It is snowing in Europe. It’s been snowing for days and the place is shut down tighter than an auto plant in Michigan. I’m writing this just a few days before Christmas and the news is full of teary people desperately trying to get someplace for the holidays. They are, quite naturally, blaming the airlines. As are the media, who should know better, but keep tossing customer service experts, psychologists and consumer activists onto the bonfire just for fun (along with a few weeping grannies).
“They won’t tell us anything”, they bleat. “I can’t get home for Christmas” they wail. “They aren’t being helpful enough”, they moan.
Really?
Now I’m no fan of airlines, especially certain British ones, and we know they’ve been finding new ways to abuse their employees for years and their employees pay it forward by providing surly, perfunctory service and charging us for the roadkill that passes for a meal.
But let’s take a step back here. Do we honestly think that airlines, even British Airways, control the weather? If they attempted to fly in this, how long would it take before the media would be baying about the planes skidding off runways and luggage coming in all slushy? Having told us on the radio, on the web and, in many cases on our smartphones not to come to the airport unless we’re asked, why is it now the airlines’ problem that we show up anyway and don’t want to sleep on the floor? Why does Air France have to pull a hotel room out of its collective bum because snow is inconvenient?
I have a lot of respect for the gate agents who stand in their itchy, fire-retardant blazers apologizing to indignant passengers who feel it’s okay to blame them for weather. Perhaps we can fling responsibility for poverty, disease and terrible movies at their feet as well.
Here’s an idea for all those stuck travelers out there: Read the legal crap you didn’t bother printing at the bottom of your e-ticket. Somewhere a Hand-Wringer made it very clear that air travel is dependent on the weather and that the airline has both the right and the responsibility to respond to that fact. I don’t think it says they have to find you a hotel room, provide an employee to scream at or magically teleport you home for Christmas.
For the rest of us who are happily warming up the tar and searching for the feathers, we need to look deep within ourselves this new year. Way down deep. Past the indignation glands, slightly to the right of the entitlement nodes. Right in the core of it all at the Finance Chakra. I’ll just bet that somewhere in your portfolio is an airline stock. And that some small part of your being is expecting that airline to overcome weather, Icelandic volcanoes, fuel costs, not-very-bright passengers and people who blow off their own genitals in the 12th row to somehow turn a profit and pay for your miserable retirement.
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BizMarketer is written by Elizabeth Williams
I help companies have better conversations
Drop me a line at ewilliams@candlerchase.com
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