Of Customer Service and Oats

Michael Boyd, aviation consulting's enfant terrible has weighed in on something that makes a lot of sense these days, and that's the distressing trend toward what is euphemistically called 'outsourcing'. I've got my own opinions on what we should call this trend but nevermind.

Mike is talking about the major airlines that have outsourced their aircraft, crewtime and customer service handling to regional airlines. He makes a number of commonsense observations including the following:

• cheap customer service can be very expensive, if it's bad.
• if SLPs can't afford to pay their workers enough to keep them interested, their entire business model is untenable and they should do something else
• if you hired the SLP and they stink, don't blame them because you're baiting and switching the flying public
• if your service delivery stinks revenue and costs go south.

It stands to reason that if you're buying oats they cost some. If the oats have already been through the horse they cost less.

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