Just a few years ago I could make a day hop from the Valley to Colo, but not any longer. I went out to the airport at 8am for a 9:30 flight. It being a sunny cloudless day here and in Denver the flight is delayed. It’s probably cloudy, or windy or just crowded somewhere. It always is, somewhere.

My flight is delayed. Take off is listed as 11:40, which means airport lunch. Unfortunately the airlines isn’t a service business with awareness of a consumer. They are in the shipping business moving containers from warehouse to warehouse. Blocks across the grid.

A service orientation approach would take the opportunity to channel my thinking away from how long, how boring, how bad this experience is. A company with a customer focus could do something such as pass out $5 coupons for redemption at the airport. Properly structured, these coupons wouldn’t cost the airlines the full $5, and would mean I was having a coffee or chicken salad instead of thinking of the pain caused by United’s hatred of people.

I know, United doesn’t hate people, they’re just afraid of them. The airlines have gotten into a business they can’t solve. Customer service is much harder than hauling freight.