As more and more people travel these days, it appears that most customer experiences with airlines are becoming more negative – at least for the majority in economy.

 The first day of 2008 saw the New York Times print an article about the growing success of ‘coachless flights’, with the rise of carriers like Silverjet and Eos Airlines.

Highlighting comfort and customer satisfaction, it is unfortunate to note that more and more, these are qualities no longer associated with flying ‘coach’ class.

The Zagat survey, released late last year, included quotes from their respondents that their lawyers recommended they not print along with the airlines name.  Some notes included, “I’d rather be a package on FedEx”, “the legroom is great if you’re a yard gnome”, “If they could have pay toilets, they would”, “when asked what kind of chicken they had, she replied the dead kind”, as well as “They fired the last employee found smiling”.

And it’s not just the frequent flyers who are noticing the lack of satisfaction in flying anymore, a recent IBISworld analysis of 2007 came to the conclusion that: while 2007 was smooth sailing for airlines and shareholders, consumers felt the turbulence.

Delays and cancellations were the biggest annoyance in 2007, with 35% of the respondents placing that first, and it’s something that affected all classes of passengers; and unfortunately there’s not much flyers can do about that.

Coming in a close second were the airline’s cramped quarters, with 34% of respondents placing that first.  As the airlines saw great numbers in load factors, flyers just saw crowded planes.  In fact airline seats became such a hot topic, in the UK a House of Lords committee recommended that airlines in the EU enforce a ‘minimum’ seat pitch.

In regards to this problem there is somewhat of a solution.  For those in the know, sites like www.seatguru.com and www.seatexpert.com, offer those who do a little research the ability to pre-select a more comfortable seat.

For example on SeatGuru, travellers who type in their airline and aircraft type can see a breakdown of the aircraft’s interior plans, with notification about which seats have been recommended for comfort, which ones to avoid, and even which ones have power points.

Another note of SeatGuru is that seating maps have ‘Be Aware’ warnings on problematic seats, so if travellers are assigned Seat 36D for example on a British Airways B747-400 they are made aware of the fact that even though it’s an aisle seat, there is an entertainment equipment box in front limiting foot-room.