Well let me inform you all that Americans are not the only hot tempered folks out there. I've traveled through Europe, been on flight delays and cancelations and seen some of the same type of behavior from the locals. And in working at the airport, I had my share of foreign people that acted as you say or worse. So it's not just Americans.
To the original poster: I'm going to guess that you work for a call center in India. There are a couple points you need to keep in mind. First, having call center jobs shipped over to India has become quite common and it's a sore subject with Americans as this means losses of jobs just to help the company's bottom line. And it's not just the airlines. It's banks and credit card companies, the phone company, etc.
The second part is the language barrier. It can be hard to make out what is being said with the accent, depending on how heavy the accent is. But also, it's the simple lack of understanding of common phrases, or phrases that are used by the phone rep, that are not common use in the US.
It all adds up to major frustration over something simple.
Another thing you have to remember is not every American travels by air that frequently. For many it's once a year at best. For another large number of Americans, it's every few years at best. So even though you are getting a large number of calls, it's from a very large population base. And also, in what other country in the world are there about 400 airports that serve airlines? And that's not counting the airports that only do private aircraft. I'm talking about airports that serve airlines. 400 of them. And in what other country do you have over 15 airlines based in that country? Even with that many airlines, in that many airports, you still have enough people flying that better than half only fly once a year or less. That's a lot of people who aren't familiar with all of the rules and what can happen if you try to change a plane ticket.
|