On the Other Hand...

Talking with a colleague the other day about blogs, she said she doesn't read them because they are all so snarky and negative. "It's just so easy," she said, "to bash others without knowing the full story."

Agreed. Lots of blogs do. And I looked at mine. Sho' nuff, there are some pretty damning posts...but there are just as many highlighting truly cool and innovative thought leaders, destination innovators and cool examples of web break-throughs and customer service. And, after yesterday's indictment of a couple airlines (which, admittedly, is easy pickings these days), I gotta take my hat off to United's Denny Flanagan.

Profiled in the Wall Street Journal this week, this is a pilot that takes a page from the Southwest playbook and amplifies (can you say "turn it up to 11?"). This guy (without encouragement or training from United) mingles with passengers in the gate area, awards passengers with bottles of wine, snaps pictures of animals in the cargo hold to show owners their pets are safely on board, orders 200 McDonald's hamburgers for passengers if his flight is delayed or diverted...etc. etc. etc.

Is this guy as rogue as Jack Bauer or what? Even United's Chief Customer Officer "doesn't know what to do with him" (that's just sad...'cause I sure do).

In the Church of the Customer blog, Jackie Huba tells the story in much more detail...and closes by saying, "If I were in charge of United for a day (a scary thought, I know)..."

No, Jackie...it's a sensational thought. If you could replicate Denny Flanagan throughout the fleet, there are tens of thousands of frequent fliers that would agree to once again fly United as their carrier of choice. There would be tens of thousands of frequent fliers that would allow themselves to be routed through O'Hare.

Oh sure, there are plenty of air travelers that only look at the price tag. But, to fly with a pilot that clearly cares about their customers...that's worth a premium price to more travelers than you'll ever know.