I am sitting on the runway in Dallas, Texas, with my family on an airplane (American Airlines). There are at least four other people near us who will be missing their connecting flight home. One is going to Oregon to meet up with his wife and kids, and another person is heading home to see his dying mother. The other two were expressing how insane this was. The worst part of it all most of us were at the back of the plane. The stewardess announced on the intercom to let others go due to time trying to connect to their flights. Well, that did not work, everyone got up as if we did not exist.
As everyone got up at the same time, we had 10 mins to try to make our connections. We were on the runway for about 20 mins, and we thought we could make it. We ran to our gate, and luck was not in our favor after all. We asked the customer service who was at the desk of American Airlines to get us another flight. They did, but it was two hours later and heading into San Francisco instead of San Jose. We asked if they could transfer our child’s car seat and suitcase. We were not sure if our stuff would be in San Francisco or San Jose.
Mind you; this was New Year’s Eve. This was my experience heading to 2019. At this point, I was not happy, but what can you do? I was thinking about my work, about someone using a product that I designed. Gosh! That would be an awful experience. This got me thinking even more. How can you put that experience out into the world?
When the stewardess asked nicely to allow the other passengers to go, no one did that. They may have thought, “This is my not problem.” Right? I am guilty of this as well. I have thought about this and have tried in the past not to be like that. For God’s sake, I am in the business of improving the user experience.
American Airlines missed the point of using service design to provide the best experience for the user. What I have learned from this experience is that when I design a new feature, I will focus on the user even more. Granted, this has to be the most horrible experience I have encountered, but I always look at the positive side of it. I know what it feels like to have this feeling, and when I go back to doing UX, this would be my number one reminder.
The story is not over. This is just the beginning, and it is funny now that I am writing it. This would only be on the show, “Friends,” or something like that.
We finally got on the plane to head back to San Francisco and obtained our car seat, but our suitcase was still in Dallas! Yes, Dallas. I guess our stuff never left. We ended up taking an Uber home, and American Airlines gave us a car seat to borrow, so yeah they get some bonus points about that.
Out of everything else that has gone wrong, at least our Uber driver was a nice man from Sacramento, and we spent 2019 in an Uber driving from San Francisco to San Jose heading to home sweet home. As for our car seat and suitcase, we are still waiting for American Airlines to deliver those to us. Thank God our family has extra underwear!
Happy New Year, 2019!
