Gripe of the Week: American Airlines Bites the Hand That Feeds It

By Dave Carroll
Founder, Gripevine.com


Gripevine.com is a powerful platform in a variety of ways but I think what consumers appreciate most is the opportunity to vent frustrations from bad customer experiences and explain only once, in detail, what happened and what they'd consider as a fair resolution. Here is a good example of that:

http://gripevine.com/aa-flight-1178-leaky-coffee-pot-causes-loss-business-amr-corporation-american-airlines-gripe


In this story a business passenger who paid full price for a first class travel experience found that he and his fellow passengers were being used as leverage in a work-to-rule campaign by inflight American Airlines employees. As a result his plane was delayed, he spent hours longer than expected aboard his flight, missed a business meeting that he paid a lot of money to attend and is understandably frustrated at being deliberately inconvenienced. He was able to state his case clearly and concisely with as much bandwidth as he needed and, over to the right of his Gripevine complaint page, you can clearly see what he is looking for: a refund.

Is he entitled to a refund? I think so.As a paying customer, and a First Class paying customer at that, he deserved to be taken, on time, to his destination along with the other paying customers... the same customers that the pilots thank on the intercom for their valued patronage on every flight. If using your customers travel plans as bargaining chips is your way of showing your appreciation I'd hate to see what the pilots would do to us with any less gratitude for the business.

I don't know much about the relationship between management and the pilots at American but I've heard it's tense. Clearly they need to iron out their differences but in the meantime both sides need to connect the dots between whatever business they have left and where that money comes from. If my vacation or business trip is ever interrupted by employees working to rule, not only will I not support their cause, I won't soon forget it. I won't take sides. I'll simply use a competitor with a better track record and hopefully there will be another option with employees who truly appreciate that whatever money is in their paychecks comes from paying customers. Biting the hand that feeds you is an act of insanity but until American Airlines sorts itself out, the option is to keep the customers they have left by righting wrongs like the one in this example - or suffer the bigger cost of letting full fare, first class, passengers go to the competition.



About Gripevine:
Gripevine connects customers and companies on a fair and level public playing field where they can come together to create win-win resolutions to common consumer complaints. Consumers can use Gripevine to leverage the power of social media to get their stories heard. Companies can use their Customer Satisfaction Index on Gripevine to show the world the quality of their customer service. By leveraging the power of social media, both groups of users can ultimately affect a company's Customer Satisfaction Index on Gripevine, which provides an effective scale for the quality of customer service.


About Dave Carroll:
Dave Carroll is an award winning singer-songwriter, professional speaker, author and social media innovator based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. He began his music career with his brother Don in the band Sons of Maxwell and has been enjoying success as a solo artist for the last four years. Known as a master storyteller, Dave's incredible talent was introduced to millions when his 2009 YouTube music video 'United Breaks Guitars' became a worldwide sensation. Dave is now co-founder of the consumer resolution complaint platform, Gripevine.com. Most recently, Dave published his first book: "United Breaks Guitars: The Power of One Voice in the Age of Social Media" and released his second album, "Raincoat in Vegas."