More check-in kiosks equal not enough staff at airport?

Anyone who’s traveled much over the years has almost certainly been in the situation where weather has resulted in endless lines at the airport. If a widebody flight canceled for mechanical reasons can also easily result in backups at the gate. Lately, even when the problem is a single delay, or a relatively minor problem, the lines get just as endless in a hurry.

The result — not only just the tedium of waiting, but unnecessarily missed flights.

Here’s a recent case from San Francisco International Airport. My client on a paid first class ticket to Santiago, Chile, had his San Francisco to Miami flight return to the gate for a mechanical issue.

American Airlines announced the problem was fixable, but would require about an hour to fix. Which meant he would miss his connection in Miami.

As it turned out, however, there was a flight at 2:55 p.m. via Dallas that would also get him to Santiago. There were a few first class seats left. The only issue, his luggage was on the first flight.

Now, when he called me, it was 2:10 p.m., and he told me there was already a long line of people who had rushed to the gate for rebooking.

I got him rebooked no problem, but since we were getting close to departure time, and he said the line at the Miami gate wasn’t moving, I suggested trying to go to the nearby Dallas gate, especially since that flight was also slightly delayed.

There was one American agent at that gate, no line, but the woman shrugged and said she couldn’t help. Even though he told her he had a booking. Her response, the Miami agent would have to see about his bag.

Miami agent indeed, there was ONE agent at the gate and she was completely overwhelmed. Since it was the last flight of the day to Miami (scheduled at 1 p.m.), there were few options for any passenger trying to make a connection.

So my client dutifully went back to his original gate, where the line hadn’t grown much, but also hadn’t moved. American did not send additional agents to the Miami gate, apparently because they didn’t have any extras available.

(One option in such a situation can be to go back through security, but with the luggage issue, there was no way my client had the time.)

Of course, when he did get to the front of the line, it was far too late to change flights. American did give him a voucher for the Marriott hotel near Miami airport, and a meal voucher, but he would have much preferred to get to his destination.

The traveler also reported to me that others he was talking to in line were also trying to make Latin America connections, and all of them ended up in the same boat, or rather, the same airport hotel.

I can certainly see why kiosks can save an airline money in the short run. They don’t get salaries, benefits, and present no scheduling issues.

On the other hand, in this recent case, no doubt American Airlines incurred a lot of costs in vouchers, not to mention any additional costs of moving people to the following day’s flight, which might have resulted in any bumping.

Some travelers, including my client, ended up on other airlines. (in his case a American/Lan Airlines codeshare, which not only got him to Chile 24 hours late, but which can’t have been as much revenue for the airline as a true AA flight. I think that’s a lose-lose solution.)

As noted, sometimes stuff happens and there is no way an airline can have enough staff to cover unforeseen occurrences. But, over and over these days, I see (and hear stories) about severe understaffing at airline gates, where the slightest hiccup can bring down the entire system.

(At some smaller airports, agents help out at the kiosks and baggage checkin, then go down to the gates to do the actual boarding, which really means no margin for error.)

Travelers without luggage can sometime skirt the system by making changes by phone or with a travel agent, but often a human is still needed to print a boarding pass.

Airlines seem to be on the track back towards profitability these days, with higher load factors and higher airfares. It would seem that customer service should get some of these new profits. Customer service agents at the airport are not exactly highly paid employees.

It makes you wonder how much difference to the airline’s bottom line it would make if AA had one or two extra roving agents at major airports, especially during busy travel periods. (This case was the beginning of Labor Day weekend.)

Delta did announce earlier this summer they would be putting more customer service agents in airports, but I haven’t seen any other airlines following suit.

In fact, if anything, when I have traveled this summer, and based on phone calls I have received from clients at airports, the numbers seem to be going backwards.

No doubt some number-crunchers are trying to optimize profits. But in this case, besides the hotel and meal vouchers, it definitely cost American Airlines a first class customer, as he did email me later than he wanted to try ANYONE else to South America next time.