Airline passengers complaining about bad service? Yawn. But when airport employees plan a march on a major airport to protest bad service — well, that kind of thing doesn’t happen every day.
Today is not every day. This afternoon, a group of workers, passenger rights organizations, unions and community groups called the Reaching Higher Coalition, plans to picket Los Angeles International Airport.
What do they want? The coalition is committed to “raising standards for airport workers and passengers at California’s top airports,” according to a press release.
There are an estimated 20,000 airline service workers in the state. With a quarter of contracts expiring this summer, the Reaching Higher Coalition is challenging airlines to seize the opportunity to improve job quality and customer satisfaction.
The coalition even enlisted the help of J.D. Power and Associates, whose director of the global hospitality and travel practice, Sam Thanawalla, made a cameo appearance in the group’s statement.
“Across the airline experience, from check-in, to the flight, to deplaning, passengers are being affected by the ramifications of carriers making staff cutbacks and have expressed that performance and attitudes of airline staff are suffering,” he said. “In this unstable industry environment, it is critical that airlines invest in their employees as a means to enhance the customer experience, as there is a strong connection between employee satisfaction and customer satisfaction.”
This is the proverbial man-bites-dog story.
Passengers complain about service incessantly. But when the service providers complain about service, you know you’ve hit a new low.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
The headline for this article is very misleading. “Los Angeles airport employees” to me means those people who are the approximately 3,500 employees of the Airport, which is a Department of the City of Los Angeles, in other words, all civil servants (who are working under Union contracts) or appointees. This would be important information to the Mayor of Los Angeles, Antonio Villagairosa, to find out that the union members are planning such an event – believe me, all of the LA area news media would have that as a lead story!
Only when one gets further into the article is one informed that the individuals being referred to are NOT airport employees, but are in fact either employees of contractors, concessionaires, activists, etc. These individuals are the same rabble-rousers who got the City Council to punish the hotels near LAX for allegedly not paying a “living wage” to their employees. The California Supreme Court declared that Council action illegal. Of course the fact that over half of those hotel employees are illegals (excuse me, undocumented workers) is something we don’t talk about in polite company……
Whether they work for the City, Feds, or airlines, I suspect those workers/unions aren’t feeling bad because they think I deserve better treatment while traveling. What they most likely are seeking is more job security, more overtime wages, higher salaries and benefits, etc. Read the reasons for the protest: ” . . . carriers making staff cutbacks and have expressed that performance and attitudes of airline staff are suffering . . “. Employee attitudes are THEIR doing, not their employers. Yes, employers influence worker attitudes, but it’s the INDIVIDUAL who presents the attitude, not the employer. Do I sympathize with them (and other workers everywhere? Of COURSE I do, but it’s so much a ME world these days that I can’t accept anything at face value.