Could the pendulum finally be swinging back for airport customer service? Yesterday, I wrote about Delta Airlines actually increasing airport customer service agents. Now. American is making their move.
American’s idea to make life easier for passengers? “YADA, YADA.” Seriously. YADA (Your Assistance Delivered Anywhere), is the airline’s new system of handheld mobile devices given to airport employees.
The devices act as the the equivalent of a cellphone instead of a landline for airport employees. While they have been tested before on a very limited basis, American is rolling out the devices now at Dallas-Fort Worth, New York JFK and LaGuardia, Chicago O’Hare, Miami, Boston, Albuquerque, St. Louis and San Juan.
Now, curiously enough the airline has not indicated whether they will add any more agents to use the YADA devices. But they will allow agents to leave the main check-in desks to help customers who are waiting in line at boarding gates or security, or who are simply standing around in a state of confusion.
If nothing else, YADA YADA should help in the all-too-frequent situation when a flight is canceled or delayed, and there is a long line at that particular gate. With one or two harried gate agents trying to work as fast as they can with the only available computers.
In fact, more than once recently I have been at airports where it was a tough call whether or not to wait in the line for a new boarding pass or to go back out through security. I have heard similar stories from clients.
The devices will have real-time information on flights, gates and standby lists. More importantly, they will even be able to print bag tags and boarding passes.
There are issues that come to mind with the new devices. For on thing, they are understandably being deployed at larger airports, but it is the smaller airports that often can have the worst problems with insufficient agents past security, because airlines may only have few gates, and particularly limited staff.
Another unmentioned issue is how much authority these YADA YADA agents will have. Because clearly an agent who can make supervisor-level decisions will be a lot more helpful than someone who can simply enforce airline “business-as-usual.” Although presumably even someone with low decision-making powers could allow a passenger, say to change from LaGuardia to JFK.
American, also does not indicate that the devices could be used to issue meal vouchers and the like for delayed flights. But presumably if they have a printer capability this could be added later.
Personally, however, my opinion is that anything that puts more human help in airports is not a bad thing. So it’s hard to think that this is anything but a step in the right direction. Unless American decides to add a YADA YADA fee.
Janice Hough is a California-based travel agent a travel blogger and a part-time comedy writer. A frequent flier herself, she’s been doing battle with airlines, hotels, and other travel companies for over three decades. Besides writing for Travelers United, Janice has a humor blog at Leftcoastsportsbabe.com (Warning, the political and sports humor therein does not represent the views of anyone but herself.)
