The Post’s 100 weekend destinations from New York

by Grant Martin on

The Summer of Travel is around the corner, and the New York Post has just compiled the most authoritative list of vacation spots within a stone’s throw of New York City.

Similar to Gadling’s Budget Summer Vacation guides, the Post’s 100 destinations are all within a few hours of the city, from Wilmington to Saratoga Springs to Manchester, Vermont. Each city on their custom destination page is clickable, giving information on how to get there, what to see, what to do and insider tips on how to maximize your visit.

Alternatively, you can sort the destinations by activity, filtering out City Breaks, Cool Towns or a variety of geological features.

The site is a massive resource for destinations on the East Coast, each city with comprehensive travel information, pictures and recommendations for where to stay and eat. Even if you’re not planning on traveling any time soon, stop by and peruse the destinations — you might get inspired.

Wall Street Journal’s McCartney: Airlines have gotten “carried away” with fees

by Christopher Elliott on

Scott McCartney writes The Wall Street Journal’s “Middle Seat” column and is the author of the new book “The Wall Street Journal Guide to Power Travel: How to Arrive with Your Dignity, Sanity, and Wallet Intact.” With the travel season about to take off, I asked him for his thoughts on flying in the summer of 2009.

Q: What should air travelers expect this summer?

McCartney: I think this will actually be a very good summer to travel, if you can afford it. The recession has lowered ticket prices considerably, left hotel rooms far more available at lower prices and reduced congestion at airports and in the skies so flights are running more on time.

The dollar has rebounded some, and so it’s a good year to venture overseas. Crowds should be smaller and merchants should be more anxious for your business. We may well look back on this year and say there was a window of opportunity when the airline system and major tourist destinations didn’t bog down as much under the weight of summer crowds and travelers actually had the upper hand.

I’m taking my family to Europe — tickets were about half the price of what I probably would have paid last year. Hotel rooms seem to have good availability using points or reasonable rates in dollars. I just think that if you are able to do it financially, it’s a great time to go.

Q: I really like the subtitle to your book, “How to Arrive with Your Dignity, Sanity, and Wallet Intact.” What do you think is more important to travelers — dignity, sanity or intact wallet?

McCartney: Thanks. Full disclosure: It was my wife’s idea.

I think it depends on the traveler, but for most, the wallet is the bottom line. Travelers will endure a lot to save a few bucks — just look at the popularity of discount European airlines and the long bus rides, infrequent service, high fees, etc. that people put up with for a cheap fare. While indignities anger them and inane experiences do make them crazy, getting gouged is what really sends people over the edge with airlines.

I think to some extent it’s a reflection of the animosity travelers have toward airlines. Airlines do bad things to people, and people remember. Goodwill and warm consumer feelings get ruined when a bag is lost, a flight is canceled, a traveler is bumped, a crew times out leaving a planeload stranded. What’s more, airlines make the money part of the experience so difficult — changing prices, limited availability, etc, etc. You go to a car dealer to buy a car thinking that salesman is out to take as much advantage of you as possible, and you know you likely won’t get as good a deal as the guy next to you. You just assume that. And I think it’s much the same with airlines. Airlines battle their customers over money — not a good position to be in.

Q: I noticed that almost the entire book is dedicated to air travel. There’s a brief chapter on hotels and cruises. Why did you decide to emphasize air travel?

McCartney: You’re right — 29 pages on hotels and cruises in a 300-page book, so about 90 percent on airlines. There’s also stuff early on picking the right vacation and some general travel experience stuff.

The reason is that I believe the air part of any trip has the greatest potential for disruption. Vacations get ruined by the flight there or the flight home. Business travelers rarely lose contracts or have their lives turned upside down by hotels. Yet airlines dictate much of how they get their job done. The penalty for airline problems is severe for travelers. The airline ticket is a far more complicated transaction than renting a car or a hotel room. And airline-related issues stretch far: frequent flier programs, first-class upgrades, baggage service and fees, security and airport hassles–you name it.

I also believe that the airplane trip holds the greatest fascination for people. Soaring into the sky and traveling at 500 miles per hour still amazes us, and the operation of airlines today is enormously complex. I wanted to explain to people how it works — from how airlines price tickets to how the FAA operates the air-traffic control system. By understanding how things work, travelers are better prepared.

Bottom line: Flying is where people need the most help. The goal of the book is to help people improve their travels, and 90 percent of that does come on the airline side.

Q: How often do you fly, and if you don’t mind me asking, which loyalty programs do you participate in?

McCartney: I fly a couple of times each month. Not every week, but a mixture of long trips where I’m working on multiple stories and quick out-and-back trips to see a particular airline or report a particular angle.

I try to spread my flying out so I get to compare different airlines first-hand and try different hotels. I’ll take a trip just to try out a new airline and look for interesting innovations. I’m a member of the loyalty program at Delta, American, United, Continental, Northwest, US Airways, Southwest, jetBlue, AirTran, Starwood, Marriott and Hilton.

Q: When it comes to air travel, where do travelers lack understanding of the industry, generally speaking? Why do you think they don’t get it?

McCartney: Let me take the second first: They don’t get it because airlines do a poor job of explaining their business. I really believe there’s a major communications gap.

And I think it starts internally: Often airline managers don’t explain policies, decisions and practices well to their own employees. And that leads to lousy service. But it amazes me that there are business travelers riding the same airline every week who themselves run very complex businesses and they don’t understand a lot about why airlines do the things they do.

I think the lack of understanding comes on two fronts: the financial and the operational. Travelers often think airlines are jacking up fares and fees and somehow taking advantage of them when the airline is losing money on the ticket. It’s not like these companies are wildly profitable. But it goes back to the disparity that travelers face: sometimes a ticket costs $200; sometimes it costs $1,200 for much the same trip.

The penalties airlines impose seem irrational to consumers: $150 to change a ticket with a few keystrokes, plus the higher fare? Inconsistency leads to misunderstanding.

On the operational side, it’s also poor communication. The classic example: weather delays. Clear skies in New York, and the flight to Florida is delayed due to weather. You call your wife in Florida and she says it’s sunny and warm. Those lying airlines! The bad weather may be in North Carolina and that’s disrupted traffic up and down the East Coast, but airlines don’t take the time to explain.

Same with canceling flights — they’re just canceling because of light bookings! Most likely there is more to it than that, but the airline doesn’t explain. Same with lost baggage: No bag, where is it? The airline can’t tell you! That just increases anxiety. When will it get to me? The airline can’t say. How frustrating for the traveler!

Q: How are the airlines like the funeral home industry?

McCartney: There’s a good joke in here somewhere!

For many years one of my standard questions for airline executives has been, Is there any other industry that makes it so difficult to use its product? It’s fun to see them ponder that, and I really believe it’s an issue that is fundamental to the problems of the airline industry.

The many rules, comple
xities, penalties and difficulties of buying tickets and traveling by airline can discourage people from traveling. If your customers dread it, it’s not good for business.

Only one airline executive has given me an answer: Mike Gunn, the former marketing chief at American, once suggested health care was more complex and frustrating. He had a point. Perhaps that’s not the company that any industry wants to keep, right?

When I posed the rhetorical question in the first draft of the manuscript, my editor at Harper, Ben Loehnen, had an answer of his own: funeral homes. He did it for a chuckle, and I liked the comparison. On one level, funeral homes have opaque and confusing pricing, a reputation for gouging people who need services at the last minute and plenty of complexity and different service levels. On another level, you have to die to actually become a customer. So looking at it that way, it’s clearly more difficult.

Q: Is there a right way and a wrong way for an airline to charge a la carte fees? Can you give me and example of an airline that does fees right?

McCartney: I think value for the fee charged is the key, plus full disclosure of what the fees are and what you get. I think it’s perfectly reasonable to charge extra for United’s Economy Plus seating, for example. You get extra legroom, and for some people, having that option is terrific.

On the other hand, I think it’s ridiculous for US Airways and Northwest to be trying to charge for choice seats — aisle or window seats at the front of the airplane. Worse, it’s outrageous for Spirit to be charging fees for routine services that add no value – a fee to buy a ticket online instead of at an airport, for example, or even a fee to reserve a seat.

I also think airlines needs to look closely at how high they’ve raised some fees. As I mentioned, $150 to change a domestic ticket when you also charge any fare difference seems extreme. Is it fair to charge $100 to redeem a free ticket when you have marketed and enticed your customers into believing they can redeem miles for free travel? If I carry a pet into a cabin myself I’m charged $150 on Delta. If your luggage weighs 60 pounds, it’ll cost you $250 round-trip on United but only $100 on American and Continental.

Airlines have gotten carried away with some fees, I believe, because customers have begrudgingly accepted them and paid them. But in the long run there is a cost to those companies. If consumers don’t believe the price was fair, they may go elsewhere next time.

Q: Are airlines regulated enough? Where would you like to see the tighter regulation? And where do we need the government to take a more “hands-off” approach?

McCartney: I don’t think government should try to regulate customer service beyond the traditional regulatory role in any business: discrimination, accessibility, anti-trust, etc. Let the marketplace take care of companies with poor service. But I do believe government has a role in regulating safety, and the FAA often isn’t doing enough.

The Colgan/Continental commuter crash hearings at NTSB this week are a sickening reminder. Today, for example, an FAA safety inspector testified he knew of systematic safety violations. But did he do anything? Apparently not. It appears as though that captain should have never been in that seat flying that plane. That’s a major regulatory failure, and obviously a company failure, that killed 50 people.

Q: You seem to strongly endorse participating in an airline’s frequent flier program. Is there anyone who would not be well-served by collecting frequent flier miles?

McCartney: If infrequent travelers can supplement a mileage account with a credit card and other purchases, then it’s probably worthwhile. But if you really don’t fly enough or buy enough, or prefer to take credit-card rewards in some other form like cash or points rather than miles, then the frequent flier program can work against you.

Loyalty is the question. The risk is you’ll be trying to build miles and purchase a higher-priced ticket or opt for an inconvenient itinerary just to stick with a preferred airline. If you don’t travel regularly, you’ll pay more than if you weren’t a member of a program, and so that free ticket you hope to someday score, and may never get because of capacity restrictions, may cost you quite a bit of money. For many people, mileage-based credit cards may not be the best choice as well.

Q: If you could change one thing about the airlines, what would it be? And if you could change one thing about airline passengers, what would it be?

McCartney: Allow me to offer two for each.

On airlines, I’d simplify the business everywhere I could. A contract of carriage at many airlines is longer than an IRS Form 1040.

Secondly, I’d get airline CEOs and their boards to recognize that it’s not their financial prowess or legal intuition that matters, it’s their leadership ability. Airline CEOs are football coaches — though most don’t recognize that or aren’t comfortable with that). The successful ones are able to rally the troops and excite the customers.

Throughout my tenure covering airlines, the one constant has been that when the CEO loses labor, it’s over. The job will end. The CEOs who can effectively communicate plans, motivate the troops and get employees working together have run good airlines. The ones who lose trust, don’t inspire, can’t articulate clear goals and try to run the business as though it was a bank or telephone company always fail. It’s a different kind of business, and I think it requires different skills than just being strategically smart in the boardroom.

On passengers, I’d love to see less brow-beating by road warriors. Many of use have the mentality that the airline can do something better for me if I make a big-enough stink or yell at the airline employee until I win. And too often, it works!

It’s the obnoxious traveler who holds up the line for the rest of us, or insists on claiming that one last seat when there’s some poor kid with no status trying to get Home. Travel is tough, and travelers could do more to take care of each other.

To that end, my second simple change: Every passenger would ask first before reclining a seat back into someone’s lap. Space is tight, and too often a reclined seat makes life far worse for the passenger behind you. A reclined seat means they probably can’t open a laptop screen, for example. I think people should turn around and say something – “I’d like to recline my seat, just wanted to warn you…”

Maybe a compromise can be reached so there is still room for the laptop? Maybe the courtesy will prevent the passenger behind from kicking and kneeing the seat. Or my personal favorite, opening a newspaper so it brushes the head of the recliner.

Elliott is a syndicated travel columnist. You can read more interviews on his travel blog.

Through the Gadling Lens: shooting with something other than a $5000 digital SLR

by Karen Walrond on

Yesterday morning, I received the following e-mail:

Hello Karen,

I have been experiencing quite a bit of “camera envy” lately. Maybe you could write something about that. How you don’t necessarily need a fancy Canon 5D to take great photos … Just an idea…

Have a great day!

~Robyn

I love this idea. So today, I thought I’d share some great images that were shot with cameras other than fabulously expensive single-lens-reflex cameras — and some tips on how to turn what you’ve got into prime photograph-taking machines.
Point-and-shoots

Check out the following incredible shots:

Aren’t they breathtaking? These were taken by photographer and friend Kate Inglis, whose work you can see more of at her blog, sweet | salty and her flickr pool. Most importantly, however, these images weren’t shot with a fancy, expensive single-lens-reflex camera, but instead, an old Kodak point-and-shoot, the DX7590 (which according to Kate is “long obsolete”). I learned about Kate’s amazing talent when we both began contributing to the photoblog Shutter Sisters, and was amazed at the images that Kate was able to capture with her point-and-shoot (particularly since it had been a good decade since I’d ever shot with one). With her point and shoot, Kate is able to capture both brightly colourful and timeless images like the ones you see above. She does some truly stunning work.

Toy cameras

Looking to do something more artistic and unusual with your photography, but don’t have thousands of dollars for a fancy camera? Dude, look at these:

These two amazing shots, by writer and photographer (and also friend) Jen Lee (whose work you can see at her website, JenLee.net, and her flickr stream), were taken with a Diana F+ camera — commonly known as a “toy camera,” because of its plastic body. It’s a vintage camera, so Jen takes her film into a store to be processed — but instead of getting prints, she scans her negatives into her computer, and does her own “development” of the film digitally — to obviously stunning results. Says Jen: “The perks of shooting with diana+ are the abilities to create different looks with different films, the option to create multiple exposures, and even the ability to create a unique look with the option of cross-processing your film for extra saturation or surprise color shifts. For about $240 you can get the Diana deluxe kit, which comes with the 35mm back (so you can shoot more exposures per roll, panaromic shots, or include sprocket holes if you like the look). The kit also comes with every Diana lens: wide-angle, super-wide angle, close-up, telephoto and fish-eye; and the cable thingy so you can do self-portraits.”

You can purchase vintage “toy cameras” like the Diana online from sites like eBay, or, it turns out, you can purchase new remakes of the Diana by Lomography in retail stores or online.


Camera phones

Or perhaps you don’t even have a camera at all, other than the one that comes with your cell phone:

Both of the images above, shared in our Gadling Flickr pool, were taken with Apple iPhones. The first shot, by jameskadamson, is pretty fantastic because of the amazing, sepia, vintage feel of the image. The second image, by the ubiquitous ultraclay!, has classic framing — it totally reminds me of that old Beatles album cover, remember the one? Great work.

So!

One of the most annoying things you can say to a photographer is, “Yeah, well, if I had an expensive camera like yours, I could take great shots too” — I think the amazing images above prove that in every case, it’s not the expensive machine that makes the art, it’s the artist. Beautiful work doesn’t require an outrageously costly camera to do the job, it requires technique, practice, and above all, an “eye.” And so, even if you’re not shooting with state-of-the-art, tens-of-thousands-of-dollars-worth of camera equipment, the following are some tips for creating some stunning images with the equipment you do have:

1. Shoot and shoot and shoot. I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again: the only way to be a photographer is to go out and be a photographer. Get your camera (or camera phone), film or otherwise, and shoot — every day, if you must. Every hour, if you’re so inclined. And don’t worry about whether or not “you can’t take a good photograph,” or you “don’t have the eye,” — every single photographer, everyone one of them, including Ansel Adams or Annie Leibovitz or any other fabulous photographer you can possibly think of, has taken a crappy shot before. Every last one of them. But frankly, the crappy images are how you learn to take the really good ones. Shooting constantly is how you learn to see the light, and the shadows, and how you learn about proper exposures and white balance and shutter speeds and aperatures and everything else that anyone can learn to take a technically good shot. But most importantly, constantly shooting is how you develop your eye. And your eye is how you’re going to become a great photographer.

2. Learn your machine. Every camera, from your camera phone to a $25,000 Hasselblad, has its strengths and it has its limitations — the trick to making a technically stellar image is to maximize your camera’s strengths and minimize its weaknesses. Read your camera’s manual to see what it can do, and shoot in all kinds of lighting conditions, to really see how your camera performs. For example, Kate learned how to maximize her old point-and-shoot presets: “I also tended to use the ‘bright beach scene’ setting on my camera – a preset that tended to overexpose slightly and make blue skies pop.” From there, Kate would enhance any other aspects of h
er image digitally, which brings us to …

3. Do not be afraid of Photoshop, or any other post-camera processing software. Remember, always remember: there is no shame to using photoshop or any other post-camera processing software. Think of it this way: it’s your 21st century darkroom. It’s the darkroom chemicals on your desktop. That’s all it is.

And so, in Kate’s case, after adjusting her camera presets, for the shots she shared above, she did some final tweaking on her computer: “I’d go into Photoshop and either apply a very simple action to boost the contrast, or just play with the curves a little. These are not adjusted in terms of saturation… it was just a matter of the angle of light and the colours of these days.” So again, her processing wasn’t about completely changing her image — it was about giving her image a little boost. Nothing wrong with that.

And again, remember that Photoshop can also help with your camera’s limitations. For example, in the following shot, taken by my husband with his old Canon point-and-shoot:

His camera wasn’t able to capture the entire scene in one click — so instead, he took several shots (keeping the horizon constant), and then “stitched” them together in Photoshop. The result is a stunning, panoramic image.

4. Play with taking shots from different angles and perspectives. Part of what makes a good photograph a great photograph is the composition — how you frame the shot. For example, in ultraclay!’s image, above, what makes the shot intriguing is that so much of the frame is composed of the actual street, drawing your eye upward to the pedestrians. And again, as Kate indicates in her statement that follows, a little forethought can make the image: “I tried to choose shots that showed inventive composition – unexpected crops and perspective (many were shot from the ground up – I found myself changing my stance a lot with the point and shoot to get interesting shots… had to work harder for it. Also important, to me, was an extremely minimal background – no clutter, anything distracting cropped out.”

And finally:

5. Don’t be afraid to create your own style. What makes Jen Lee’s images so bloody striking, above, is not that she shoots sidewalk stores or telephone lines — obviously, many people have shot those subjects many times, and done so without creating much of a stir — but that Jen has developed a style of taking photos: her use of film, and ensuring that the image is processed to that it bleeds through the sprocket holes of the film, as well as ensuring that her images are saturated with colour. In fact, one quick glance at her flickr stream, and from now on, any time you see images shot in a similar way, you’re likely going to think of Jen.

In other words, armed with the knowledge of your camera’s strengths and limitations (see #2, above), figure out how to exploit them, and do so with abandon. That’s what makes a photograph art — that’s what makes it worthy of hanging in a gallery, let alone your own home.

And so, no more camera envy –banish the thought! Instead, take the machines you have, and start clicking. And as always, if you have any questions, you can always contact me directly at karenDOTwalrondATweblogsincDOTcom – and I’m happy to address them in upcoming Through the Gadling Lens posts.

Karen is a writer and photographer in Houston, Texas. You can see more of her work at her site, Chookooloonks.
Through the Gadling Lens can be found every Thursday right here, at 11 a.m. To read more Through the Gadling Lens, click here.

See Jon Bowermaster and get a discount subscription at Wend Magazine

by Grant Martin on

Our good friend Jon Bowermaster has a headlining article over at this month’s Wend Magazine called Every Ocean, Every Ecosystem, in which he recounts his travels around the world, sea kayaking past every continent and through every ocean. It’s an interesting and sobering look into our rapidly changing ecosystem and the current state of nature, excellently told by a talented writer.

To celebrate our colleague and the publication into Wend Magazine we’re teaming up with Wend to launch a promo. Subscribe to Wend using the promotion code “gadling” to get an $18/year subscription, or hook yourself up with a digital subscription for only $5 at http://www.wendmag.com/subscribe.

Additionally, anyone who subscribes using our promotion code will get a copy of this month’s Wend Magazine with Bowermaster’s article hand sent to them.

Make sure to check out Bowermaster’s Adventures at Gadling for more dispatches around the world!

US Airways customer service director: À la carte fees are the only way forward

by Christopher Elliott on

John Romantic is the director of customer relations and central baggage resolution at US Airways. But he’d prefer that you simply think of him as your advocate at the airline. For the last nine months, he’s had the unenviable job of improving the carrier’s checkered reputation for customer service. I asked him how he’s doing it.

Q: I’ve been hearing a lot of buzz about some of the changes within US Airways, when it comes to handling customer service questions. And I’ve seen a marked decrease in reader complaints. What are you doing?

Romantic: We are doing a lot, and we’re glad there is a buzz starting.

My goal when taking my position nine months ago was to transform customer relations from a complaint resolution center into a customer advocacy center. Better said, while we handle customer inquiries, we also need to globally understand customer sentiment and use all of that data to look at our product, policies, and processes. Our focus is to find ways to be easier to do business with.

Q: How?

Romantic: We code 100 percent of the customer responses we receive, and have created better reporting from this data. We have established an executive steering committee which meets regularly with the primary focus of understanding our customers’ feedback, and finding ways to improve our customers’ experience resulting in reduced complaints. The work of this team has lead to several recent changes – with some still in progress.

We realize we have a little more ground to make up on customer complaint rankings, but our actions are starting to close the gap with our competitors.

Q: How many requests does your department handle in an average week? Can you break it down by phone, fax, letter and e-mail, please?

Romantic: The actual number of requests varies by time of the year, load factor, peak and off-peak times. But the current breakdown is 91 percent handled via e-mail, 5 percent via phone and 4 percent via fax or written correspondence.

Q: What’s the best way of contacting US Airways when you have a problem with a flight?

Romantic: The preferred method of contacting US Airways is to use our Web form on the US Airways Web site under “Contact US”. The data provided by the customer on the Web form enables us to assign the issue to the best person available in customer relations to handle the request.

It is also the most expeditious method of contact in that it allows the representative to complete any research before responding to the customer.

Q: What’s your average response time? Do you have performance targets for responding to customers, and if so, can you tell me what they are for inquiries by phone, fax, letter and e-mail?

Romantic: We publish a response time of one to three business days. But to be honest with you, I get a little excited when our response time climbs above one day. We are looking to improve upon that metric by looking at more technology to improve productivity and respond more quickly.

Q: How are passenger inquiries prioritized? Do frequent fliers get answered first? Do people with tickets booked through a consolidator get processed closer to the end?

Romantic: Another advantage to using the Web form is that the structured data fields enable us to triage – or compartmentalize emails by issue or customer type. This allows us to prioritize certain types of customers such as Dividend Miles Preferred customers or customers with disabilities. It also allows the many compliments that we receive to be handled later in the queue and by other employees in the department.

Emails sent directly to specific personnel at US Airways do not get the same level of filtering or prioritization. We do not currently differentiate our service by ticket price in any way.

Q: Tell me more about your new email system. What did you change, and how is it working out for you?

Romantic: In September of last year, we replaced our database system with a Web-based customer response management system. The CRM application provides us with a database by which we can better understand our customers’ concerns as well as positive customer feedback. It also enables us to better manage the type of requests coming in as a result of the email triage component of CRM.

We are looking at more automation as well that will further improve productivity and reduce customer response time.

Q: What one thing about handling customer complaints do you wish customers knew, but don’t?

Romantic: Customers can do a couple of things to ensure an appropriate and speedy reply to their concern.

Customers should always summarize their concern at the beginning of their note, including key information like their confirmation code, date of travel, and flight numbers. Then, provide a few succinct bullet points illustrating the key aspects of their experience. We sometimes get very long, detailed letters that include irrelevant information. These types of contacts are difficult to comprehend and craft an appropriate response in a timely manner.

And give us a chance. Sometimes customers feel like they increase their chances of a successful outcome by sending their concern to multiple points of contact in the company. We have seen instances where customers research our corporate officers, sending each one a personalized letter detailing their experience. This sometimes lead to multiple people trying to solve the problem, and can cause the response to be delayed.

Q: Let’s say the question wasn’t answered. That happens from time to time — and I’m guilty of doing this, too — but sometimes agents read the first two paragraphs and send a form letter that doesn’t address the issue. What’s next?

Romantic: This does happen, but fairly infrequently. Our representatives are well-trained to handle just about any type of customer issue to their satisfaction.

The appropriate way to handle this is to simply send us another short response. We categorize this as a rebuttal, and it gets prioritized for handling. We also realize that at some point it may make better sense to use the phone and we will contact a customer after a rebuttal. This also gives me an opportunity to look at rebuttal responses for coaching improvement, as we strive to continually increase customer satisfaction when corresponding with customer relations.

Q: What are the biggest mistakes customers make when dealing with your department? Is there one thing that guarantees you won’t get an answer — like YELLING or using profanity?

Romantic: Well, we understand when things don’t go well that a customer may be upset. Our representatives are well trained to handle the emotions that sometimes follow service failures.

One thing we hear from time to time is that responses from customer relations get trapped in someone’s spam filter. So, it is best to ensure that your email is set to receive a response. We do appreciate not yelling or use of profanity though!

Q: What do you think passengers should expect from US Airways? Do you think that differs from what passengers expect, and if so, how?

Romantic: I believe that more often than not, we are able to meet our customer’s expectations. It really depends on the circumstances and the type of service failure. Expectati
ons seem to have a wide range dependant on the person and their situation.

We do get a lot of requests for roundtrip tickets on traveled — yet delayed — itineraries. We do not provide round trip tickets as compensation, but we do compensate with future travel dollars when the circumstances warrant it.

Weather delays and cancellations can also be tricky as we typically do not compensate for acts of nature outside of our immediate control.

Q: I’d like to ask about some of the more recent changes, including the baggage fees that were added last month. How do you go about explaining something like this to passengers who maybe feel as if luggage charges and other ancillary fees are unfair?

Romantic: Without a doubt, the airline industry has changed dramatically over the past five years. The model that airlines used five years ago is no longer a model that can sustain the costs of doing business. Even at today’s lower fuel prices, airlines are still losing money.

As a result, most major airlines are adopting an “à la carte” business model, which allows customers to pay for what they need, and not pay for what they do not need.

Sure, it sounds easy to just raise prices across the board instead of applying fees for services. But with too much capacity in operation and fares changing literally every minute, it is simply too hard to raise fares while remaining competitive with other airlines.

Besides, if you are on a business trip or typically carry on your one bag, then you would not want to be subject to higher fares. So, for some customers, the a la carte business model may actually save them money.

Q: I wanted to ask you about the latest Air Travel Consumer Report, which shows 63 people wrote to the government to complain about US Airways in February. Can you help put that number into perspective for our readers? How do you get that number down, apart from appealing or shifting the complaint to a regional carrier?

Romantic: In February, US Airways flew 3,843,035 passengers which excludes Express carrier traffic and received 63 complaints written to the DOT [Department of Transportation]. That is a rate of 1.64 per 100,000 customers flown. Purely from a numbers perspective, most carriers are within 5 to 10 complaints of each other monthly. And US Airways is closing that margin fast.

We are analyzing our DOT complaints very closely. As I mentioned earlier, we are looking at everything we do that may detract from customer satisfaction. The prominent driver of DOT complaints for all airlines is ineffective recovery from flight problems that occur. While US Airways boasts one of the better on-time records of late, we must look at ways to better manager service challenges when they do occur.

The March report will be out soon, and we are definitely seeing progress. The actual number of DOT complaints is down 35 percent year over year through the first quarter of 2009, and 29 percent on a ratio per 100,000 customers.

Finally, it is my responsibility to understand what drives complaints and work on solutions. As we do that, I also want to ensure that all customers know that their voice is being heard when writing directly to my customer relations team at US Airways.

Elliott is a syndicated travel columnist. You can read more interviews on his travel blog.