United in particular amaze me at how little regard they show for customer retention. Last time I flew with them I stood in line as every single customer got into the same fight with them when they sprung their new "$50 extra to check a bag" policy on them with zero notice.
I watched a dozen people in a row vow to never fly United again in the span of 20 minutes. Amazing that they can survive except in a landscape where every other airline is just as bad.
In our case, we'd actually booked our flight through a different airline with a sane baggage policy clearly stated on their website, and took extra steps to make sure we fell within the free allowance. Only on arriving at the airport did we discover that we were "code sharing" with United and thus subject to their extra fees.
One day somebody will take Southwest & Virgin's attitude towards customer service and apply it to a major airline. And they'll dominate.
That would be Cathay Pacific, Singapore Airlines, Qatar Airways, Etihad, or to a lesser extent, Emirates or Asiana. It's really just US flagged airlines that are incredibly bad (I've flown several million miles internationally, and aside from Royal Jordanian (which flies to Iraq), Ariana (the Afghan Airline) and Kam Air (the Southwest of Afghanistan), no one approaches US standards of quality. Some of the LCCs in Europe (Ryan Air) are kind of painful, but so cheap that it makes up for it. LCCs in Asia (Tiger, Jetstar, etc.) tend to be more like Virgin America or Southwest.
The South American airlines have even worse service than the US discounters. I was on both LAN Chile and Star Peru earlier this year in Peru... Mysterious delays abound with virtually no information...
That's kind of depressing. From what I've heard TACA and Varig are a little better, but I haven't flown commercial to South America yet. Maybe Start Up Chile should convince SQ to fly SF-Santiago as a 5th freedom flight.
The super great service airlines all seem to have much higher average ticket prices (not saying they aren't worth it) and maybe even less labor restrictions...
CX and SQ are a bit pricey (although SQ is pricey in retail with lots of 30-50% corporate discounts, their main market).
QR, EY, EK are actually VERY price competitive on their routes. They're mainly transit airlines, but to fly from e.g. random US to Australia, it's probably cheaper to go via the middle east on one of those carriers vs. over the Pacific. There are a lot of political concerns in places like Canada that the middle eastern airlines are dropping prices so low on profitable long-haul routes that the national flag carriers can't compete.
As to why they are better, it's probably that they focus on the inherently profitable long haul high capacity high frequency market, have little or no "legacy" costs (US carriers paying pensions and healthcare for retirees), supportive governments (for things like expanding their hub/transit airports to accommodate more flights). Allegedly they are not massively subsidized by the foreign governments.
I watched a dozen people in a row vow to never fly United again in the span of 20 minutes. Amazing that they can survive except in a landscape where every other airline is just as bad.
In our case, we'd actually booked our flight through a different airline with a sane baggage policy clearly stated on their website, and took extra steps to make sure we fell within the free allowance. Only on arriving at the airport did we discover that we were "code sharing" with United and thus subject to their extra fees.
One day somebody will take Southwest & Virgin's attitude towards customer service and apply it to a major airline. And they'll dominate.