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Hotels, airlines go from bad to worse

May 15, 2007

For those of you who said things couldn’t get any worse in the travel industry, I’m afraid I have some bad news. Actually, the University of Michigan’s American Customer Satisfaction Index has some bad news.

Things have gotten worse. A lot worse.

Airline scores have plummeted to a post-9/11 low, according to the latest ACSI ratings, which are scheduled to be released this morning. Customers gave the airline industry a collective grade of 63 on a scale of 100. That’s down 3 percent from last year, and close to the industry’s historic low of 61 hit in 2001.

But some airlines were worse than others. Delta Air Lines fell 7.8 percent from 2006, receiving a humiliating score of 59. United Airlines went into freefall, dropping 11.1 percent to an all-time low of 56. That’s down 21 percent from the first year of the survey in 1995.

To put that into a little perspective, even the Internal Revenue Service outperformed the airline business. The taxman got an ACSI score of 65 — two points higher than the average airline grade. The only comparable industry, in terms of performance, was the cable TV business. (Comcast, for example, was punished with a score of 56 and the whole industry ended up with a bottom-feeding grade of 62).

Hotels didn’t do so hot, either. The entire business got a collective score of 71, down 5.3 percent from last year.

Among the standouts: Marriott (79, up 5.3 percent) and Hyatt (77 percent, up 2.7 percent).

Bringing up the rear were Ramada (69, down 1.4 percent) and Holiday Inn (72, unchanged).

These numbers don’t give me hope. Instead, they leave me asking how much lower the travel industry can go.

Customers give airlines a failing grade. They give hotels a ‘C’ — but just barely.

I hope this report card isn’t dismissed by the travel business, but I’ve been around long enough to know that it probably will be.

Christopher Elliott is the author of Scammed: How to Save Your Money and Find Better Service in a World of Schemes, Swindles, and Shady Deals. Critics have called it “eye-opening” and “inspiring” — it’ll “grab your attention and won’t let go.” Order your copy now on Amazon, Barnes & Noble or iTunes.

2 comments

  • Zay

    Hello Elliott,
    I am a regular business traveler, and if I’m not travelling, I’m organziing the travel for other staff members.
    We have a Priority Club card associated with the Holiday Inn chain of hotels and usually try to stay at one of them.
    You are so right in the score given to the hotel. Holiday Inn used to be a great place to stay, but it’s not so great anymore.
    If you call the desk from your room to ask for something, you get transferred from one person to the next and none of them wait for you to finish your sentence of what you are trying to get or find out!!!
    Then on our last trip, the phone in my room was not working and it took 3 complaints to the desk, and two “service techs” in order to get it fixed and guess what the problem was??? The phone was not ‘turned on’ in the system!
    The room was clean enough, but the sliding doors on the closet were broken, and I hurt myself a couple of times trying to get the doors to open and close. On one of the 4 days we were there, my room was not made up. I had left it at 8:30am, and came back to my room at about 6:00pm only to find it was still not cleaned. When I called to find out why, I was transferred to about 4 different people, and finally I just said to the last one, “I don’t want to know the why and what, I just want the room cleaned.” It was clean when I returned at 10:00pm after dinner.
    The airlines are a simple pain in the rear. No other way to put it, and if we could find another way to get where we wanted, in the same time it takes to fly, we would definately use that manner instead of the airlines.
    US Airways packed us into a plane so small from Las Vegas to Seattle, that I thought it was going to come apart at the seams. No only that, it was about 45 minutes behind schedual.
    Then on our last trip to Chicago, we had to fly the peanut gallery AKA United Airlines. The seats are so small, and the leg room so little, that getting to my purse on the floor in front of me, is a battle and a half!
    Airlines and hotels have made traveling less fun, and alot more difficult and dreaded. I hope they pay attention to your article, I know I sure did.
    Thanks for calling it the way it is.

  • Bixby

    I just spent an absolutely horrifying two weeks on the road for both business and pleasure (?!?! – Is there such a thing as pleasant travel anymore?!?): Perhaps the owner of this blog can tell me: What the heck ever happened to water pressure in a hotel shower? After two weeks of staying at “luxury hotels” and even some not so luxury places I didn’t encounter one hotel that offered enough shower water pressure to even get my hair wet. My very first task when I got home? To jump in the shower so I could actually feel clean again. The pressure in hotels is now so low the only thing that makes the water go ‘down” is gravity. If it weren’t for that, I’m not at all certain the water would actually leave the shower head. As it stands now, it’s like some bizarre Ripley’s Believe it or Not sequence: You know you’re supposed to be getting wet but your skin is still dry, the bar of soap is dry, and you’re still trying to direct enough water to your pits so you can scrape away yesterday’s underarm deodorant!
    …and here’s an extra added treat: Mention the horror that is showering in these places to the front desk personnel or management and they’ll look you square in the eye and say: “Really…? That’s the first time we’ve ever heard that…” And what’s up with the toilet paper? Where do they get this stuff? It’s literally as course and rough as tree bark! I stayed at a hotel in Toronto a month ago and after four days at that place I could barely sit down… I would have been better off if they’d just handed me a corn cob when I checked in! The hotel industry is horrendous and just barely ahead of the horror of flying. I told my wife that this summer’s “vacation” was the last for me. IF I go anywhere from here on out it’s going to be a beach house and I’m driving there! I’d sooner sleep in my car than pay hundreds a night for a place that could care less about my well being and really could care less if I left satisfied…

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