Considering that the government is normally in last place when it comes to customer service, it's at least ironic that legislation of minimum levels of customer service a company must provide are being drafted by both the House and Senate. This "passengers bill of rights" would extend beyond health- and safety-related issues to quality of service, for example how long travelers can be kept waiting on the tarmac or to find out whether a flight has been cancelled.
Jet Blue kept its customers waiting as long as ten hours on some flights due to weather starting on Wednesday and has now cancelled almost 25% of its weekend flights trying to catch up. For those who finally got on their way to Aruba on Wednesday evening instead of Wednesday morning, Jet Blue's concession of "unacceptable" was underwhelming.
The bills being drafted in congress requiring maximum waiting time on a runway and for notices of cancellations couldn't have gotten a bigger boost in their push to better synchronize corporate perception of customer service with customers'. Jet Blue is not alone, and neither is the airline industry. Last year, a Bain and Company survey found the gap across 362 companies to be as great as 70% between customer and corporate perception of "superior experience."
