Plane Conversations

My son came home from school one day with a classroom story I found disturbing.  It was at the beginning of the school year and the teacher asked each student to introduce themselves and to tell what their career goals were.  One student stated that he wanted to be a famous rap artist.  The teacher’s advice to the student was to pick another career, he’d never make it in that one.

I’m sure that there were plenty of people who gave the same advice to Marshall Mathers and Curtis Jackson; but, apparently neither Eminem nor 50 Cent took notice of the naysayers. 

Several months ago, I read a blog entitled Misfit Entrepreneurs that really stuck with me.  In the blog, Dan Pallotta wonders how Bruce Springsteen could communicate his aspirations to his father, “How does he tell his father, ‘I’m going to be Bruce Springsteen?’ “  How does any true visionary communicate their vision to the rest of us?  How can they explain their dream to expand or alter a current reality?  How can they define what we can’t even imagine?

At the moment, my son wants to be a stand-up comedian.  He’s pretty hilarious; so, this may be a good fit for him.  I remind him that the path is difficult and that the price, in terms of work, will be high.  However, if Jerry Seinfeld can do it, I don’t see why my son wouldn’t be able to – provided he’s willing to do the work.  Those are the real keys, aren’t they?  We must be able to envision the goal and we must be willing to do the work.

In the charter side of Business and General Aviation, we often talk about the problems in our industry.  Operators all over the country have shut down.  Those of us still flying struggle with ever-thinner margins.  Customers want more stringent standards; but, they often want to pay less for them.  The market is unwilling to pay price increases that keep pace with cost increases.  How can we continue to operate under these circumstances?  We operate smarter.

But, we can’t operate smarter until we change the way we view ourselves and our product.  We have to envision ourselves as Bruce Springsteen before we can actually translate the vision to reality.  We have to stop seeing our industry only for what it is and, instead, see it for what it can be.  What if we can increase fleet utilization without substantially increasing costs?  What if we can increase our margins simply be changing our customer base?  What if we could increase our customer base by tenfold?

What if I told you that we can?  What if I told you that the vision was becoming reality right on the horizon?  Would you be willing to envision it?  Would you be willing to work on it with us? 

We can do it.  After all, Bruce Springsteen exists.

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Photograph by: Chris Ware, Getty

Bloomberg and Associated Press report that June 2010 airline traffic rose 2.3% over June last year with US airlines carrying 65 million passengers. Annualized that comes to 780 million passengers. DOT projections say we will hit the 1 billion annual passenger level in the US in about 10 years.   

In spite of low customer satisfaction with airline service, people keep coming back for more. If you listen to all the grumbling you would think that, surely, travelers have had enough.  

The need or desire to travel must outweigh the pain of going to the airport and flying by airline.

People don’t like to fly the airlines but they keep doing it and the numbers are growing.

People love to fly in their own aircraft, ride in the back of a business jet or even a prop aircraft on their own schedule, and without the hassle of airline system,  but our industry languishes in this economy.

What is wrong with this picture?

It seems that price outweighs most considerations for the masses when it comes to travel.

Wouldn’t we all rather ride in a private jet if we could do so for the price of a Southwest Airline ticket?

How do we move a very small percentage of the market of travelers over to our side of the game?

It would only take a very small percentage of those 780 million annual passengers to radically change the fortunes of business and private aviation from manufacturers to service providers to the operators of the aircraft.

Move a few percent of the market share of travel to business and general aviation and, suddenly, the world looks a lot brighter for those of us in this industry.

I see a lot of effort being put forth; but, mostly, the efforts are in their own silos. I don’t see a lot of effort as an industry working together to solve the problem. There seems to be a general acceptance that it is what it is and that the situation on a macro level is not going to change quickly anytime soon.

It is worth thinking about to see if we can come up with solutions, isn’t it?

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In a September 2 post I discussed Congressman Oberstar’s statement that possibly we should consider re-regulating the airline industry. His opinion is that the mergers happening between major carriers are bad for the consumer and will leave them with fewer choices, higher prices and less service.

I am opposed to regulation of the airlines in matters of customer service and free market competition. With the exception of matters of safety, I believe the government should step aside and let the market work things out. The government does not have a good track record meddling in matters of the free market.  

A September 5 blog by William Swelbar at www.swelblog.com has been posted that intelligently puts the facts out and further convinces me of the government’s need to get out of the way. The blog title, “Dear Chairman Oberstar: What Do You Mean This Is Not What You Voted For?” sets the tone of this post.

If you are interested in this issue Swelbar’s post is a well written argument on the history and merits of the deregulation of the airline industry that happened in 1978. Jump over to his site and take a read .

Even though business aviation and general aviation compete with the airlines for some portion of the travel market it is still good for the economy and the aviation industry as a whole to have a free market system of profitable and competitive airlines to keep our economy moving.

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Delta is in the Social Media Game

You can now book a flight on Facebook on Delta Airlines Facebook  page and tell your friends about it without ever leaving Facebook.

When you are on Delta Airlines Facebook page you click the “Book a Flight” Button, then click the get started button. Immediately Delta asks for permission to access your information on your Facebook page including your Friends, user ID, networks, gender, and profile picture. If you don’t allow it the process stops as far as I can tell.

I guess the assumption is that you must give up your data if you want to play the booking game through Facebook. So to figure this out, I let them have my information.

From there it is a fairly easy process and not much different than booking on their main site. You have the option to share the flight with your friends. I have not booked a flight on Facebook to see what happens next. If anyone reading this has used this application I would like to hear your thoughts.

I can see this being used for personal travel but not so much for business. I am not totally sure what the real value proposition to booking through Facebook is at this point, with the exception of the ‘Sharing” of my flight information, and maybe for the Faceobook junkies who cant leave the site it does something?

I wonder what Delta does with my information they now have access to? Will they use it to help me solve travel problems or use it to target me for advertising messages?  

Delta at the time of this posting has about 38,500 Fans on their page. Lots of comments:  some positive and and a lot of negative about service issues.

It is hard to tell if Delta uses Facebook to actually communicate to the market.

Delta has also gotten more active in the use of Twitter and now has a staff to respond to Tweets. When I go to their Twitter acccount  they have 78.000 followers, they follow 730 people and it looks like they don’t respond daily as there are lapses in their tweets on their corporate account.  They do have a Twitter account “deltaassist‘  that focuses on resolving customer issues. This account has 2300 followers.

The airlines are waking up to the use Social Media tools. What will be interesting to watch is how they use the technology. Will they enhance the customer experience, listen and react to the market of travelers needs, or will it just be another way to get more money from the traveler with no value added?  

Could Business Aviation and the Air Charter Industry use these same tools to reach the market in a postive and social way?

An Article  titled Six Ways the Travel Industry can use Social Media is a good read if you have the time.

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In the New York times bestselling book, Delivering Happiness, Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh (pronounced “Shay”) chronicles the rise of Zappos .com from obscurity to profitability and finally to its now infamous  1.2 billion dollar acquisition by Amazon.com .  He outlines Zappos’ legendary focus on customer service and corporate culture.   As I read Hsieh’s book, I couldn’t help but imagine the possibilities and implications for those of us who love flying and aviation related businesses.

In the introduction, Hsieh, takes us into his thoughts as he prepares to announce to Zappos’ employees that Amazon was acquiring the company.  While the media was focused on the sheer size of the deal, Hsieh’s thoughts were elsewhere:

 “To all of us in the room, we knew it wasn’t just about the money.  Together, we had built a business that combined profits, passion, and purpose.  And we knew that it wasn’t just about building a business.  It was about building a lifestyle that was about delivering happiness to everyone, including ourselves.”¹

There are several things noteworthy in this quote.  One is the sense of team that you feel.  Hsieh speaks in terms of “us”  and “together”.  Clearly the focus is on something more than the bottom line.  Words such as “passion”, “purpose”, “lifestyle” and “happiness” all speak to the company’s core values and goals.  Hsieh notes later that, “We decided that we wanted to build our brand to be about the very best customer service and the very best customer experience.” ²  What Zappos discovered was that by creating a culture centered on these values and expectations,  profitability developed.  

 Zappo’s Rabid Dedication to the Customer & Employee

As I read, I would often seek out my wife to read her passages (some guys read poetry to their wives…so much for romance!)  I would begin with saying, “Can you believe that a company would do this?”   Here are a few examples: 

• Customer service that includes free, unannounced upgrades in shipping.  You place an order for shoes that should take 4 days to arrive and without warning –for free—they’re on your doorstep the next day.
• A reward system for employees for pursuing personal development.  A lending library of the best personal growth books was created in the lobby to do just this.
• Free shipping on all orders…and if the shoes don’t fit you can send them back for free!
• If they don’t have the shoe in stock, they will research three competitor’s websites and will direct the customer to the competitor.
• In 2008, Zappo’s was faced with making a round of layoffs.  Instead of the standard 2-week severance, they offered to pay each employee through the end of the year (which at the time was about 2 months).  They paid an additional amount for those who had been with the company 3 or more years.  They reimbursed laid-off employees for 6 months of COBRA payments.

This made me want to buy shoes, just to have the Zappos experience.  Which is exactly the point- the experience.

 The Zappos Experience- Happiness

In 2009 Zappos inserted a simple statement into their vision that reflects the underlying core value that is at the heart of their company.  It says, “Zappos is about delivering happiness to the world.”³

Hsieh and Zappos are not talking about some “fuzzy” notion of happiness, which many people equate with silly giddiness.  Instead, Hsieh studied the concept of what makes people happy and investigated ways to integrate his findings into his company.  In his book, he offers several frameworks to consider, such as our need for perceived control in our lives (having a say in our future and in our work), perceived progress (we can see that we are going somewhere—don’t we all hate “dead-end” jobs?), connectedness (being in relationships that are truly fulfilling) and meaning/vision (being a part of something larger than ourselves that we believe in). 

This type of corporate emphasis helped develop a company culture that focused on amazing customer service, which aimed ultimately at customer happiness.   While Zappos was certainly concerned with profitability and bottom line, they managed to never lose sight of the crucial importance of what they were delivering, but how.  I think this begins to intersect and have application for the aviation industry. 

What if a flight school moved into the realm of radical customer service?

As an industry it simply doesn’t appear that we’re asking the customer experience question.  And yet, in some ways, flying is all about experience.  It’s built into the act of flying.  But what isn’t built in is how we attract and retain customers by giving them an experience of service.  

For instance, let’s consider flight training.  How do we attract and engage the customer before they officially become a customer?  What could we do to serve them before we’re asking for their money?  

• How about having a pleasant lobby area and facilities that are well kept?  (Seriously, the urinal that overflows regularly should be fixed. Gross.)
• How about having snacks available for free?
• Coupons (have any Flight Schools tried Groupon.com) for flights?
• Free airplane rides.  Publicize well, donate a couple of hours on a Saturday to give rides to the community.
• Flight training material professionally produced and ready to be given to the new student.
• Aircraft that are clean, up-to-date, and well-maintained.  (If your preflight involves duct-tape, think again.)

 As a customer, what kind of experience might we give our customers if we:

• Randomly chose a student to receive a free hour of instruction?  They come in from the flight line only to discover they owe nothing. 
• Instead of having them buy more and more books and videos, develop a lending library
• If you have access to a twin or jet and space permits, let your student go for a ride
• Quarterly celebrations for new solos and new licenses.  Could be as simple as a cookout at the airport in honor of these new pilots. 
• Encouraged lifelong learning by giving seminars and offering guest speakers to the larger aviation community

What about instructors?

• Incentives for recruiting (Bonus for giving 5 or more discovery flights…extra for each one who begins training) 
• Bonus for each student who successfully receives their license
• Reward for longevity (create a stable base of instructors)
• Instructor dinners and socializing
• Opportunities for adding new ratings at reduced cost and free recurrency training.

These are just ideas, some of which might be difficult to employ.  How refreshing it would be to potential pilots and employees to discover a flight school with a culture that was geared to providing the best possible service and create what Hsieh calls a “WOW” factor. 

Whether we’re talking about flight schools or maintenance departments or FBO’s, I believe there is something to be learned from Zappos.  Imagine, tomorrow, what it would be like to be “WOWED” by your company in its relationship with you.  Imagine what it would be like to WOW your customers and the transformed relationship with them.   Imagine the impact of those combined experiences, the word of mouth that would ensue, and the absolute fun of being in the flying business.  

It begins with a commitment to developing or changing the culture and embracing a foundational shift towards clearly defined values and competencies that will shape the entire organization.  It is about delivering an experience that is first class and recognizing that our happiness is found not only in profits (which is certainly needed) but in living with passion and purpose. 

If Hsieh and Zappos can do it with shoes,  I believe we can certainly do it with airplanes. 

Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion and Purpose, Tony Hsieh, Business Plus, New York: NY, 2010

 1. Page 11

2. Page 121

3. Page 177

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Airlines are trying to make a profit; something that has not happened in aggregate in their entire history of serving the traveling public. In an effort to make a profit in the past few years they have unbundled their pricing and added fees back in for everything imaginable.

I can’t blame them for trying to make profit. Profit is not a bad word. 

But somehow this whole idea of  add-on fees is having an anti-social effect on the traveling public. Mainstream media has spent a great deal of space on this issue.  The latest comes from the New York Times in an article titled “Airline Fees Test Travelers’ Limits”. 

You can almost feel sorry for the airlines because it seems at every turn they are getting kicked by either the government or the media. And the more kicking they do, the more the public demands a change. It is almost to a point where we feel that we have a fundamental right to travel cheaply by air and without problems. I don’t remember seeing this in the Constitution, but you never know. An amendment dealing with airline travel may be forthcoming.     

Congress thinks they can solve it by putting more rules (laws) in place to regulate everything from how you advertise your rates to how long you can keep a person stranded on an aircraft sitting on the tarmac. How can you regulate customer service?   

 I wonder if there is a point where the airlines figure this out?  The solutions are neither simple nor obvious because the airlines must make a profit.  At this point, though, they don’t seem to have a vision of how they can create both profits and happy customers.

 We run a business that offers an alternative form of travel. It is not cheap, but travelers do like to travel in our aircraft. 

Most days we have happy customers. Occasionally we make a mistake or weather and the laws of mechanical physics conspire against us and we end up with an unhappy customer. The air conditioner breaks on the hottest of days or weather prevents us from departing or making an on time arrival or …..

 When that happens, it is up to us to make it right. We should do what it takes to fix it. If we don’t make it right, then shame on us. Those customers who see you do the right thing when things go wrong become the best customers. When you don’t do the right thing, then the customers go somewhere else for the solution.  

Our customers are smart and successful people. They run businesses themselves and know what it takes to deliver their product or service at a profit while meeting the expectations of their customers. They also know that things can sometimes go wrong; so, mostly, I have seen a degree of patience from our customers to allow us to “make it right.”

I don’t see that with the airlines. Patience has run out. As the NYT article title suggests “travelers’ limits are tested”.

One side of me smiles and says I hope that the airlines keep doing more of what they are doing. It pushes people to consider using our form of air travel even though the dollar cost is more.

The other side of me says that the airlines need to figure out how to make their customers happy if at all possible.  The economy of this country will win if they do that.

The bottom line is that travel is about productivity. Efficient travel contributes to economic productivity and inefficient travel kills productivity. Stress in travel has to reduce productivity, too.  Let’s figure out how to eliminate the stress.

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You commonly see fireworks displays in the Nashville area on New Year’s, Independence Day, Sounds games and whenever I’ve received an invoice that is significantly higher than what I was quoted for services, goods or whatever.  In my opinion, the fastest way to lose a customer is to charge them a higher price for a product than they agreed to.

This happened to me years ago when I ordered a specially printed item.  The invoice was some 15% higher than what I’d been quoted due to overruns.  Apparently this is common knowledge in the printing industry; but, I’m not in the printing industry.  I was livid that my very tight budget was blown.  My representative’s attitude was along the lines of, “Well, it’s common practice and your own fault for not knowing what questions to ask.”  Somehow, it was my fault for not knowing her job.  Riddle me this - how many more orders did I place with that printer?  That’s right – none.

Anytime I train new agents, whether at the ticket counter, a travel agency or at a charter company, I emphasize our responsibility to give clients all of the information they need without giving them more than they need.  I advise them to model the exchange after what Albert Einstein said, “Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler.”  Aircraft charter can present a mind-boggling array of choices.  All reputable, professional charter operators and brokers will be happy to share information with you that will allow you to narrow that array and make an informed decision.

Clearly, aircraft come in a wide variety of sizes and capabilities.  You would not use the same aircraft to take two passengers from Philadelphia to Telluride that you would to take two passengers from Cincinnati to Charlotte.  To determine which aircraft best fits your mission, the charter operator will ask you several questions.  Among them are:  “Where are you going?”  “When are you going there?”  “How long will you be staying?” “How many people will be going with you?”  They may also ask, ”Do you have a particular aircraft or budget in mind?”  It’s been my experience that if someone is budget-conscious, they will let you know up front; so, I don’t usually ask about it.  If the operator you are calling doesn’t ask all of those questions, you may want to add them to your repertoire.

Once you give your itinerary to your operator, you might want to ask about alternate airports.  Suppose you are going to the Dallas area.  Of course, you could fly into DFW International or into Love Field; however, since there are at least 27 airfields within 40 miles of Dallas, there may be a less congested one closer to your destination.  If you give your operator the zip code of your destination, they should be able to find the closest suitable airport for you.

If you called our offices for a quote, you would get a “hard” quote, meaning that you will be invoiced at the same rate you were quoted, unless you change your itinerary, use the flight phone or order catering.  Some operators use “soft” quotes, meaning that you will be invoiced based on actual flight times, landing fees, and other costs.  Either structure is fine, as long as you know what to expect; so, be sure to ask which quoting method your operator uses.

It’s important to know what your insurance underwriter requires.  For instance, will they allow executives to fly on propeller aircraft?  What about single-engine aircraft?  How many executives may be onboard a single aircraft?  You should check with your agent for that information prior to booking your trip.  If they required that your charter operator list you as additionally insured, that’s easily done.

As we discussed in November, there are questions you should ask to help ascertain the safety practices of your charter carrier, i.e. have they been audited by a third-party firm like ARG/US or Wyvern?  If so, what were the results of that audit?  If not, what information does the NTSB have on file for their operating certificate number?  If you are using a charter broker, they should be able to get that information on the carrier for you.  At the moment, I am not aware of an industry standard audit for charter brokers; however, I understand there is a push to create that standard.  Although some brokers may be Wyvern Authorized, this means only that they have submitted three references from Wyvern recommended operators, that they have been in business for at least three years and that they have access to the Wyvern database of audited operators.  It does not mean that the broker’s own practices have been audited.  To verify business practices of your chosen broker, I would suggest researching them just as you would any other vendor: look for online reviews, check with the Better Business Bureau, or check with colleagues.  I don’t normally ask for references since, really, who’s going to give you a bad reference?

The customer should never be penalized for not knowing all of the nuances of the product they are buying.  As business aviation professionals, it is our job to give you all of the information you need to get the best value from your travel dollar.   Continue with us as we break down how that dollar is spent when we Unbundle Charter’s Internal Costs.

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• You may not wear any portion of your uniform into a bar.
• You may not consume alcohol in public while wearing your uniform.
• The company does not co-sponsor events with breweries, distilleries, or distributors of alcoholic products.
• The company does not sponsor events where people are likley to be injured, i.e. rodeos.
• Agents’ fingernails must be manicured.
• Agents may wear no more than one ring on each hand and no more than one earring in each ear.
• Female agents’ lipstick should be visible from across the room. (not kidding)

These were some of the ways that AMR protected its brand when I was working for the company.  As you can see, the company was very mindful how employee behavior and event sponsorship affected public perception of the company as a whole.  Clearly, they didn’t want passengers associating the airline with alcohol or injury, and they required agents to look clean, neat and professional.  At the time, I thought it was a little funny that of the three things the airline required agents to do, i.e. 1. report to work on time; 2. wear the uniform correctly; and, 3. be nice, job competency didn’t make the list.  In a recent Adweek column, Tony Hsieh says, “[if] you ask most people what the “brand” of the airline industry as a whole is, they’ll usually say something about bad customer service or bad customer experience.”  So, it appears that #3 seems to have fallen off the list, as well. 

In that June 8 column, Hsieh suggests that your company culture is your brand – something AMR taught all customer service agents years ago.  The company culture was “seamless  service from the first point of contact.”  If you’ve flown nearly any airline recently, you’re rolling your eyes right now because you know that it’s not that way anymore.  And that’s a shame for them.

However, it could be a boon for business aviation.  As airline capacity decreases, traveler frustration increases at an inversely proportional rate.  The worse air mass-transit experiences become, the more likely business travelers are to find alternatives.  According to the New York Times, passengers are opting to drive or take the train between close city-pairs.  Citing the OAG, the Times says that counting only passengers whose trip was from one city to another, “traffic between Atlanta and Jacksonville, Fla., was down 41 percent from 2000 through 2009… It was down 47.4 percent between Pittsburgh and Washington and 58.1 percent between Chicago and Cleveland… Traffic between New York and Washington fell by 53.4 percent, and between New York and Boston 48.8 percent.”  Where available, Amtrak is already capitalizing on airline dissatisfaction and has captured more of the market.

Trains and cars are workable alternatives, but history demonstrates that travelers in those markets would rather fly, and therein lies the opportunity for BizAv.

We offer a clearly superior product  (fast, comfortable transportation) without the drawbacks of air mass-transit (wasted time, security hassles, unpleasant surroundings).  Our challenge is to take the distorted BizAv brand as define by the Mainstream Media and rebrand our industry using our real strengths.  Like never before, we have the opportunity to define our industry through our concierge customer service, door-to-door travel options, gourmet cuisine, reliability, safety, and expediency.  It is time for us to increase and introduce our value proposition to the weary business traveler.

It’s time for us to take our brand back.

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My father is a forester.  At one time, his chief role in his company was to evaluate a stand of timber and negotiate with the landowner for the rights to that timber.  Those kinds of deals weren’t made by men in suits in conference rooms or over the phone.  They were made by men in dusty boots on the front porch over a cup of coffee.  Contracts were agreed upon with a handshake before pen was ever put to paper.  There was a protocol for making those deals and, if you rushed it, you lost it. 

The landowner might not have all the latest facts, figures and price indexes for whatever hardwood he was trying to sell, but he wanted a fair price for his resource.  To be sure that he was getting the best price and was being treated fairly, he had to know who he was dealing with.  He might have known a guy who knew a guy, but, even then, he wanted to make the judgement for himself.  And he made that judgement sitting on the front porch drinking a cup of coffee with the potential buyer.

I don’t have land with timber on it.  To be honest, I don’t have a front porch to speak of, either.  But when I’m spending money, I want to know who I’m spending it with and I don’t think I’m unusual.  As a front porch for consumers and vendors alike, Social Media helps me do that.  I tell people regularly to check our commercial site to see what we do; but, to see who we are, check this blog, our Facebook pages and our Tweets.  You’ll see the issues that are important to us – aviation industry issues and advances, marketing and human resources articles, environmental issues and hockey.  (Hey, I’m a fan and since I post many of our updates, well…..)

We can’t shake hands and or make eye contact over a blog, a tweet or a status update; however, with continued exchanges, we can get to know one another.  As a customer, we can watch how vendors treat other customers.  We can see the rate and the quality of interaction.  As a vendor, we can see customers’ interests and viability.  If either party is presenting counterfeit social currency, they won’t be able to hide it for long.

Sure, we can teleconference, video conference, read brochures and websites; however, those things tell us only what their authors want us to know.  By reviewing a vendor or even a customer’s social currency, we can see how closely their actions match their words.  We may not be literally looking each other in the eye, but by exploring a person or company’s social presence, we will find evidence of the each other’s ethics, activity level, responsiveness and global awareness.  Social media gives us all the opportunity to either credit or discredit a company’s claims based on information we find in the company’s own social media offerings and on reviews written by their customers.

The Web of today and the Deep Web right around the corner offer fewer skeleton-hiding closets.  The wide open platform gives consumers and vendors the opportunity to see each other as they are and as they’d like to be seen.  We still may know a guy who knows a guy.  Social Media gives us the chance to look each other in the virtual eye before we make the deal - even without dusty boots or cups of coffee.

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I was fresh out of Mississippi State with a liberal arts degree and no idea what I wanted to be when I grew up, managing a gift shop until I could make up my mind.  Then, a customer changed my life.  She worked for American Eagle Airlines and they were looking for a new agent.  Thus, I fell into a career.

After customer service training in Dallas, I returned to Columbus, Mississippi, for training on how to safely work the ramp.  To this day, 20 years later, I still walk around rather than under wings and I never walk in the prop arc.  The first thing I was told is that “you walk into a moving prop once.”  I didn’t need to be told again.

The job really was fun and a great challenge with instant feedback – the flights either departed on time or they didn’t.  Bags were either loaded correctly or not – you knew right away.  The only real feedback delay came from customer complaints or compliments.  Often, irate passengers would let you know with a quickness that they were unhappy; however, there were always those who were more of a slow simmer rather than a rapid boil.  Those passengers would wait to file a complaint with Consumer Relations. 

Each station had a report card and was rated on several elements of our operations including: baggage handling, on-time performance, and customer relations.  If a bag was mishandled, after some documentation a station was assigned responsibility and penalized.  If a flight was more than five minutes late departing from the gate because of ground handling problems or late passengers, the station was penalized. Stations were also penalized for any customer complaint unless irregularity in the customer’s claims could be documented (like with statements from airport security, which I actually had from time to time, but those are different stories).  At every station and with every team that I worked, we took these challenges seriously and did our level best to either raise or maintain our station scores.  At every station, we had the youngest group of agents and the smallest aircraft at the airport; so, we caught a great deal of ribbing from other ticket counters and sometimes from our passengers.  We saw our youth and aircraft as yet another opportunity to show that we could be better.  We worked hard and enjoyed helping to build our airline. 

It was called Nashville Eagle when I hired on, but was changed to Flagship Airlines before I left.  It didn’t matter what it was called, I loved it.  I loved the sense of community, of working together to build something we could be proud of.  Concourse D at the Nashville International Airport was home to all Eagle flights and it grew to be busy and congested, sometimes even between banks.  It was an exciting place to be.  Then, almost overnight, AMR shut it down.

Just like that, it was gone.  All of the outstations closed: Tupelo, Columbus, Tuscaloosa, Lexington, Paducah.  Everything we’d worked for years to build was dismantled in a matter of weeks and I never really understood why.  There were rumors: an ego contest between the Powers That Be, traffic within the Eagle system was good but too few passengers were connecting to American flights.  Whatever the reason, Concourse D became a wasteland.

Now, as I walk through the Nashville airport, still not entirely sure what I want to be when I grow up, I look to where the escalators descended to that old concourse, grieve a little for the airline that used to be and recite my employee number to myself – just in case anyone ever asks for it.   

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