Cargo shipment/rec'v problems ABIA
 

With the economy as it is, more customers are having their small to medium size parts shipped by air instead of having couriers drive them across Texas, for instance breakdown computer parts.

Instead of welcoming the extra cargo business Austin Bergstrom Int. Airport has closed on Sunday's and made it harder the other 6 nights by re-directing Priority freight to the baggage claim after 22:00 p.m..

By closing on Sunday, the ticket personnel groan and moan when you show up with Priority freight and most of them do not know how to do it. This morning it took 50 mins. to process our shipment to DFW. Poor customer service. This takes employee/couriers off other deliveries/duties.

Suggestion: If cargo manager refuses to re-instate the facility to open on Sunday's, then have a cargo agent at the ticket counter on all shifts OR train all agents how to tender the freight so we are not passed around from one agent to the other and have excess waiting time (2 mins vs 50 mins). Also, we do not want to be treated badly by agents because they are un-happy having to provide customer service to us ! ! ! Also, the 22:00 p.m. rule should be reviewed in our opinion.

Thank you AA and hope some changes are made to show you appreciate the increase in cargo shipments.

Yes, I am a courier, BUT I represent the customers and report and/or charge them for the extra expense that you AA are inflicting on me/THEM.

It is AA's cargo facility that is closed on Sunday, not the entire airport's cardo operations. I just wanted to clarify that (checked on AA.com) because you made it sound like no cargo was going in or out at all @AUS on Sunday.

It's odd how you cite the economy changing business conditions as it applies to your operation but when another company modifies it's business hours and operations because of the same economic pressures it's not okay because it inconveniences you! Do you havde sufficient knowledge of the volume of cargo AA accepted on a daily basis? Can you make a comparison between weekday business and Saturday and Sunday? No because you don't work for them. If your courier service only gets on average a dozen calls to ship something on a Sunday versus a hundred or more calls on a weekday are you going to staff the same number of people on a Sunday? I think not. The choice to close on Sunday was obviously a business decision and obviously because they did not have sufficient cargo volume to justify the expense of keeping the cargo receiving area staffed.

As for training the ticket counter agents, they probably received some basic training and your complaint is the speed at which they process your cargo and not they they are unable to do it at all. You can't expect a ticket counter agent who is primarily responsible for processing passengers to be as proficient as a cargo agent. The cargo agents process shipments all day every day and can probably do it in their sleep. I would think if they sent a cargo agent to work at the ticket counter one day a month he or she would be slower than the other agents as well.

Finally isn't there another airline out of AUS that you could utilize for your cargo needs on Sunday? Doesn't Southwest fly into AUS? Don't they have an extensive route network within Texas? Just a thought.

edit: Just checked and Southwest does indeed have a cargo counter @AUS and it's open Sundays from 7 AM - 10:30 PM.

When I left American, cargo was the one of the biggest revenue sources for the company. It's liability cost ratio is very little compared to other sources of revenue. I am sure the closing of the cargo facility is a cost cutting measure due to the economy. Yet, it seems that directs business to other airlines who are willing to have fully trained staff on duty on Sunday...assuming that Southwest's employees are fully trained.

As a ticket agent I would accept cargo shipments and process them as part of the job since I worked at a small airport. Sometimes that meant passengers had to wait as it took about 15 minutes to process a box and I could do it in my sleep. The amount of paper work is silly and redundant. And that is a standard the DOT required. Every few weeks the DOT would change a standard and the creation of a new 8 x 11 had to be made, read, filled out and initialed. All while trying to check in passengers. I understand safety measures but when one has to print up a blank paper from the dot matrix printer and literally write the bag number (the number on the bag tag already on the box) with a fat marker in large print on 2 sides of each box and tape it, I felt like I was kindergarten.

Every few weeks my boss would tell me how I did it wrong since the new standard by the DOT was put in place but I was not given the memo in time. Very annoying.

In the defense of the DOT, not all changes were made by them but they are pretty frequent. Much of the time, headquarters would make these changes too. As an agent on the front line that makes it challenging as many boxes of dry ice and other sensitive materials came through on a daily basis. Remarkably, the "usual" couriers did not show up on Sunday.

PHX.. what are you suggesting here? Let's say all the things you say here about the reasons for the changes are true. Are you really suggesting that a customer should never complain? I can find no fault with this complaint. The customer had a previously good service, saw the service deteriorate and complains to the service provider. It is then up to the service provider to decide if they can accommodate that customer or risk losing the business. The complaint of an increase in the time taken from 2 mins to 50 mins is particularly relevant. AA may not realise their solution is not working if people did not complain.

The receipt of complaints is a key part of any businesses ability to continuously improve and develop their services. It is ludicrous for you to suggest that customers should not be doing so.

My point, Jim, was that the OP cited the declining economy as a reason for many changes in his own industry while being intolerant of another industry who made changes for the very same reasons. Another case of "can't see the forest for the trees."

It is not intolerant Phx to let a service provider know that changes they have made have had a significant impact on the customer. A switch from a 2 minute transaction to a 50 minute transaction is highly significant and the customer is pointing this out. I cannot understand your point... are we to say that no one who is affected by recession should ever complain?

I don't believe Phx, that if one of the airlines, for which you are a Premium customer made significant changes to the services you paid for, that you would not provide feedback to the company relating to this. Although I can't be bothered to search for it, I think you mentioned giving feedback to Continental at one point.

Perhaps you mean that only important people like yourself can complain and simple, mere mortals should shut up and accept what is given?