 2013) on aircraft like the A321T and 777-300. It was a joy to serve people and we could take pride in the offerings we had for the customers once again, after 9/11, bankruptcy, etc. But the unions back deal with Parker sealed the company’s fate to becoming Greyhound in the sky. I’ve never seen morale so low, and the management doesn’t care. I’ve never heard so many passenger complaints, and the management doesn’t care.

The current mindset at America West International as we call it, is to eliminate anything that makes the customers happy. They waste their time thinking up what to call each department in the company. Passenger Service, which was the agents, and people who work in the Admirals Clubs was changed to “Customer Care.” And now my department, Flight Service, has been changed to Inflight. The reasoning behind it? Because that’s what other airlines call it, is what we were told. It’s a subliminal message because service has been removed from the titles of the work groups, because there is no service.

By: tomri

tomri — Tue, 30 Jan 2024 23:13:49 +0000

you people complain so much. Try calling the IRS “due to high call volume please call back another DAY” disconnect. Or on hold for 45 min then you are disconnected. Love that congress has appropriated $$Billions to fix this then took it all back. The IRS get the crooks (Orange ones) . At lease they can not outsource their work to India.

What AA needs to do is CLEAN OUT THE dead beat workers who are there only for the check and benefits… Flight Attendant Wanda needs to retire. Gate Agent Natashia needs to go back being a dom in private.

By: M. Casey

M. Casey — Tue, 30 Jan 2024 20:27:15 +0000

This would be funnier if the number of employees being cut was a total of 666 instead of 656.

How about they give the 656 frontline CS employees tools to resolve their customer needs. At another company frontline employee can take phone calls, establish video calls, or open chat platforms to resolve customer issues. If RDU has a major issue – the customer can contact an agent-in-charge at a location where there are people resources available to assist. Rather than stand at the RDU ticket counter with other 2 employee.

Of the 135 newly created jobs, will the furloughed employees be able to carryover their union seniority. …or is this new position outside of union protections.

By: CHRIS

CHRIS — Tue, 30 Jan 2024 19:40:55 +0000

Can the service get much worse?

By: Tim Dunn

Tim Dunn — Tue, 30 Jan 2024 18:54:47 +0000

This is all rooted in AA’s belief that they will dominate their markets, leave competitive ones, and customers will simply accept whatever service AA provides.
I have experienced AA’s AI-driven first line customer service tools and they got some things right but didn’t address other issues.
Because customer service support is not-revenue generating, AA sees the function as a cost center. Reservations is a revenue generator.
And those that compare AA to ultra low cost carriers should note that they do the same thing; the differentiation is access to a human, even if you have to wait.
It should also be noted that I had to process the same type of transaction at both AA and NK within a few weeks of each other and the NK automated tools and AI delivered faster and more accurately.

By: Maxie Dean

Maxie Dean — Tue, 30 Jan 2024 18:17:58 +0000

Being proactive would further relieve the workload on AA customer relations staff . Set reasonable thresholds based on cabin and status and send reasonable customer recovery “ compensation” when things go awry that under are under the airline’s control . So , a 3 hour maintenance delay would trigger an automatic email with an apology and some sort of recovery voucher for miles / money based on cabin and status . Let FA’s give service recovery for onboard issues – I think they may have this but seem to really come down on FA’s who utilize the system .

AA seems to be set on a single minded course of trying to cut its way to profitability- this has been tried soooo many times in the airline industry without much success . Profitable passengers care about product , onboard service , and competitive benefits ( such as the AA woefully uncompetitive million miler program ). As long as AA believes that the schedule is all that matters to high value passengers, then their earnings / profitability will continue to lag far behind the industry leaders .

By: Woofie

Woofie — Tue, 30 Jan 2024 17:36:57 +0000

AA’s race to the bottom continues, meanwhile on outsourcing…

I set an outsourcing center in Cebu, Philippines. We spent a lot of time hiring and training and paid better than the local mean. Our guys in Cebu were wayyyyyy better than our US staff, and had much better attitudes towards our customers. Oh, and cost ~1/3 of my US staff.

By: AC

AC — Tue, 30 Jan 2024 17:03:30 +0000

Gary – the short answer is no it will not improve customer service. However, American has to cut costs or improve profitability and if they can’t raise fares, get a better revenue mix on planes or compete on higher margin routes the only option is cost cutting. Can’t cut flight crews (without downsizing which would hurt revenue) so have to look at cuts in non-revenue generating areas. Maybe they have technology that can improve throughput and, to an extent, offset these reductions but the fact is I’m not sure American had a choice but to cut costs somewhere. This is a drop in the bucket and I wouldn’t be surprised if more are coming (likely mid-level corporate management).

By: jsm

jsm — Tue, 30 Jan 2024 16:30:38 +0000

“Due to unusually high call volume …” has become the mantra when attempting to call any 800 number, not just American. It is actually a synonym for not having enough customer service reps. It would be interesting to know when and how many times in the past (to pick a number) month that American has not had unusually high call volume?

By: jcil

jcil — Tue, 30 Jan 2024 16:05:29 +0000

These agents can only do whatever the computer says. The future for AA, and all others, is going to be an AI chatbot–no humans involved–going strait to the computer boss. It will be absolutely terrible and very frustrating for the customers, but the exec’s will reward themselves will millions in bonuses for cost cutting and “enhancing” the customer experience.