David J. Danto
Business travel
thoughts in my own, personal opinion
eMail:
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Another
Business Trip
I’ve got an international
business trip coming up in a couple of days.
A
decade or so ago I’d really be looking forward to the trip. My thinking would be ‘how cool is it that I’m getting paid to travel to another country
because the people there want to hear my expertise.’ It was like the old Steve Martin joke, “…the most amazing thing is…I get paid for doing this…” Nowadays however, I’m dreading the trip. Not because the work is hard (I love it) but
because the traveling experience is horribly, terribly awful. We’ve allowed the travel industry - through
deregulation and approval of customer unfriendly consolidation – to degrade the
experience so much that it’s almost a better idea to find a career where travel
isn’t required.
It
didn’t happen overnight. We didn’t have
a Sunday where the traveling was great and then Monday morning at 12am it
became crappy. The process was
gradual. The travelers’ experience was
similar to the parable of
the boiling frog – where a frog is smart enough to jump out of a pot of
boiling water, but if placed in a pot of cold water with the temperature raised
gradually, the frog doesn’t notice till it’s too late. We business travelers are certainly being
boiled by the travel industry right now.
Just look at the travel news on any recent day for proof: passengers are
being dragged off planes, threatened by crews, stranded in cities, sleeping in
airports, etc. Airline CEOs are
continually apologizing for something, and yet doing nothing to improve the
experience if it means that they and their shareholders would make a penny
less. In fact, the heartless,
short-sighted people that pass for airline management are actually planning to
make things even worse. American
Airlines has announced that they are adding seats and reducing the legroom
for each seat on their flights. The
other airlines will surely follow.
United (and other airlines) are adding
an extra seat in each row on their 777 aircraft. At a time when the typical traveler’s keyster is getting bigger the airlines are making the seats
that have to hold them – on the longest routes – smaller and much less
comfortable. And as I’ve stated in previous
blogs, while technology improvements generally make our lives easier, in
the travel industry they make the experience much worse.
So what
am I looking forward to in a couple of days?
I’m looking forward to waking up around 3am so I can make a 6am
flight. I’m looking forward to hoping
the taxi actually shows-up to get me.
I’m looking forward to the on-line check-in telling me that it can’t
process my request because my second leg is on a partner carrier – and knowing
I’ll have to work that out with all the crack airline personnel that are at EWR
at 4:30am. I’m looking forward to the
TSA telling me that the Pre-Check lanes aren’t open yet – or that they are but
I still have to take off my belt and take out my PC because – despite my
agreeing to a thorough background check – it’s their new rules. I’m looking forward to seeing my name on an
upgrade list somewhere in the high single digits or low teens – because,
despite my lifetime status, my current elite status, and the “confirmable”
upgrade certificates I tried to use - the airline sold the better seat to someone
for an extra ten bucks instead of honoring those promises. I’m looking forward to hassles from the
customs and immigration people, the price gouging on the route from the taxi to
my hotel, and the poor internet at that hotel.
Then, I’m looking forward to getting up at 3am two days later and doing
the whole thing again in reverse – this time with an hour long connection time
in Denver that I’m 90% sure I’ll miss due to airline incompetence. (A whopping 10% of my flights have left and
arrived on time so far this year.
Weather has been a factor, but the sheer incompetence in managing irrops
and scheduling is what accounts for most of the delays.) I’ve spent hours and hours sitting at airport
gates (when there is a seat available) – instead of in an airport club – as the
flight might board at any minute, and stays at that status for extended
periods.
A
decade or so ago I might find myself sitting at my desk wishing for the
excitement and exploration involved in visiting a foreign city. Nowadays I find myself in an airport
somewhere wishing for the pillow on my bed at home.
I make
my living advising organizations and manufacturers about how to optimize the
use collaboration technologies (videoconferencing, messaging, team chat,
etc.) More and more I hear from end
users that the reasons they want to use these technologies aren’t because of
the tremendous benefits that they bring, but rather, because they help people
avoid the hassles that I described above.
Quoting from many before me, ‘never has an industry been as ripe for
disruption as the airline industry is today.’
It will happen, but probably not before I have to suffer through my next
few business trips.
I’m
going back to my pillow for a couple of hours while I still can...
This article was written by David Danto and
contains solely his own, personal opinions.
All image and links provided above as reference under
prevailing fair use statutes.