Anger in the Air

Description

The new realities of airline travel came into full focus after the September 11 terrorist attacks. These horrific events escalated air rage incidents by 400 per cent, but more importantly they put the entire airline industry under the spotlight. In subsequent years, the general public began to voice frustrations with the industry in very dramatic ways, a marked shift in consumer behavior from that of before 9/11. The International Transport Workers Federation responded with a call to action to bring about major changes to raise the airline industry to a level of service quality sufficient to meet the needs of 21st Century passengers. The quality of services that airline customers expect and the propensity toward air rage needs to be understood. Undoubtedly, some passengers are prone to air rage by factors in no way related to customer service. However, a better understanding of the customer's perception of service and airlines' offerings is one way of addressing the air rage crisis, combating the contributing factors long before they conspire to provoke a damaging incidence. "Anger in the Air: Combating the Air Rage Phenomenon" provides airlines with valuable input to help them better meet the service expectations of their customers and avoid instances of air rage on their flights. What do today's customers need and expect? What do airline customers perceive as the quality of services and how can the gap be closed between expectations and perceptions? The book addresses these key issues in five stages: discussing air rage incidents that have caused us to focus not just on the rage levels that some passengers reach during flight but, more importantly, why these rage levels are happening more often worldwide; considering what we know to be problematic within airline industry culture and what is questionable; what can be redesigned and how; presenting the key information regarding the psychology of air rage, as a means to identify new areas to be considered in airline attendant training programs; learning directly from airline passengers what it is that they really value from customer service; and, looking to the future and planning changes in the context of additional pressing issues such as security, pricing and safety.