William Herp on Thu, Jun 21, 2012
Who sues their best customers?
In The Frequent Fliers Who Flew Too Much, we read how one major U.S. airline turned investigators loose on its very best customers – the 66 people who over the years laid down huge sums ranging from $250,000 back in the ’80s and ’90s, to more than $2 million in the early 2000s, for “lifetime” travel privileges.
The swivel-chair detectives eventually dug up “evidence” that some of these ultimate frequent fliers were abusing their travel privileges. In most cases the alleged “abuse” wasn’t prohibited by the terms of the deal, but the airline still revoked the customer’s (paid-for!) privileges. The airline is even suing many of the very customers it promised to treat like family members.
Airlines – a flying disappointment
For that matter, you’d think you’d get pretty outstanding service every time you paid several thousand bucks for a first class seat, or your company spent hundreds of thousands of dollars each year for travel for you and your business associates. But sadly again, you’d be wrong about that too. Many frustrated frequent fliers have learned the hard way; there are no rock-solid service quality guarantees in the U.S. airline business.
Air taxi – focusing on you
So that’s another reason we believe that Linear Air provides superior value to customers who choose our price-competitive, on-demand air taxi service aboard ultra-modern and ultra-efficient air taxi aircraft.
Linear customers never will be treated indifferently or shabbily by a demotivated flight attendant. They won’t be probed or groped by an uncaring security screener whose basic assumption seems to be that you are, in fact, a terrorist. And Linear Air never will create a super-secret team of forensic accountants and private investigators to go after our own customers!
We’ve all heard stories and read about frequent fliers who’ve been shocked to learn that the “free” award tripsthey earned by spending huge amounts of money and time with one airline are neither “free” nor easy to book. Even a pricey first class ticket doesn’t guarantee that you’ll be served a decent meal, or that you’ll arrive anywhere close to on time – with your bag.And most travelers, at one time or another, have experienced rude and uncaring treatment at the hands of airline employees.
Linear Air does not operate that way. We don’t suspect our customers. We deeply appreciate them, and we’ll do just about anything to earn their business over and over. In fact, our whole company is built around the notion of catering to the needs of individual frequent business travelers in ways airlines simply cannot.
About more than just the flying
In addition to shaving 40% to 70% off the door-to-door travel time vs. commercial flights, we offer the most hassle- and headache-free air travel service available. The aircraft are amazingly comfortable, and each flight is operated by thoroughly trained, professional pilots, who get to know their passengers personally before takeoff and who’ll do anything they can to make their passengers’ journeys comfortable and successful. That includes radioing ahead to check on, or arrange ground transportation and meeting details. Our pilots have even been known to personally drive customers to their meetings when the scheduled ground transportation was delayed!
Our customer service staff is adept at helping our customers make highly personalized travel plans. And our Platinum frequent travelers get additional concierge services.
My point is that, ultimately, Linear Air won’t be successful by treating our customer the way airlines treat theirs. We know we must do a better job of serving those who choose to fly with us. Yes, we provide a great value proposition based on our safety, hassle-free process, and price-competitiveness, and by the time savings we create for our customers. But as good as all that is, it is not enough. We know that we can do all of those things well and still fail unless we provide our customers with outstanding personal service, too. Because ultimately our business is not flying planes – it’s connecting people.
See you onboard.
