Airlines Laying Off and ./ or restructuring

[Malcolm]

 

American Airlines Lays Off Hundreds of Employees Amid Customer Service Restructuring

American Airlines Airbus A319.© Boarding1Now/iStock Editorial/Getty Images Plus

American Airlines just announced an upcoming organizational shift, aimed at refining its customer service approach, which will result in the layoff of hundreds of employees. On Monday, the major U.S. carrier revealed plans to lay off 656 employees, equivalent to 8.2 percent of its 8,000 customer service-related roles.

 

"Today, we announced updates to our contact center organization that will help us better serve our customers. As part of these updates, we are creating a new Customer Success team that will be dedicated to providing more convenient, elevated support to American Airlines customers with some of their most complex travel needs," the airline told USA Today in a statement.

"Unfortunately, this means some current positions will be eliminated. We’re working closely with impacted team members to support them through this transition including providing exclusive access to job openings throughout American Airlines, outplacement services and severance."

According to reports, the affected employees are non-unionized workers located in Phoenix (335) and Dallas-Fort Worth (321). Currently, their primary functions consist of assisting AAdvantage loyalty program customers and helping passengers with lost luggage complaints.

 

Carolyne Truelove, American Airlines Vice President of Reservations and Service Recovery, told Dallas News, "We are laser-focused on improving your customer experience," adding, "With that focus is digging deep into where we have customer pain points."

As things stand, passengers need to reach out to separate American Airlines customer service teams to address their various issues. But, the new structure will consolidate customer assistance employees into a single team, which will most likely work to support passengers facing such challenges as flight disruptions due to weather conditions.

To handle less complex issues—what it called "lighter-touch" problems—American Airlines plans to outsource customer support services to international contact centers that operate 24/7. This strategic move is expected to reduce call volume by 20 percent, allowing the airline to address customer needs more efficiently.

 

Those who are being laid off will continue working in their current roles until March 30, and are being given first crack at applying for one of the 135 openings on the new Customer Success team. Alternatively, they can explore other available positions among the 800 other job openings within American Airlines. Otherwise, laid-off employees will receive severance packages and job placement support to ease their transitions.

[conehead]

4 hours ago, Malcolm said:

To handle less complex issues—what it called "lighter-touch" problems—American Airlines plans to outsource customer support services to international contact centers

Outsourcing your Customer Service… yeah, that’s gonna work well..

[Maverick]

6 minutes ago, conehead said:

Outsourcing your Customer Service… yeah, that’s gonna work well..

Yup. Ask WestJet

 

[Kip Powick]

Must be a new set of "bean-counters" in AA 

[Vsplat]

I have yet to see outsourcing to an 'international' call center work.  Invariably it is the same script, read by an individual with very poor language skills over an even worse comm line with loud call center noise behind them.  I have even had it where the call center agent kept thanking me for being a loyal customer of a different business, so it made me wonder if they even know whose customers they are handling.

Given how much emotion is often present when a passenger with a problem starts their interaction with a customer service agent, this seems to be a formula for rage.

Vs

Edited February 3 by Vsplat

[conehead]

11 hours ago, Maverick said:

Yup. Ask WestJet

 

Are you being sarcastic, or did it actually work for WestJet? I know it didn't work very well for Air Canada when they outsourced some of this work to India... I remember calling about some lost luggage, and the agent barely spoke English.

[Seeker]

25 minutes ago, conehead said:

I know it didn't work very well for Air Canada when they outsourced some of this work to India... I remember calling about some lost luggage, and the agent barely spoke English.

It doesn't actually work for any company that does this.  Long wait times and difficulty in communicating has the effect of making most people think it's not worth the effort and they give up - a "win" for the company.  A win in the short term and whatever manager brought it online gets his/her bonus and moves on.  A few years later some other manager gets hired to restore and rebuild customer loyalty - gets their bonus and moves on.  Am I bitter?  Ask me.

I'm old enough to have seen the same cycle, in various forms, many, many times.  Cut staffing to reduce costs then boost staffing to deal with delays and IRROPS, then cut staffing to reduce costs........

[Falken]

conehead - that agent now calls me to inform me I can get 0% interest on my Chase credit card!

[Maverick]

On 2/3/2024 at 6:39 AM, conehead said:

Are you being sarcastic, or did it actually work for WestJet? I know it didn't work very well for Air Canada when they outsourced some of this work to India... I remember calling about some lost luggage, and the agent barely spoke English.

I'm being sarcastic. At the smaller bases that are all contract it's not even close to being what it was.

[J.O.]

The culture isn't much better at large bases either. It had started already, but the days of the Three Musketeers (all for one and one for all) mindset went the way of the dinosaur when Onex took over. It's a shame.

[Seeker]

2 hours ago, J.O. said:

The culture isn't much better at large bases either. It had started already, but the days of the Three Musketeers (all for one and one for all) mindset went the way of the dinosaur when Onex took over. It's a shame.

It's a shame but was totally predictable.  Even if Onex hadn't taken over the trajectory would have been similar.  The growth that fueled the "machine" could not be sustained forever and eventually the company would have to deal with normal business constraints. 

I got a kick out of Westjetters (some of whom where friends and co-workers from previous companies) exuberantly telling me their world-domination plans.