Airlines' plans to improve service are barely off the ground

NEXT month marks the eighth anniversary of a debacle that redefined air rage: In January 1999, thousands of fliers endured hours trapped in Northwest Airlines jets at the snowbound Detroit airport, waiting for gates to free up.

But here's a date the airline industry can celebrate: June 17, 1999. That's when it publicly swore to treat passengers better, thereby heading off regulation by an outraged Congress. And now it looks as though fliers were taken for a ride.

It's hard to reach any other conclusion after reading a federal review, released two days before Thanksgiving, of 15 airlines' compliance with promises in so-called customer-service commitments the industry made in 1999.

Now, as then, most carriers fail to consistently compensate bumped passengers or let frequent fliers know their true chances of landing award seats, and more than 40% of the time their gate agents don't offer adequate updates on flight delays, according to the office of the inspector general of the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Only five of the airlines, the report said, properly monitored their own compliance with the service commitments, contrary to a promise made to Congress in June 2001 by the Air Transport Assn., a trade group that represents most big U.S. carriers. That count has declined from 2001, when 12 airlines were doing the audits, the report added.

In a two-paragraph news release, James May, ATA president and chief executive, reacted to the federal study this way:

"The DOT inspector general's report found airlines' customer service commitments are intact and incorporated in airlines' contracts of carriage. While the report notes a few areas for improvement, the airlines have worked diligently to reduce the rate of annual complaints 70% since 2000."

He's right about service complaints filed with the DOT. Between 2000 and 2005, the rate dropped from nearly three passengers in every 100,000 to less than one per 100,000 for the biggest airlines, although not everyone credits the industry for this.

Growth in low-cost carriers such as Southwest and JetBlue, which generate fewer complaints than the industry average, and more self-service technology may be bigger factors in the decrease, said Terry Trippler, airline expert for the travel website http://www.myvacationpassport.com .

Did the ATA's May read the same report I did? Because most of its 46 pages detail failure after failure.

ATA spokesman David Castelveter was more conciliatory, if not exactly contrite, when I phoned him.

"Is there room for improvement?" he said. "Absolutely. Is there a commitment to improve? Absolutely."

He added: "I think the report shows progress. I know the airlines recognize that customer service is the core of their business."

To be fair, as the report notes, much has happened since the airlines made their promises in 1999. The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, the Iraq war, economic stagnation and high fuel prices put the industry into a tailspin for several years.

But lately air traffic has been up, along with fares and profits. Planes fly nearly full.

For its study, the Office of Inspector General interviewed officials at federal agencies, the ATA and airlines, and sent inspectors to 17 airports to observe airline practices. In most cases, following the office's policy, it did not identify which airlines were in compliance and which were not.

Here are excerpts from the 1999 "Airline Customer Service Commitment" by ATA's member carriers ("the promise") followed by some of the study's findings ("the reality"):



The promise: "Notify customers of known delays, cancellations and diversions."