Risk and Customer Satisfaction

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My old Samsonite just looked ragged. It was fraying in the corners and the blue fabric reflected the stains and miles that come with frequent travel. It was time for something new. It was time for a well thought out, well built and light piece of luggage. One that would reflect the wisdom of the frequent traveler. Mainly, one that I could stuff a weeks worth of suits and workout gear, arrive completely unwrinkled and glide into the overhead compartment with little fuss and fanfare. One with little chance of the ticket agent proclaiming, “I’m sorry sir, you’re going to need to check that bag!”

So, the first order of business was to check the maximum dimensions allowed by all of the airlines I’m likely to use. I found a handy table at Travel Made Simple. Since I live in Atlanta, Delta is my primary carrier, so I used 22x14x9 as my baseline dimension. Other airlines I typically fly are American, United, Southwest, Cathay Pacific, Air France, and Lufthansa to name a few.

A very interesting trend started to emerge. Delta, American, United, and Cathay Pacific all used the “standard” 22x14x9. Air France uses 21.7×13.8×9.9. Lufthansa uses 21.6×15.5×9. Southwest is 24x16x10, which is the largest of the bunch. OK, so 22x14x9 is probably the safest bet.

We all know that airline customers can be an unruly bunch, and there is plenty of irritation between the airline gate agents and customers when there is a packed plane and everyone wants to bring their carry-on luggage on-board. One has to wonder if Air France designed their offering to give gate agents a little leeway in delighting a customer by allowing a bag that is slightly above their specs, or providing a bit of “legal” pushback against passengers when they need to balance overhead capacity and not look like mean, evil agents. Keeping agents happy reduces the costs associated with hiring and training replacements. I’d speculate that Lufthansa might be in the same game.

How about Southwest? They cater mostly to business travelers and families making short trips. They not only have the largest carry-on allowance, they don’t charge for the first two checked bags. Checked bag fees at other airlines are mostly an annoyance, but most travelers I know want to carry-on so that they can reduce their time at the airport and get to their clients quicker, or return home to their loved ones without having to wait for lost or delayed baggage. With Southwest as your airline of choice, you don’t have to worry about the size of your carry-on, and an extra 2x2x1 inches might not sound like much, but it is cavernous by comparison! Gate agents are statistically much less likely to have to police the size of carry-ons, the planes have more capacity for carry-ons, and checked bags are free. Seems like a win-win for agents and passengers.

This does come with some risk for Southwest. If a passenger gets bumped, or they find themselves having to utilize the other major carriers, they may get quite upset that they now have to check their bags if they have taken advantage of the privilege of carrying larger bags with Southwest. And they have to pay for them! Or, they may remain very loyal to Southwest, which I’m sure is the ultimate goal for the airline. I did notice that Southwest is practically tied with JetBlue for the Low-Cost carrier satisfaction rating according to JD Powers. Maybe there is a correlation, maybe not.

Me? I bought a nice 22x14x9 bag that allows me to take advantage of all of the major carriers. I’ll just have to make sure I’m nice to the Air France agents. But I can see where some customers will opt for that 24x16x10 privilege and remain a predominantly loyal customer to Southwest.

The takeaway:
1) Know your customers.
2) Understand the world they live in.
3) Design your products or services in such a way to create lock-in if the customer opts-in to higher levels of service or product.

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