Help! A rescheduled flight itinerary almost sunk our cruise

Maybe a better solution would be to put the airlines on the hook for any increases in fare resulting in changes made by them a week or two before a flight? It seems like I read about situations such as this quite often, where an airline changes things at the last minute and the only recourse to the passenger is receiving a refund of their deeply discounted, planned fare while they must pay a much higher, last minute fare out of pocket – doesn’t seem fair.

We were once delayed by several hours on a cruise into Vancouver. We arrived a couple hours later than scheduled and then Customs wasn’t prepared to deal w/us when we arrived, so we were held on the ship for almost 3 hours after we arrived.

My husband & I were only taking a ferry to Victoria, so we missed our afternoon in Victoria, but not much more. The people w/flights were all frantic. Yelling @ the crew of the ship; arguing w/airlines over the phone. The only really calm ones were the people who had booked air travel with the cruise line in conjunction with their cruise. They were accommodated, no questions asked. I decided right there that the next cruise, we’d book our air along with the cruise because those people were very well taken care of by the cruise line. If Rosemarie had booked her air w/the cruise line, they would have monitored any flight changes and re-booked if necessary.

Isn’t it uncommon for a reschedule to be that drastic a change from the original time? How much time did Rosemarie allow between the arrival of the ship and the departure of the flight? I suspect she probably cut it too short to begin with and the schedule change just made it worse. Also, I’ve never had a UA flight change by even a couple minutes that I was not notified by email (or telephone in the dark days before email.) Was she paying attention to notices from the airline? I can’t help but think there is more to this than we’ve been told.

Glad to hear UA stepped up though.

If they had booked air with the cruiseline, they also might have been flown in on the most inconvenient routing/schedule. I much prefer to book my own so that I can arrive a day early and book flights with plenty of time after, usually for much less than the cruise air.

The probably wasn’t booking direct with United. United messed up by not notifying them of the schedule change, making a schedule change that didn’t make sense, and not fixing the schedule when asked or offering a refund. Changing a scheduled flight to leave three days before the original reservation obviously is going to be a problem. If somebody wanted to leave on that date, they would have booked for that date and not 3 days later.

When I went on an Alaskan cruise the cruise line wanted $950 a ticket if I booked airfare with them. They also could not tell me what times my flights were and if I had any connections. I booked the airtravel my self and got good nonstop flights times for $300 less a ticket.

I have to admit, I truly don’t understand situations like this. I’m a veteran flyer, and I’ve never had my schedule changed by days! Is this actually common that an airline will suddenly, arbitrarily, decide to move someone to a flight several days before the one they scheduled?

Exactly what Sarah Di said. Getting your flights with your cruise is about the same as getting them through a Travelocity: you may not like what you’re going to get. Nor does it guarantee that you won’t have problems should the airline change your itinerary. Nor would a travel agent necessary solve all your problems.

One of the biggest things to focus on here should be the absurdity that United would move somebody’s flight date up 3 days.

“A paper trail can be extremely helpful and a far quicker way of resolving a problem.”

Maybe, maybe not. There’s no guarantee that if you turn to e-mail, that you’ll get a prompt response. And when this kind of change is made only a day before you’re leaving home, you cannot wait around to see if United will bother to respond to an e-mail.

@ SirWired – “I would also file a complaint with the FAA. The airline not honoring its CoC by initially refusing a refund due to a schedule change is unacceptable and illegal.”
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I totally agreed.

@ Denise, NC – “This is the Denise Smith that Chris wrote about a few weeks ago… the one who had the problem with United involuntarily bumping her husband from a flight.”
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Could you post a link to that article? I couldn’t find that article when doing a quick search of the archives.

@ Denise, NC – “As it stands, my family will never fly United again, no matter how cheap their tickets are.”
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That is the problem. How can UA or other airlines provide outstanding customer service without charging for it? Fares today are lower than the fares 10, 15 and 20 years ago. Why do you think that UA, other airlines as well as other companies moved their call centers to India or the Philippines? The monthly salary is $ 300 USD to $ 400 USD for a call center employee who works for a company that has been contracted to take customer service calls for UA.

It is cost money to provide outstanding customer service. One can argue that bad customer service cost a company money. However, the American public has voted with their wallets. They want cheap fares.

@ Denise, NC – “Although they were able to get my husband to his destination without any troubles, on the morning of his return flight they made a robocall to his cellphone telling him that his flight was canceled and his return trip would be delayed by FIFTEEN hours with no explanation!”
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Last week, I received eleven (11) e-mails to my e-mail account on my Blackberry as well as 11 e-mails to another e-mail account when my flight from ORD to PHX on UA was delayed (I used two e-mails accounts if my Blackberry is down, service isn’t available or can’t access the Internet; if my laptop is down or can’t access the Internet; and if one of my e-mail account is down) . I went to the UA website to see the reason for the delay.

@ Denise, NC – “They couldn’t be bothered to have an agent actually call him and find out if this was acceptable. “
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If fares were 2x to 4x higher than the current fare then UA and other airlines could have someone to call everyone. How about people that don’t put their phone number in their reservation or use a home phone number for the reservation, how could they be contacted? Automated phone calls and automated e-mails are the fastest ways to communicate with customers when they are delays.

When I travel, I have the telephone numbers for the airline, hotel(s) and rental car in my company provided BlackBerry, my personal cell phone; Outlook and a paper copy. Why couldn’t your husband call UA to find out the problem and see if he could get on an earlier flight or another airline?

@ Denise, NC – “They didn’t consider that making him stay an extra night in a distant city would cost extra money he didn’t have. They didn’t think about how he was supposed to actually *get* to the airport when his transportation was already turned in. “
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If the reason for the cancellation of the flight was mechanical, your husband would have received a voucher for food, hotel and transportation. If the reason for the cancellation was weather related or etc., then your husband would have been on your own. That is the reason why I purchased an annual travel insurance policy for trip delays due to inclement weather; strike or other job action by employees; etc. Please be advise that some travel insurance doesn’t cover short-delays (under 24 hours).

If it was a weather delay, it is unreasonable to expect UA or other airlines to put up 1,000’s of passengers at their expense.

@ Denise, NC – “They just arbitrarily booked him on a flight the next day and informed him with a recording. No mention of compensation for the delay and no chance to protest the new arrangements because the robocall didn’t provide an option to speak to a live representative, either.”
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It is standard for the airlines to automatically rebook passengers on the next available. It is common for the airlines to rebook their First Class passengers first then their elite FF passengers then their non-elite FF passengers then non-FF passengers then non-revenue passengers. It is my understanding that your husband was using a complimentary ticket so he was a non-revenue passenger so he was probably at the bottom of the list for rebooking.

They may have hundreds or even thousands of passengers to call that day due to weather delays and etc so it is very unreasonable to expect UA to provide a long-winded phone call. I have received phone calls or e-mails about flight changes. I just call the airline to find out the reasons, the details, etc. or went to their website or do both or let my travel agent handle it (if the reservation was made by my travel agent). Why couldn’t your husband call UA or go to their website?

To be blunt, customer service from most companies sucks because the American public doesn’t want to pay for it. They want cheap fares in case of airline travel. I call it the big box syndrome (i.e. Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Lowes, etc). This doesn’t excuse UA but the consumers need to be informed of their rights, know the rules, how to ask, etc. IF they are doing it alone. Don’t expect UA or other companies to take care of you; do the right thing; look at for your best interest; etc. If you can’t do it by yourself then purchase your airline tickets from a travel agent.

@ Denise, NC – “Instead of going rounds with the phone reps I went to my local airport (an option for me since it’s only 15 minutes away). In ten minutes the agent at the counter, Tiffany Steele, had my husband scheduled on a Delta flight out on the same day.”
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That was a smart move. If your husband went to the airport and asked to be put on an earlier flight or a flight on another airline, it probably would have been done. We will never know since you went to your local airport to ask that your husband to be put on an earlier flight either UA or other carrier. It has been my experiences that if you insisted to be rebooked on an earlier flight and/or other airline (if there are no alternative flight on the airline that you are flying), they will do it.

If I was Chris Elliott, I will spend more time in the columns\articles teaching the public to be better consumers so that they know what to ask for, what to say, etc. since most of the public do not want to deal with a brick & mortar travel agent.

@ Denise, NC – “regardless of how well the one agent treated us, the general disregard for a traveler in a strange city puts us completely off of using United again.”
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I travel every week for business and be doing it since the 90’s. I go to ‘strange’ cities all of the time. I don’t expect my airline to be my travel agent. Over the years, my mother has asked me several times how I can go to a city that I never been to; find things; don’t get lost, how to get around, etc. My mother has never flown (she has a fear of flying) nor does she travel long-distance by car. I told my mother how I prepare for a trip such as getting maps (pre-GPS days but I still do paper maps if the GPS service is down or etc); talking to my customers about the area; Google Earth; putting the addresses into my GPS; running MapPoint and Street & Trips; do research on the Internet on the airport layout if I haven’t been to that airport before; etc.

Based upon your comments and not reading the article that Chris wrote about you\your husband, it seems to me that you have unreasonable expectations when it comes to travel. I think that you will be best served by using a brick & mortar travel agent.

Boy, after reading this blog for a while I’ve realized that in a perfect travel world, we’d all be the Arizona Road Warrior where we know the perfect thing to do at all times. But in reality, we’re all just regular shmucks trying to get from point A to point B. So, alas, Chris is still in business.

@ Arizona Road Warrior “If I was Chris Elliott, I will spend more time in the columns\articles teaching the public to be better consumers so that they know what to ask for, what to say, etc. since most of the public do not want to deal with a brick & mortar travel agent.”
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Sounds like you should hang your own shingle and enlighten us poor regular shmucks.

@Arizona Road Warrior Not everyone travels for business or gets paid for their research with customers. Also, it is unreasonable for you to expect your average traveller to have a GPS and Blackberry. In fact, I would say that it’s pretty silly expecting printing out maps of the airport unless maybe you are travelling out of country. This is why airports have signage and all carriers have signs alerting passengers where to check in.

Also, “It is cost money to provide outstanding customer service. One can argue that bad customer service cost a company money. However, the American public has voted with their wallets. They want cheap fares.”

I call pure BS here and I’ll repeat what I’ve said in past posts. This is what the industry would like you to think. The large national chains like HD went with lower paid employees and lower CS because they have a few hundred employees in each of a few thousand stores, and the new CEO in charge wanted immediate dividend increases, vs long term growth. (typical large business these days) A call center for an airline can be centralized. When you consider how many millions of people fly each year and how many employees it would take to staff a call center, I would imagine that the average ticket price *might* go up by $.50. When you have over 500 million people flying each year, that $.50 adds up to more than $250 million for dedicated US based customer service. (That’s over 6,000 employees making a total compensation of over $40k a year) Are you trying to tell me that two hundred and fifty million dollars, in addition to what is already being spent could not handle CS issues domestically? Are you honestly trying to tell me that people would object to a $.50 difference in ticket price, when they are already paying hundreds for a ticket and possibly another hundred for checked bags, meals, beverages, etc???? If anything, the fact that airlines are now charging so much extra for all these services means that the public NEEDS CS more local and able to accomodate the paying travelling public.

@ Mike Z – “Not everyone travels for business or gets paid for their research with customers.”
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That is true but the Internet has tons of stuff that an inexperienced traveler can use to learn to have a better travel experience, learn to avoid mistakes, etc.

@ Mike Z – “Also, it is unreasonable for you to expect your average traveller to have a GPS and Blackberry.”
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You can rent a GPS unit from most rental car companies. There are several cell phones and Blackberries that have built in GPS. Most cell phones in the US can receive a text message. The Nokia cell phone that I purchased from AT&T in 2001 could receive text messages. Recently, I went to the AT&T store to replace my old Motorola Razor cell phone but I didn’t because they had a very small selections of ‘regular’ cell phones that I didn’t like…most of their phones were Blackberries, iPhones, Internet-data enabled cell phones, etc.

@ Mike Z – “In fact, I would say that it’s pretty silly expecting printing out maps of the airport unless maybe you are travelling out of country.”
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I didn’t write that I print out maps of airports. I wrote that I print out maps\instructions as back-up to my GPS. Sometimes the rental car companies are located underground or in parking garages making it nearly impossible to pick up the GPS satellites. Also, if it is raining hard and/or a heavy overcast day, it might take five to ten minutes to pick up the GPS.

In regards to airport, I wrote that I go to the airport website to check out layout of the airport. I only do it if the airport is large and if I am making a connection. If I am arriving at Gate 25 in Terminal A and my connecting flight departs from Gate 100 in Terminal Z, I want to know how long of a hike that I have in case if I have a close connection time.

In some airports, you have to leave security from one terminal\concourse then go through security again to go to another terminal\concourse. Again, this is important to know if you have a close connection time.

@ Mike Z – “The large national chains like HD went with lower paid employees and lower CS because they have a few hundred employees in each of a few thousand stores…”
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The three Home Depots that I go to on a regular basis, it is nearly impossible to find an associate. If you find an associate, there is a line of people waiting to ask questions or if you ask a question (i.e. what aisle are your XYZ located?), they don’t know the answer. If I need no service and the lowest price, I go to Home Depot. If I need service, I go to my Ace Hardware.

@ Mike Z – “A call center for an airline can be centralized.”
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In theory, Yes but in reality, it is a different story. Can you find enough ‘qualified’ customer service employees in one location without forcing up the demand for CSRs thus forcing up salaries, etc?

@ Mike Z – “When you have over 500 million people flying each year, that $.50 adds up to more than $250 million for dedicated US based customer service. (That’s over 6,000 employees making a total compensation of over $40k a year).”
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If an employee has a total compensation of $ 40,000 per your example, the total cost to an employer is a minimum of $ 52,000 to $ 60,000 (using a factor of 1.3 to 1.5…it could be higher given the benefits program, a pension, etc.). Please remember that employers have to pay the FICA and Medicare employer taxes (7.65%), Federal unemployment tax, state unemployment tax, workmen compensation tax, the company paid, health insurance premiums, etc. Looking at my wife’s compensation annual report from her employer and my compensation from my employer, our respective employers are paying additional 60% over our salaries. Unless you own a company (I have) or run a company (I have), most people are unaware of the actual cost for an employee or what how much a company pays for an employee.

Please remember that an airline needs to staff their call centers 24 hours a day – 7 days a week. It is very common that employees working the second and/or third shifts as well as weekend shifts usually make more money than the Monday to Friday 1st Shift employees. That can be another 10 to 15% costs. The airlines will need to hire supervisors and managers and that skill set is going to cost more than a regular CSR.

You totally left out the costs for office space; hardware (i.e. desks, computers, etc.); technology (i.e. software); training; hiring; insurance (i.e. liability, building, etc.); communications (i.e. telephone costs); the costs to give miles, waive fees, award free tickets, etc; etc. We are talking about millions of dollars here.

I think that your statement that to have dedicated US based customer service will only add $ 0.50 to a price of ticket is inaccurate. If you can provide a proof-source and/or white paper that can prove that an US-based airline can have US-based customer service for $ 0.50 a ticket, please provide the link.

If ANY large company actually started to provide people with real 1950′s level customer service, they would capture a market so thoroughly that there would be no competition left.

Imagine if [insert name of airline] completely revamped its procedures and said:

“We will charge you $20 more each way that the lowest fare you get from on competitors on the same day. For that $20 additional fare, you will get:

1. 1 checked bag per passenger
2. 1 change of time or date of flight or correction of name – you must pay any additional fare if the price goes up;
3. Proactive Reaccomodation efforts on our or other airlines in the event of ATC or weather delays.
4. Respect.
5. Trained employees paid a living wage with benefits who understand their job and who do not hate you;
6. A meal or snack that contains healthy natural food from all three food groups, a salad choice, free beverages excluding alcohol and meals and snacks on all flights longer than 45 hour – our flight attendants hustle.

Ah, one can dream. I dunno about you, but I’d pay it. That means an additional two BILLION dollars a year for American Airlines- if they used that to fund their baggage fee and hire better people and reinvigorate their coach meal program? Could be done.- and it would be a money maker.

@ Joe Farrell – “If ANY large company actually started to provide people with real 1950′s level customer service, they would capture a market so thoroughly that there would be no competition left.”

In your hypothetical example of a $20 fare increase each way for all the benefits you list, you’re sadly mistaken if you think people are going to pay for that. Americans have spoken. Maybe you’re willing to pay the extra $40, but the majority of travelers are not. Why do you think Wal-Mart has the market share that it does? You could buy a better dress shirt than what Wal-Mart sells at the men’s store on the courthouse square of the small town I used to live in, but because it costs $10 more than it does at Wal-Mart, nobody shops there anymore.

“Now – if you take a call center in Mumbai where they $8-10k and bump that salary to $16-20k – that is a decent second job for an American family trying to move up the ladder or wanting a swing shift job or a college student wanting to work the graveyard.”

I worked in India for 2 years. I can tell you that an entry level phone rep does not make anywhere close to $8-10k a year. It’s more like $4-5k, and that’s for a 10-12 hour shift. So if we take your example of a $16-20k job brought back to the states, you’re really talking about increasing the cost by 4-5x, not 2x.

Even ignoring that, it’s not nearly as easy as you and Mike Z make it out to be – “just pay $1 more per ticket and we can move all those jobs back to the U.S.” First, the airlines would have to rent the facilities, and shut down their overseas facilities, which will cost money. Second, jobs brought back by airlines to the U.S. will likely be unionized. Paying a CSR $16-20k a year means minimum wage for an 8 hour shift, or maybe $15/hour for a part-time shift. Do you really think the unions are going to go for that? Even if these jobs don’t become unionized, you are also arguing that U.S-based employees should be paid a “living wage”. $16-20k for a full-time job is nowhere close to a living wage, even in ultra-low cost areas like Texas. You’ll have to at least double that salary. Not to mention, you’re going to have to provide benefits on top of that salary, even for part-timers (at a minimum, the soon-to-be-mandated health insurance, or an increase in salary to those workers can buy their own off the exchanges). It’s going to end up costing a lot more than $1 per flight to make all that work. Maybe you’re willing to pay it anyway. I’m willing to bet the majority of travelers out there aren’t.

The thing you both miss is that you don’t NEED EVERY passenger to be willing to pay for either service, training or respect, you only need one in 10 or even 1 in 20 given the different airlines.

You seem to forget that for every customer who buys at Walmart there are 2 or 3 who purchase their toothpaste at Target or even the local grocery store where prices are much higher than at Walmart.

I COMPLETELY disagree that ‘everyone’ will choose to save a dollar. I think you seriously underestimate the intelligence and preferences of the American consumer. For everyone who buys their sheets and toiletries at Walmart there are dozens who CHOOSE another path, either to $1000 sheets or $100 sheets at a mall store.

The reason you have a CHOICE of CHOOSING higher quality is that there are providers out there who offer the choice – the airline industry has , on its own, eliminated that choice. They have chased each other to the bottom mistakenly thinking that EVERYONE is out to spend the least amount of money and get the least amount of service. Then they point to the super premium first class only airlines that have failed and state that ‘people will not pay for quality.’ Its like if the only choice was Walmart or Rodeo Drive. Thats not how the world is – yet – in the airline industry everyone wants Walmart – thats no more true than it is in the market for toothpaste, sheets or yard equipment. If that argument was correct then no one would EVER buy a Cub Cadet or John Deere tractor and Murrary would be the only provider since they sell at Walmart.

The only reason poor service exists in the airline industry is that the management ONLY looks at the cost side of the equation – no one has EVER tried to grow the top line income side with differentiation on the basis of service instead of chasing the spiral downward with every less-qualified employees and lower wages and decreased benefits. Quality follows money as inexorably as day follows night.

@ Mike Z – “I found there were 630+ million travellers on domestic or international flights travelling in the US last year.”
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According to the report published by the FAA (which you can download for free), there were 695,911,762 enplanements (i.e. passengers boarding planes).

@ Mike Z – “Arizona, when I mentioned total compensation, I was referring to taxes and whatnot. You might have a salary range of maybe $30-$35k…”
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Based upon my experiences (benefits consulting; selling compensation software; running companies; setting up software help desks; etc.), I think it will be very hard for employer to spend only $ 5,000 to $ 10,000 in employer costs. My wife’s employer spends $ 1,200 a month for their contribution to my wife’s health plan (family coverage…she pays $ 200 a month). Even at $ 500 a month, you are talking $ 6,000 a year that is before all of the taxes, etc.

Also, I don’t think that you are going to attract the right people with the right skills set at $ 30,000 a year.

@ Mike Z – “for these call centers which is a darn good salary for that type of work if you place it in the midwest. In NYC, heck no. In Iowa, yea thats a good bit of cash. Office rental is low these days and these call centers are like cattle pens. You can fit hundreds of workers into a 50k square foot building.”
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The call centers need to be located in the hub cities of the airlines so that management and other can inspect the call center operations from time to time.

@ Joe Farrell – I agree with you that not every traveler will choose the lowest air fare. However, I don’t think that the market is large enough to maintain or support even one of the current legacy airlines in their current mode of operations.

I am willing to pay more for fares IF the service and benefits are there. I work for a company where our prices for our products and services are at least 50% if not 100% higher than our competitors and we are the market leader. We sell our unique value proposition of extraordinary service, lowest cost of ownership in the long term, etc. However, we do run across several customers that only care about price.

The main reason for all of those ‘business-class’ only airlines that flew between the US and Europe went out of business is because there were not enough passengers…the market wasn’t there. Business travel is down as well as companies are looking to cut costs.

I have doubts that companies are willing to spend more money on travel. As long as the economy is anemic, publicly traded companies need to cut their expenses in order to maintain the same profits with lower revenues. My previous employer was a public company that was traded on the NYSE. During the last two years, the management issued directives to reduce travel costs.

I don’t think that the market is large enough for all of the legacies (AA, DL, UA-CO and US) to be a “Target”, “Macy” or “Nordstrom” to the “Wal-Marts” (AirTran, Spirit, Southwest). Also, I think that the legacy airlines have too much capacity, too much overhead to become a “Target” ”, “Macy” or “Nordstrom”. They will have to reduce flights, cut out services to some markets, get rid of planes (which could be difficult under their lease terms), lay off workers (probably against labor union contracts), etc. If the airline was starting up, they could be a “Target”, “Macy” or “Nordstrom” since the existing ‘infrastructure’ is not in place.

“For everyone who buys their sheets and toiletries at Walmart there are dozens who CHOOSE another path, either to $1000 sheets or $100 sheets at a mall store.” This is true but there are tens of thousands that buy their sheets and toiletries at Wal-Mart compared to thousands that buy $ 100 sheets at a mall store and hundreds that buy $ 1,000 sheets at a specialty bedding store. With our current economy, a lot of people that never went to a ‘discounter’ or use coupons before are now going to the discounters instead of the mall; using coupons; etc.

In 2009, there were 695,911,762 enplanements (the number of passengers boarding a flight, including origination, stopovers and connections) according to the FAA. In 2008, there were 735,032,434 enplanements. In 2007, there were 762,397,236 enplanements. In 2006, there were 738,256,862 enplanements. In 2005, there were 736,202,645 enplanements. In 2004, there were 705,306,663 enplanements. There are 66,400,000 less passengers from 2007…that is one airline (according to the US Airways website it flies approximately 60,000,000 passenger a year)

It is my opinion that the legacy airlines are afraid to change their model to a “Target”, “Macy” or “Nordstrom” because there are 66.4 MM fewer passengers. They are going after all of the passengers and trying to be an airline for everyone.

@Arizona Road Warrior: “IMHO, to attract the right people with the right skills set to be an outstanding CSR, the airline needs to pay $ 40,000 to $ 50,000 a year plus benefits.”

Perhaps. But I don’t think you’d have to pay $40k+ per year just to get significantly improved customer service compared to what you get from outsourced, overseas call centers.

Moving call centers to the U.S., even if you staffed them with workers making minimum wage, would at least eliminate one of the biggest problems I run into when dealing with an overseas customer service representative: the language barrier. At least half the time I end up talking to someone with a very thick accent and I have to ask them to repeat most of what they say…plus I often get the impression they’re not 100% sure of what I’m saying to them.

I also think a lot of the customer service problems could be solved if it was easier to get transferred to someone who was actually empowered to do something more than read from a script. It’s harder to quantify what those costs would be, and certainly hiring more supervisors and managers costs more than hiring front-line staff, but I suspect a decent amount of improvement would be possible at little cost.

As someone else said, depending on where the call center is located, $30k a year might be a darn good salary. Of course, there are still the costs of having an employee, providing benefits, etc.

Let’s say the estimate of the improved customer service costs was off by a factor of five, and it would add $2.50 to the price of a ticket instead of 50 cents. I still think it could be done. And I agree with Joe Farrell that no one’s really tried to do this kind of a thing (I might argue Southwest has); people point to the failures of all-business-class airlines and say “people don’t want to pay for quality.” Well, I agree that people don’t want to pay what it would cost to always fly in a business-class seat with business-class amenities and pampering; I disagree that people don’t want to pay a small percentage extra (ie, 1-2% or less) for a modicum of service.

@Arizona Road Warrior I agree with everything you have said above with two exceptions: “Most of the public do not want to deasl with a brick and mortar travel agency>” This is not supported by the facts, which show that over 50% of airline tickets are still issued by brick and mortar agencies. If you add in cruise sales, tours etc. the percentage of travel spending with brick and mortars still remains high, and in fact has grown somewhat in the last couple of years as some travelers have become disenchanted with the likes of Expedia. The second thing to which I take exception is that a domestic call center needs to be in an airline’s hub city so that management can look in occasionally. They don’t have that ability in India or the Philippines, so why would they need it here? Furthermore, many travel companies have CSRs working from home so a central location is not required. However, if the airlines do not want to have CSRs in the U.S., there are alternatives that are better than the two countries mentioned above. For example, American moved a number of their CSR positions to Uruguay, where a combination of American transferees and local English speakers do a pretty good job.