I made a decision last year that I would no longer travel to the US unless it was something really interesting. A day traveling there, effectively a day lost on the way back and often little more than 48 hours in the US makes for a long week where relatively little might get done were enough to make me think hard about transatlantic travel. In the last year, the content quality of events I attended seemed to be going downhill and while it’s always nice to see people I know but rarely meet it was all becoming too tiring for declining value. Next week is different. More of that later.
This will be my first trip of the year to the US and so for the first time I’m working in the context of global travel restrictions quite sensibly implemented by large companies that have a floating workforce. The problem is it seems to have given rise to good ol’ process angioplasty.
I’ve had so many poor travel experiences that I prefer to work out my own flight schedule and then let the sponsoring company know my preferences. Many have outsourced their travel departments to specialist business travel agencies. In theory, bulk buying should enable them to get better deals than I but I’ve frequently found I could do the same or better through sites like Kayak.
Kayak is very easy to use and provides a great way to make schedule and price comparisons. It helps me avoid the uncertainty of knowing whether I can see the best deal as the illustration shows. Price is a massive issue in the airline industry, counterbalanced by service. Why? Once you take your seat, the only thing that differentiates one airline from another is the service quality. But how do you know which will provide the best price/service combination? The airline sites promise the earth but rarely deliver. Business class services are usually good across most airlines but it is coach service that really matters – or as I prefer to call it ‘cattle class.’
One weakness of the Kayak system is it doesn’t optimize the whole journey but skews results based on the point of destination. In my case, traveling from Malaga to Los Angeles. Spain is often an expensive European exit point to the US while the UK seems to be the most competitive. It therefore makes sense to try coordinate via London. That’s what I’d done on this occasion and advised accordingly. Here comes the crunch.
The sponsoring company could not book the flights I wanted at anything approaching a sensible price. Neither could it book the Malaga to London outbound via Easyjet, the no-brainer low cost option. Instead they proposed flying me via Paris at a cost that would be around 40% more than flights I could find going via London. Paris airport is a nightmare as my friend Vinnie will tell you and to which I can firmly attest. Air France is a mess, especially if you’re code sharing and need to make changes. Having flown from Paris for seven plus years I would rather not relive those experiences.
The upshot is I’ve ended up booking and paying for the flights myself and will attempt reimbursement. I say attempt because recent past experience shows that getting reimbursement is like pulling hen’s teeth. As to the booking itself, that proved massively problematic with me having to call the UK call centre via Skype. Why? Online booking failed and the only contact number is an 0800 number that Spanish phone companies don’t understand. Even the call centre had trouble, having to manually enter every line item detail over the phone. The process was laborious but the Air New Zealand rep was a model of patience and civility. The best call centre experience I’ve ever had.
As an aside and never having flow Air NZ, I contacted people I know in New Zealand via Twitter to get their take on service quality. All sang the company’s praises. Since I trust these people, I’ll take that as a recommendation but will report back on my experience.
Donning my oh so cynical hat, I have to believe that company processes are deteriorating to the point where the traveler ends up doing the legwork. That never shows up as a cost in the accounts but I’m betting it will show up as a cost saving when the next round of outsourced travel budgets are negotiated. In one sense I don’t mind because I feel as though I have more control over something that matters to me. But when processes are broken across so many dimensions I wonder whether I’ll ever get compensated for the inevitable hair loss arising out of the frustrations people like myself experience. Somehow I doubt it.
Related articles by Zemanta
- Most Depressing News of the Day: Airline Edition (paul.kedrosky.com)
- Delta Screws Man Out Of Family Trip, Business Conference, WSJ Interview, And Two Flights [Travel Disasters] (consumerist.com)
- New Airline is the First to Cater to Dogs and Cats (abcnews.go.com)
- Airline fares to fall further in recession says top IATA economist (telegraph.co.uk)
- Ryanair: ‘Fly For Free If You Stand Up’ (news.sky.com)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=9c6f48fa-8150-4c0c-9d8e-716a74a1094f)
