Let’s start with ticket prices. According to Consumer Price Index data, the average U.S. domestic airfare increased by 57 percent in just six months through May 2022. While down from summer 2022 peaks, prices remain 36 percent above December 2021 levels. Inflation in the form of rapidly rising fuel and labor costs is certainly a factor, but the wave of airline consolidation over the past decade is also likely a culprit.
U.S. passenger air-traffic volume has returned to near 2019 levels. Flights are regularly sold out. According to data from the Department of Transportation, U.S. carriers’ domestic passenger load factor—the ratio of actual passengers to available seats—hit 90 percent in June 2022. It’s the highest level on record, and this summer’s volume is expected to repeat it.
As a result, airline profitability has skyrocketed. According to a recent forecast from the International Air Transport Association, airline industry operating profits are expected to reach $22.3 billion in 2023, which is more than double the 2022 levels of $10 billion. So why is the customer experience so bad?
A recent report from the Office of Aviation Consumer Protection shows that there was an all-time record number of cancellations (180,000) and delays in 2022. Certain airlines had near-catastrophic operational and reputational failures, with public relations crises that only barely avoided becoming terminal nose dives for the carriers.
The airlines were clearly unprepared for the onslaught of business and leisure travelers who had had enough of Zoom meetings and staycations. The carriers’ decisions to furlough, rather than lay off, employees in 2020 didn’t take into account the large number of pilots, air and ground crew personnel, and customer agents who would in the meantime find better things to do—or would simply choose to do nothing—and never returned. This resulted in not just a labor shortfall but also a troublesome skills gap.
During the summer of 2022, it was nearly impossible to get an agent on the phone. Have a real-time need for a flight change because the connecting flight was delayed? Good luck reaching anyone from the airline to help before the next flight closes. This situation has eased somewhat but for the wrong reasons.
In the past few months, at least two of the major airlines have moved their problem-solving groups outside the reach of customers. Try to get a refund or compensation for a canceled flight or lost luggage, and the agent on the line can no longer help you. The issue must go to “customer care,” now a different department. The name is somewhat misleading, since the customer isn’t allowed to speak with anyone in customer care. Instead, the customer must go to a website, submit a form, and hope for the best. The website kindly notes that it may take customer care up to 30 days to respond because of the high volume of inquiries. The airlines apparently fail to appreciate the irony here: “Welcome to customer care. Customers not allowed.”
Lounges have become unbearably crowded. Long lines form outside, as the wait is based on a one-in/one-out policy. The airlines are cutting loyalty program benefits across the board and raising tier requirements after years of what were probably overly generous status-retention gratuities.
But the real frustration for many travelers is the security-screening process. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) wait times are often interminable, so much so that the agency has stopped publicly providing its own data on the subject in a way that could hold it accountable.
The TSA’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2024 is $10.4 billion. This is an increase of nearly 40 percent ($2.7 billion) from fiscal year 2019’s pre-pandemic level. Of this grand amount, “$1.4 billion [is] to fully support the TSA employee pay initiatives started in fiscal year 2023,” which provided for an average 30 percent increase in base pay for TSA officers. The agency’s stated rationale for the compensation increase is that other federal agencies are doing it.
The TSA is now one of the nation’s largest employers, with more than 65,000 officers and staff members. The image of numerous TSA officers milling around doing apparently little while exasperated customers wait in never-ending, snake-like lines has become a meme and a byword of disdain. The agency seems to know that it’s a leading cause of flyer misery, so the Biden administration has proposed spending $3.7 billion in fiscal year 2024 to “enhance Customer Experience Strategic Initiatives,” according to a transcript posted on the TSA website. It’s hard to imagine how this will be money well spent.
We’re now fully desensitized to how outrageously inefficient and likely ineffective this process has become. After nearly a quarter of a century of cattle herding, we’ve come to accept that having our shoes removed and billfolds inspected is somehow not just normal but necessary for our civilization. Have a legitimate business need (or simply a personal preference) for carrying a large amount of cash? Plan to spend some extra time explaining yourself in private and perhaps having an asterisk attached to your name.
We’ve fallen for the fantasy that pouring out a water bottle or having a tube of lip balm rerun (by itself) through the scanner is imperative to public safety. It’s like we’re living in a French absurdist film in which no one notices or finds it unusual that everyone is wearing a fried egg on their head.
It doesn’t have to be this way. There are cheaper, more practical, and better solutions that would accomplish the ostensible public safety objective behind a bureaucracy that has become a Frankenstein-like monster of similar intelligence. An alternative solution should include a plan and funding (taken from TSA) to reposition these tens of thousands of generally decent and occasionally kind officers into roles that are productive and add value to society, such as helping to rebuild America’s decrepit infrastructure, for one. Rather than having these individuals stand around and occasionally chastise some poor soul over a trivial infraction, we would all be better off if they stood around and occasionally helped to build something.
