It will come as no surprise to anyone that the
most-important engagement driver in the airline category is “Safety.” The plane
goes up, the plane comes down, safely, as planned. That’s what passengers
expect. And, because we have regulations, planes get grounded when they aren’t
considered safe enough to go up.
Last week, American Airlines, which has been bombarded with
bankruptcy problems and breakdowns in talks with the pilots union, grounded
dozens of airlines for another week for breakdowns of another sort – loose
passenger seats. When we say “another week” we’re referring to the fact that
this had happened before, with American making two emergency landings after
seats came loose on a number of flights.
The re-grounded airplanes made up nearly half of American’s
fleet, which caused a high number of cancellations and delays they’ve
experienced over the past few months (which are value components in another of
the category’s engagement and loyalty drivers) to surge, so kind of a
double-whammy for the beleaguered airline and the brand.
American used to be #1 on our Customer Loyalty Engagement
Index, but that was quite a few years ago, and in the interest of
full-disclosure, their slide down the list had nothing to do with safety.
Current airline brand rankings look like this, so we can’t be precisely sure
how the newest disclosure about the brand has eroded equity any further:
- Delta
- JetBlue
- Southwest
- United
- US Airways
- American
Anyway, American acknowledged the problem and were – as legally-required – looking into it, although at the time they didn’t provide details as to what caused the loose seat problem, then citing “a lot of contributing factors.”
But last week, came the revelation. American told CBS that
“a combination of wear, poor design, and even soda spilled into the seat tracks
caused the pins to pop out of the grooves.” No, seriously. According to
American the seal lock plunger mechanism can “get gunked up over time with
people spilling sodas, popcorn, coffee, or whatever and that can affect the
locking mechanism on the ground that locks the seats to the floor.” ‘Gunked up”
is apparently the technical term, but don’t worry because it’s just a condition
that’s been identified on American’s planes. Anyway, for those of you with
nonrefundable tickets on American, American is currently in the process of
installing an FAA-approved locking mechanism, so you ought to be A-OK.
Oh, and there is no truth to the rumors that American is
going to have additional passenger screening for neatness or is going to charge
extra for a sippy cup!
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