Can You Get Satisfaction at the Airport?

 

By Robert McGarvey

 

The number of fliers who say they are satisfied with airport security procedures jumped off the page at me.  That’s because 67.7% of us told the Travel Leaders Group we are “satisfied” with airport security.

Just 14.9% said they were “unsatisfied.”

At first I thought the numbers had to be wrong – but as I thought about I decided that indeed I too am generally satisfied and I also hear a lot less grumbling among friends than I used to.

Why?

Are the processes better or has a kind of Stockholm Syndrome kicked in?

Mind you, we are not entirely thrilled with airport procedures.  27.3% grumbled about taking off shoes.  19.2 beefed about restrictions on liquids in carry-ons.

But a stunning 20.8% said they did not want to end any security procedure.

The numbers point to important changes in our mindsets.

Partly, I think, the satisfaction is because more of us benefit from TSA Pre-Check.  Four million of us now are enrolled and, per TSA, 97% of enrollees spend five minutes or less in security lines.

I usually wait longer for a latte at an airport Starbucks in the morning.

Pre- check also ends the need to remove shoes – the number one grumble –

Laptops and liquids remain in your bag. Go ahead, wear your belt.

Travel even once a month and TSA Pre is worth the money ($85 for five years; refunded to cardholders by American Express Platinum and various other premium cards).  

TSA Pre enrollees alone have to count for a lot of generally satisfied votes.

Meantime, too, at a glance TSA itself seems to be working better, more smoothly.  I just don’t hear the loud complaints about it that I used to hear.  

And all us – TSA Pre enrollees and others – seem better adjusted to the airport security queues.  Every trip a decade ago, I used to see travelers in a world of confusion when dealing with TSAs – liquids posed continuing challenges – but now I am seeing much less friction.  

Add it up and, yes, airport security seems much less draconian and hostile and time consuming than it did perhaps a decade ago.  

Lately there have been more complaints about TSA’s “enhanced pat downs” – perhaps because this appears to be new policy.

Probably we will get used to it and TSA will do it in a less annoying fashion. Give it time.

I also applaud security because – obviously – we need it.  

But a different poll result still baffles me, even after I have thought hard about it.

What I am puzzle by is our climbing satisfaction with airplanes themselves, per the recent J. D. Power North America Airline Satisfaction Survey.  That report put our satisfaction rating at 756 out of a possible 1000 points, up 30 points over the 2016 results.

Really?

Color me  a curmudgeon because airplane trips just have become unpleasant in my scoring.  Hostile staff. Hostile passengers. Too many of the latter, squeezed into too small spaces.  I see no real light at the end of this tunnel.

Or, rather, I see no light for those who don’t fly in the front of the plane.

For those of us in coach there seems no end to the miseries that await us because, plainly, the airlines are not listening and won’t as long as the ringing of their cash register drowns out our complaints.

Drive instead of flying, Or take the bus. Or Amtrak. And the carriers might get the message.

Right now they don’t take any of these alternatives as a serious business threat and why should they?

J.D. Power, incidentally, did acknowledge it had surveyed passengers before the Dr. Dao incident on United – and the extensive press coverage of similar mishaps that has followed. There’s no saying how this would have impacted the Power satisfaction survey.

One takeaway for me – because I live in Phoenix – is that I need to be flying Southwest more. It scored highest in the Power survey. United, which I fly a lot, scored much lower.  

How dumb am I?

But at least I do know how to fix this.