I flew almost 150,000 miles this year. And it took until today, December 22nd, for something positive and worthy of writing about to happen to me. Yes, I could have written an article at least once each week of the year about what not to do based on the crappy service and frequent lies most airlines dish out. But I’d been on the lookout for something great to happen – something worth sharing.
After a weeklong family trip to Park City, Utah, my family and I returned to the Salt Lake City airport eager to get back home for the holidays (that’s four of us, seven bags, and a connecting flight through Denver to be exact). Sure enough, our flight was delayed. Not to worry, though – it was only delayed forty-five minutes and, with a two-hour layover in Denver, we’d be OK. And then the announcements started. Every once in awhile, an announcement would let us know the flight was going to be a little later than expected. In the end, we took off almost ninety minutes late. That’s pretty normal. Except that it wasn’t.
For a change, the gate agents told the truth. Instead of keeping us in the dark like most airlines, the women at the counter gave us frequent updates about what was happening. For a change, the gate agents were empathetic, understanding, and helpful. They made announcements specific to those people with connecting flights and explained what the options were. They calculated the revised layover times, and showed passengers how far their next departure gate was from our Denver arrival gate. For a change, they put four people at the gate to answer our questions rather than leaving the counter empty. I was pretty impressed with what I was witnessing.
And then things got interesting.
The gate agents proactively began making announcements with timesaving ideas. First, they made it known that we had five passengers destined for New York that would have the tightest connection. They asked that when we land, all passengers remain seated until these five passengers got off. It’s not the first time I’ve heard of that concept, but is the first time I’ve seen it happen prior to boarding the flight. Then, the gate agents asked for anyone willing to gate-check bags to come forward and turn them in right away (this was 30 minutes before our plane had even arrived in Salt Lake). The agents explained that anyone willing to do this would still get their bags on the jet bridge when we landed, but this process would speed up boarding by approximately ten minutes because less people would be trying to jam their carry-ons into the overhead bins. People lined up with pleasure.
When we boarded the plane, the flight attendants greeted us with smiles and expedited the takeoff by helping with bags and seat assignments. We were in the air before we knew it. The pilot came on and apologized for the delay with a compassionate tone and delivered a little something unexpected. “Because of the inconvenience, folks,” he said, “we’re going to go ahead and allow to enjoy all twenty-four channels of DIRECTV with our compliments.” This might not seem like a big deal, but to the 150 passengers onboard it was pure gold.
Just before our initial decent, a flight attendant made an announcement reinforcing the earlier request to let the New York-bound passengers off the plane first. She even had those five passengers raise their hands and asked the rest of us to look around and find the five – so that we knew to let them pass.
Guess what?
The folks headed to New York made their flight.
So did we.
Let’s review what just happened here and make it repeatable for your company. In other words, when things don’t go as planned (maybe you don’t fly airplanes for a living, but I’ll bet you’ve had to tell your customers about a late delivery at some point), here’s what to do:
That’s a lot to learn on a layover, no? Put this one down in the history books, folks. An airline gave great service. They just might be on to something here!
Just in case you’re wondering what airline I flew – it was Frontier Airlines. And the crew working the flight both on the ground and in the air were top notch. If you’re planning a trip, give Frontier a try. I hope your experience is just as remarkable as mine.
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