When Cape Air opened in the Mid-Atlantic region in March 2009, it was opening routes that had not seen service in close to two years. Having been dark for so long, the market had found other means for meeting their travel needs and everyone recognized it would be some time to rebuild the ridership. As such, the early days featured light flight loads. When combined with the airline’s focus on flexibility and excellent customer service, the few travelers who were using the service had an experience quite equivalent to having a private aircraft. With few, if any other customers to consider, the airline was able to adapt, within reason, to the customer’s needs in delaying a departure etc. when connecting flights had complications etc. A core group of regular travelers began to emerge finding the benefits of the service to far outweigh the alternatives they had been using. But their understanding of the product was based on what they experienced and the airline was not mentioning the various policies that were being ignored as a courtesy to the customer.
All along, the airline’s check-in policy is that passengers need to be at the airport, checked-in, no later than 30-minutes before departure. When there’s only two or three people on a flight 10-15 minutes is sufficient, so in the early days, the check-in policy wasn’t needed, “we’ll depart when you show up”. After consistently delivering that product for over a year, unconsciously, the airline established a benchmark. The benchmark transformed into a customer expectation. And now that the service is busier and the schedule tighter, the airline needs passengers to check-in 30-minutes before departure. The airline needs to enforce its check-in policy to operate smoothly while the customer maintains the expectation and habit of arriving minutes before departure, not even aware that the check-in policy ever existed. That’s a problem; a process of retraining is required.
First, the customer has to be informed that the policy exists and has existed even though it hasn’t been employed.
Two, the airline has to respect that the customer has the leverage. They’re accustomed to the product that the airline has delivered over the past year and though the airline has to make the change for the sake of its operations, customers may walk away never to return.
Three, in respect to the customer, the change needs to occur slowly. Every exchange the airline has with any of its regular passengers should be viewed as a retraining opportunity. The airline needs to point out the check-in policy, state that with the increase in business there’s less opportunity to be as flexible as in the past and that the airline cannot guarantee boarding if late check-ins occur while emphasizing when the circumstances allow, the airline will flex as much as it can.
In the end, it’s an exercise in the airline reestablishing a benchmark that changes the service that’s being provided which is different from what the customer is used to receiving. Ultimately, we’re attempting to reshape the expectations of the customer without losing them in the process. Hopefully, we’re navigating it with minimal turbulence.
