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Mile-High Madness
Opinion · December 21, 2003

Ed Barrett is tired of airline employees who act "as if they are doing you a favor by acknowledging my existence." But the software technician from Pratt, Kan., is equally exasperated by inconsiderate passengers. "They're rude to flight attendants," he says. "They act as if all the post-Sept. 11 inconveniences are their fault."

A new poll by the nonpartisan opinion organization Public Agenda suggests his weariness is widespread. The research, released just as the final leg of the stressful holiday travel season gets underway, finds that nearly one third of passengers believe rudeness is a serious problem. More than half of all travel employees say passenger impoliteness is the top source of on-the-job tension.

Have travelers lost their manners? The Public Agenda study doesn't answer that question because there are no previous polls to compare it to. It's also difficult to tell which of the two groups are more unpleasant: travelers or travel workers. But a closer look at the numbers - and a review of the grievances I handle as National Geographic Traveler magazine's ombudsman - make me conclude it's the travel workers who have the edge.

It's up to the travel industry to take the first steps toward solving this epidemic of discourteousness.

About seven in ten airline, hotel and car rental employees surveyed by Public Agenda cited "stress due to lack of adequate staff and resources" as a major reason of their rudeness. One-third of the workers blame long lines for the breakdown in civility. Half of all workers say the faster pace of things makes them forget to be polite.

They're not flying off the handle without a cause, of course.

"Passengers are rude to the crew," flight attendant Raul Zambrana complained. "They use foul language. They threaten us. After Sept. 11, we just don't put up with it anymore."

Alright, time out. If we want to reduce rudeness, the travel companies - especially the airlines - are a perfect place to start. The burden of returning us to a better-behaved travel business falls squarely on the shoulders of the people running these companies. It's up to them to create a positive working environment where employees are allowed to make customers happy and where they're rewarded for doing so.

Managers have to nurture a polite and collegial workplace. I recently heard from US Airways passenger Bethamie Kass, who flew from Philadelphia to Columbus, Ohio, with her fiancée. "The service we received was awful," she recalls. "The on-board staff was very rude and quick to serve us our one drink in that little plastic cup and get us off the plane as fast as possible." Why were the US Airways flight attendants so unpleasant? Probably because the airline is losing money at an astounding pace and there are daily whispers about another bankruptcy filing. Union leader Perry Hayes summed up the employee discontent in a recent letter to the airline's CEO, David Siegel. "I believe we need a new management team with vision and some new ideas," he wrote. "Because your old ideas aren't going anywhere."

How can any airline's employees be pleasant when their company is struggling to stay aloft? Maybe it's too much to expect flight attendants to act civil when their livelihoods are so uncertain.

Managers also have to allow their employees to do their jobs - and empower them to make decisions that will benefit the customer. Sandy Soule flew on Delta Air Lines' new low-fare carrier, Song, recently, and was astonished to find that the red tape she was accustomed to at Delta had just been replaced with more red tape. "They wanted to charge me $125 to switch to an earlier flight," remembers the New York Web site developer. "Finally, I got them to get a supervisor to OK it, and even she was arguing about it with another supervisor." Indeed, since Sept. 11, the airlines have imposed so many new rules on everything from ticket changes to heavy baggage that the price of an airline ticket is now the least of a passenger's worries.

If employees aren't allowed to bend some of these Byzantine policies, then they can't do their jobs effectively. Is there a nice way to say, "Those are the rules. There's nothing I can do about it," without sounding rude? Probably not.

Managers must also send a clear message about why they're in business: to serve customers. Employees were left with an altogether different impression when most major carriers imposed a strict rule against "waivers and favors" after Sept. 11 and even offered rewards to ticket agents who stuck airline passengers with onerous fees. Airline workers could have been forgiven for thinking that the passengers were there to serve the airline. Shouldn't it be the other way around? Shouldn't agents be rewarded for offering the best customer service instead of given a pat on the back for sticking them with additional charges?

It's impractical to think airline employees would be courteous if the passenger had been reduced to nothing more than cargo in the eyes of their employer.

If we want a more civil travel industry, we have to start at the top. The folks in the executive office can't tolerate anything but an affirming workplace where employees are free to be courteous. Other businesses have changed their corporate cultures for the better in the past - jettisoning dated ideas about their customers, employees and themselves. Many of the upstart, low-cost carriers like Spirit Airlines, JetBlue Airways and Southwest Airlines, have already embraced these changes.

Isn't it time the other airlines - if not the entire travel business - did the same?

Christopher Elliott is a travel commentator based in Key Largo, Fla. All e-mailed questions may be edited, condensed or republished at the site's discretion.

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