How will a combined Continental-United fare in the customer service department?

The Department of Justice green-lighted the Continental Airlines-United Airlines merger late last week, and now the corporate celebrity wedding seems like a done deal. The combined airline will be the world’s largest, but how will it do in the customer-service department?

No one knows, of course.

But if the past is any indication of future performance, then here are a few numbers to consider:

Let’s start with consumer complaints. For the first six months of 2010, Continental had 350 complaints with the Transportation Department, or about 1.6 grievances per 10,000 enplanements. United recorded 487 complaints, or 1.8 grievances per 100,000 enplanements.

That’s a combined 837 complaints — still well below the 1,175 complaints filed against the industry leader, Delta Air Lines. It had 2.1 grievances per 100,000 enplanements, making it the most complained-about airline in 2010 so far.

Bear in mind that these DOT complaints represent just a fraction of the overall grievances against a particular carrier. Airlines actively lobby to have their complaints removed from their record or deferred to one of their regional carriers, in an effort to control this all-important number.

Another figure worth paying attention to: mishandled bags.

For the first six months of 2010, Continental reported 39,247 of them, or 2.5 per 1,000 passengers. Not bad — only AirTran and Hawaiian did better. United? Not so good. It lost 84,210 bags, or about 3.7 per 1,000 passengers.

Taken together, that still isn’t close to American Airlines’ abysmal 139,207 “misplaced” bags, or 4.1 per 1,000 passengers. (I’m not factoring regional carriers into this calculation.)

The final number to consider is oversales, particularly involuntary denied boarding (IDBs). That’s when the airline sells more seats than it has, and denies you a seat on a flight.

Continental is among the biggest offenders in this category, with a total of 4,172 bumps out of 17,950,872 passengers, or about 2.3 IDBs per 10,000 passengers. Only three airlines — all of them regional carriers — fared worse. United did a little better: 3,352 IDBs among 23,834,371 passengers, or 1.4 per 10,000 passengers. Put them together, and US Airways moves into the top spot among legacy carriers.

So where does that leave us? Well, it’s nothing to rave about, but the new Continental-United will probably be about average when it comes to customer service.

  • David Emery

    Well, what I’m -hoping- to see is an increase in UAL employee morale based on CO’s much better labor relations. That might not change the number of bags lost, etc, but it has substantial potential to change the tone and public experience. On the other hand, my observation of mergers in the mil/aero community is, despite claims of synergy to get the ‘best of both companies’, what you end up with is the ‘worst of both companies’.

    Now I think the combined airline has the potential to really change the tone of the industry, if Mr Smisek has the guts to change the customer-hostile tenor of the industry as a whole. I’d pay more to fly an airline that isn’t trying to squeeze every last cent through poor service, fees, financial and operational gimmicks, etc.

  • Sean

    Continental had been somewhat bucking the trend with their continued serving of meals, which I on it’s way out. I’d really like to see this giant start to take care of it’s clients, but alas, that’s probably about a like as a snow balls chance in Houston.

  • http://www.DeanLindsay.com Dean Lindsay

    Sure hope they get their act together. The skies are getting pretty sad for the customer. Both airlines have a muddy customer service record so I am sure CS will be a major focus!!

  • Bill

    I’m not sure what the point of this article is. It seemed pretty pointless. Two average airlines will combine and will in all liklihood continue to be pretty average. whether you get the best of both companies or the worst of both companies, it will still rank as average. This article really is pointless.

    I doubt Delta will change their worst airline status, something they possibly inherited from “northworst”.
    I’ve flown on both Continental and United Airlines several times recently – and contrary to popular belief, I found the services on United to be far superior.

  • Bryan

    The airline industry as a whole is just a commodity. They all get you from Point A to Point B. Where is the competitive advantage? The flying public loses again.

  • Mike in NC

    The only good thing coming from this is, if I remember reading an article correctly, is Southwest will get landing rights at Newark International Airport, which is a good thing.

  • Joe Farrell

    Why would WN want to go to EWR? It probably has the second worst delay record after LGA.

  • MVFlyer

    The combined UA will likely get worse for a while–there are always merger integration problems, new policies to learn, and general uncertainty. Also, I’m not sure that the merger will really improve morale at the old UA (although I agree with Bill that I’ve always been treated politely on UA)–the UA folks won’t be pleased that they’ll be dropped down the seniority list when the CO folks are integrated. And don’t believe the hype that the resulting airline will operate all of the routes and services that UA and CO currently run–there will be cuts in service (and employees) as the integration moves forward.

  • Jack

    Foreign (“off-shore”) call centers only serve one purpose: to aggravate the customer and cause problems in making/cancelling a reservation. It would be nice if the United (contract) call center in India disappeared in the merged airline. Unfortunately I suspect the only people who will get to talk to a native speaker of English will be the super platnum customers. The rest of us will be left wishing we were fluent in Hindustani.

  • David Z

    Foreign (“off-shore”) call centers only serve one purpose: to aggravate the customer and cause problems in making/cancelling a reservation.

    That’s an understandably negative view, especially if one consistently gets negative experiences dealing with offshore centers. OTOH, there are people who also get otherwise good experiences with them if one looks around online or hears from others.

    Ask many companies who offshore and you’ll get one consistent purpose: to save costs. Not a necessarily wrong thing to do, though it does have drawbacks like anything else in life.

    Time will tell how the UA-CO merger will fare in terms of customer service. One can dream.

  • The original MikeZ

    The numbers give only a narrow view of customer service. Over the years, CO has been head and shoulders above UA; their staff has been infinitely more friendly, professional, courteous and service-oriented. CO’s planes have been cleaner, and the fact that they’ve continued to serve “meals” (even if they’re airline meals) reflected a much more customer-oriented philosophy.

    I agree that we should be careful about making generalizations about overseas call centers. In fairness to them, many of their employees genuinely try their best. But the facts are that even when the phone connections are good (which often is not the case), their English is often difficult, and although they understand their computers, they don’t know the first thing about North American geography (a must when rerouting is necessary), and they are seldom empowered to do the right thing for customers.

    BTW, I really hope that CO will prevail and that, when it comes to buying new planes, they’ll buy American (Boeing).

    I have little hope for the CO-UA merger, though I’d be happy to be proven wrong about my assumptions. (You hear that, Mr. Tilton?) Oh, they’ll probably survive, but like such other merger products as DL and US, they’ll epitomize mediocrity.