Budget Flying - To Book or Not To Book

Hi,

I think whoever I have met is extremely excited about the budget airlines phenomenon. Its so cheap to travel because of them. No doubt - it has brought joy to a lot of consumers. However, there is definately a dark side to this.

What is the reliability of these airlines? What is the service level gaurantee that they can provide. What customer service do they provide?

If my flight is delayed by lets say 5 hours plus - what good is a refund of the discounted fare since any alternative will cost me almost 2 times to 10 times more?? Whatif they cancel the flight due to OPERATIONAL reasons? Well these all seem like plausible scenarios - but they are true and have happened with me!!!

I have missed prior appointments and other meetings due to flight delayed. The reason termed as fog from Mumbai (so not that good an excuse in mid-November). My brother-in-law just the other day missed some very important meetings due to this. There are several other examples.

Delayed flights are not a new phenomenon. However, bad customer service is the clincher. These airlines in a fit to cut costs have not realised that customer service is the key and then cheap tickets - the short run cheap tickets attract a lot of interest and thus traffic - but in the long run (not as long as Keanes suggested - before we are dead), they will lose. Customer service is the single-most differentiating factor that defines customer pull as well as customer scare. You have to be sensitive to the customer.

Try and accomodate - maybe incur a few losses on a flight - book them in a competing airline. Do something innovative. These are clear messages that are important for such airlines. Non-chalent attitude and irresponsible comments just put oil over a fire.

All in all - no less stress can be emphasised on customer service. As they say, if the customer is happy - he will stick to you as glue. If the customer is unhappy - he will fly away as fast as a fresh good cold blueberry cheesecake (drool!!!!).

Cheers

Piyush