Very early in 2008, Jagwa Forbes Group industry friends - aviation analysts - in the United States were approached to bring back to life the subject of customer service training. I can recall that while working there back in September and October 2001 airlines that had been in the forefront of customer service training in the USA slashed budgets and cancelled training programs for all but the critical and mandatory operational requirements. For the ensuing six years, little of this was restored, giving way to security costs and forms of training that were focused more on survival than anything else. Airports took up some of the slack but the public image of the industry - airport and airline alike - for a number of years languished in the ‘tolerance of necessary evil for the sake of essential travel' category.
Suddenly things are different. Airports and airlines together have to accelerate plans to be aggressively competitive as American carriers begin to report profits from healthy passenger payloads. Low cost carrier business processes have migrated across the networks to help counter costs, notably the persistent surges in oil price affecting jet fuel.
The good news for the passenger is that more and more airlines are beginning to restore service levels, attempting to reverse the jaded travel experiences of the past few years. In Australia it has long been a relative delight [during my cross country flights to and from Perth] to receive good service, including hot food and a range of beverage without further charge, while flying Qantas domestically. The in-flight entertainment and domestic airport environment in Australia generally completes the ‘winding down' effect, contrasted with the frenetic intensity of say Los Angeles International Airport.
For me on one of my many Pacific crossing trips from the USA, it has been a welcome contrast with the bland experience of domestic flights within America. It remains to be seen how long the US will take to fully restore its customer service reputation in the air travel business. If flight attendant motivation and vitality is anything to go by there, it could be a long wait. But there is another very significant dimension emerging to influence the customer service ethos as the immediate aviation future unfolds. The passenger profile is becoming much more complex; and in the age of the war on terrorism, preserving customer service is a strategy to be professionally devised and delivered through a return to high standards of training.
All the functions that interact to provide customer service, including protection services in and around airports are facing dramatic change over the next several years. A combination of continuing education, cooperative field intelligence and interoperability will prove essential to harmonize service and protection standards.
It was interesting to learn from our American friends that airport law enforcement officers - armed police officers with jurisdiction in the airport environment - are attending seminars that are focused on customer service. Their presence, their interest and the value of their contribution should be applauded. They are very much a part of the airport and aviation community. Only with shared community objectives and expertise are we ever likely to see appropriate and justifiable customer service skills to offset the potential hostility, disunity and paranoia created by the threat of terrorism.
Officers are expected to rapidly transition from friendly public information officer to critical armed incident response mode; but members of the public including armchair critics don't always recognize [1] this is what we are paying them to be capable of; and [2] there is both a stress burden and a high skill level attached to the reality of this expectation. In our advice to Law Enforcement Officers [LEOs] we also place emphasis on the innumerable perceptions and misperceptions of members of the public while passing through the airports.
The system of physical screening of passengers and their carry-on possessions is potentially confrontational but also an opportunity to apply skills that transcend those that screeners are trained or have the vocation for.
Alienation arising from travel stress, mistakes in carry-on packing, misunderstandings in the screening area, even an inherent fear of people in uniform*, can exacerbate negative attitudes toward authority. [* Foreign visitors from certain countries where the police are known to be corrupt fall within this group].
Most officers will recognize this, but if we think of valiant fight-back efforts of passengers on the 9/11 United Airlines Flight 93, we know from that and from other studies, that the flying public from developed countries is generally supportive of law enforcement and will cooperate when they share an understanding of what is happening. So the strongest point perhaps from this is - when people have things explained to them and they feel fully informed, it can significantly reduce the negativity of an encounter and the time taken to resolve an issue. It also gains friends and allies for counter-terrorism. One example of past mistakes comes from airline failure to keep passengers informed about delays and the reasons for them. Today's educated population cannot be successfully fobbed off with half a story or bad information.
There is official concern in the USA at the moment about the fall in inbound tourism and business and the loss of dollars being spent by foreign visitors, attributed in part to the perceived hostility upon arrival.
Negotiating immigration and customs, then entering the fast paced hustle and bustle of big city airport America, trying to read all the way-finding information, looking lost, vulnerable to predators, all this finds its way into web blogs and eventually into travelers' and agent grapevines.
The smaller airports of America score favorably by comparison when they reverse this experience with a welcoming hometown ambience. The behavioral observer however is dealing with two major groups and innumerable subgroups when it comes to trying to interpret intent. Simplistically inside the USA this means ‘domestic American' and ‘international foreign' travelers. Hundreds of millions of compliant Americans who are not terrorists are put through the screening system every year in US airports. Americans know much more about American travel habits and passenger conduct, allowing for the occasional idiosyncrasy, than they do about foreign passengers.
Behavior in the busy domestic terminals of America is to some extent more predictable because of the knowledge that Americans have of the air travel system and common practices. There are always exceptions, including of course the smaller percentage of foreign travelers, moving through the domestic network.
But international is different; and it is going to be interesting and challenging to experience the flux arising from predicted growth in passengers, most notably from Asia and from Eastern Europe. One common factor significantly impacting the profile and therefore the behavioral characteristics of passengers from these parts is that large numbers of visitors to the United States, Europe and Australia in the next few years will be only recent or first-time-flyers. This is in the context of either the entire or the international aspect of the trip i.e. overall they will be inexperienced air travelers.
Further to the above, a study of global aviation trends indicates that for reasons of growth, shortage and turnover of flight deck and cabin crew, among these inexperienced travelers will be foreign aircrew. It is probable that the airport environment will witness unforeseen events and consequential change due to these factors. It will be no surprise to learn that the populations of China and India will be in the forefront of the travel boom. Australia for example is expecting to receive more than one million leisure tourists from China each year from 2015, several multiples of the number visiting in 2007.
The United Kingdom is already struggling with a massive influx of eastern European migrants as a result of the expansion of the European Union [EU]. But it is a cultural as much as population issue. Police Chiefs and other agency leaders are already reporting if not complaining of, criminal traits and practices that are being imported as part of the behavioral culture norm for people from certain parts of less developed countries. For example some Eastern European nationals have no regard whatever for driving impairment laws and have reportedly continued to drink and drive, ignoring UK standards and laws. In 2007 the Cambridgeshire Police disclosed the extraordinary taxpayer cost of investigating a homicide in which a Romanian allegedly murdered another Romanian on British soil - but the background inquiries and arrest necessitated officers spending time in and bringing witnesses from Romania.
It is also the case that many countries around the world do not have comparable criminal justice records to facilitate background checks; and moreover some do not permit access to their records by the United States or other countries, yet they do issue internationally recognized passports. [That is another subject - counterfeit passports continue to be seriously problematic].
Relevance? The conduit for the movement of these people and their friends and families is gradually shifting from road and sea channels to air, reflecting increased standards of living and income. This does not surprise those familiar with consumer spending patterns. So what we are seeing is a gradual but very large diverse group of air travelers coming into the system globally without many of the personal conduct safety and security values and standards upon which we must rely.
Effectively that is going to place greater and greater emphasis on pre-boarding passenger profiling, focused on the sobriety and mental condition of the ticketed passenger. It will also mean that given the automation of check-in facilities, the additional dwell-time and the availability of alcohol in the departure gate areas, the potential for confrontation will become higher in the sterile parts of the airport.
I flew across the Pacific ten times in 2007. Speaking with cabin crew, and passengers, overhearing conversations and observing behavior, I continue to be alarmed if no longer surprised, at the ignorance and lack of preparation of some international travelers. We continue to see liquids, gels etc. ‘surrendered' in volume at the security screening entry line. That is only a small part of the story. Persistently we see checked baggage weight and surcharge disputes, the expectation of check-in staff to accommodate sudden itinerary changes by passengers who have made no prior inquiry, and delayed departures in spite of seemingly endless public address announcements and passenger names being called - with the occasional result of bags being removed from the international flight affected.
Language difficulties evidently are only part of the problem, but also will become more demanding in the next few years. Aviation English as required by ICAO international aviation flight and safety protocols cannot be relied upon for all circumstances. Interpreters [spoken word] and translators [documents] are going to be in great demand as airline traveler profiles become more diverse and in greater volume.
Cabin crews tell me that airline marketing is increasing passenger expectations. Passengers have consequently become more demanding. Coupled with the newfound wealth of less sophisticated people who want to travel, including business and first class, this is showing itself in the number of passengers who are intoxicated or who become so during the flight. Alcohol, prescription and other drugs of unknown status, are contributing to cabin crew challenges and the growth in incidents that justify law enforcement and medical personnel being called to meet arriving aircraft at the cabin disembarkation door.
Considering the foregoing it will be tempting for anyone in authority - from check-in staff to law enforcement personnel - to pursue a form of introspective self-preservation that can result in an offhand, cold reception and treatment of travelers. But we have to remember Flight 93 and the innumerable successful flights to remind ourselves that our real value comes from honing our skills to maintain respect and service for the majority while being vigilant and perceptive in our identification of the troublesome minority.
David Forbes
January 2008
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