科技不僅沒有讓航空業變好 還推動它墮落

There are many reasons for the sorry state of commercial aviation in America. When it comes to your routinely terrible flight — not to mention the sort of exceptional horror that took place aboard United Airlines Flight 3411 this past weekend — regulatory failures as well as consolidation, which the authorities have allowed to occur unabated for decades, can be blamed.

美國商業航空公司的糟糕狀況有很多原因。你經常遇到的糟糕飛行體驗——更不必說過去這個週末美國聯合航空公司(United Airlines)3411號航班上發生的那種格外可怕的事件——可以歸咎於監管不力，以及過去幾十年裏當局允許類似事件的持續發生。

But I come to you as a technology columnist to tell you that technology, too, has failed you.

但是，作爲技術專欄作家，我要對你說的是，技術也是一個誘因。

People in Silicon Valley pride themselves on their capacity to upend entrenched industries. Uber defeated taxi cartels. Airbnb made getting a room cheaper and more accessible. Streaming services are undoing the cable business. Yet the airline industry has not just stubbornly resisted innovation to improve customer service — in many ways, technology has only fueled the industry’s race to the bottom.

硅谷的人們爲自己顛覆根深蒂固的行業的能力感到自豪。Uber擊敗了出租車壟斷聯盟。Airbnb能讓人們更方便地獲得更便宜的客房。流媒體服務正在取代有線電視業務。而航空業不但堅決抵制改善客戶服務的創新，技術還在很多方面推動着這個行業繼續墮落。

Everything about United Flight 3411 — overselling, underpaying for seats when they are oversold, a cultish refusal to offer immediate contrition, an overall attitude that brutish capitalism is the best that nonelite customers can expect from this fallen world — is baked into the airline industry’s business model. And that business model has been accelerated by tech.

關於美聯航3411號航班事件的一切——超售；爲超售付出的代價過低；狂妄地拒絕在第一時間表達悔意；從根本上認爲野蠻資本主義已是非精英客戶在這墮落世界能得到的最佳待遇——已經滲入航空業的業務模式。而且這種商業模式得到了技術的推動。

Travel search engines rank airlines based on price rather than friendliness or quality of service. Online check-in, airport kiosks and apps allow airlines to serve customers with fewer and fewer workers. What we are witnessing is the basest, ugliest form of tech-abetted, bottom-seeking capitalism — one concerned with prices and profits above all else, with little regard for quality of service, for friendliness, or even for the dignity of customers.

旅行搜索引擎根據價格而非友好程度或服務質量對航空公司進行評級。在線值機、機場自助值機臺和應用程序可以讓航空公司用更少的員工爲客戶提供服務。我們目睹的是最基本、最醜陋的以技術爲支持、追求利潤的資本主義形式——對價格和利潤的關心高於其他一切，幾乎不考慮服務質量或友善程度，甚至不考慮客戶的尊嚴。

“The airline industry has been on a steady downward trajectory when it comes to customer service for nearly 40 years,” said Henry H. Harteveldt, president of Atmosphere Research Group, a travel industry research firm. He noted that American carriers were improving on some metrics — on-time service is up, baggage loss is down and prices keep getting better.

“近40年來，航空業在客戶服務方面處於持續下滑的軌道，”旅遊業研究公司大氣研究集團(Atmosphere Research Group)總裁亨利·H·哈特韋爾茲(Henry H. Harteveldt)說。他指出，美國航空公司在某些方面有所改進——準點率提高，行李遺失率降低，價格持續下降。

What keeps deteriorating are comfort and quality of service for low-end passengers (i.e., most people). Legroom keeps shrinking. Airlines keep tacking on separate fees for amenities we used to consider part of the flight. And customers keep going along with it.

不斷惡化的是低端乘客（即大多數人）的舒適程度和獲得的服務質量。伸腿空間不斷縮小。航空公司不斷爲我們以往認爲屬於航班一部分的設施單獨收費。客戶們不斷容忍。

“Consumers have shown that they’re willing to put up with an awful lot, including lack of legroom, lack of amenities, mediocre or worse customer service, dirty airplanes and more to save money,” Harteveldt said. “And the airline industry has evolved to meet that desire” for cheap fares.

哈特韋爾茲稱，“消費者表明，爲了省錢，他們願意忍受很多事情，包括伸腿空間缺乏，設施缺乏，中等或更差的客戶服務，骯髒的飛機等”，“航空業已經在爲滿足追求”便宜票價“的慾望而演變”。

Part of the problem is how we buy tickets today. The whole system is mercilessly transactional. When you search online, you look for price and travel times, and perhaps you consider some airline loyalty program. Customer service — that is, how the airline treats you — isn’t often part of the transaction.

一個問題是如今我們購買機票的方式。整個系統是無情的交易。你在線搜索時關注的是價格和旅行時間，你也許會考慮某些航空公司的會員計劃。客戶服務——也就是航空公司對待你的方式——通常不是交易的一部分。

As a result, airlines have little incentive to reform themselves.

因此，航空公司幾乎沒有改革的動力。

“Airline executives will tell you they don’t view themselves as being service companies,” Harteveldt said. “They want Wall Street to view them as industrial companies, and they want consumers to view them as transportation providers. Customer service is just not what the airlines are about.”

“航空公司高管會對你說，他們不認爲自己是服務公司，”哈特韋爾茲說，“他們希望被華爾街視爲工業公司，被消費者視爲運輸提供商。他們認爲客戶服務跟航空公司無關。”

Can technology improve how airlines work? Some people have ideas for how that may happen.

技術能改進航空公司的運作方式嗎？有些人對可能的實現方式有一些想法。

One of them is obvious and sensible: customer reviews. Last year TripAdvisor, the travel reviews site that has become indispensable for hotel bookings, began rating airlines. Its new rankings, released this week, show that overall, airlines get an average rating of 3.7 out of 5 from customers.

其中一個方式是顯而易見而合乎情理的：客戶評論。去年，旅行點評網站TripAdvisor——對酒店預訂來說，它是不可或缺的——開始邀請用戶點評航空公司。它本週發佈的最新排名顯示，總體而言，客戶們給航空公司的平均評分爲3.7分（總分5分）。

Emirates and Singapore Airlines are rated the best in the world; two U.S. airlines, JetBlue and Alaska, made TripAdvisor’s Top 10 list. But Delta was the only major U.S. airline to receive TripAdvisor’s seal of approval. United and American Airlines did not meet the site’s minimum threshold, though Bryan Saltzburg, senior vice president for TripAdvisor’s global flight business, said that the two had been improving.

阿聯酋航空和新加坡航空被評爲世界上最好的航空公司；兩家美國航空公司捷藍航空(JetBlue)和阿拉斯加航空躋身TripAdvisor的前10名榜單。不過，達美航空(Delta)是唯一獲得TripAdvisor認可的大型美國航空公司。美聯航和美國航空公司(American Airlines)沒有達到該網站的最低門檻，不過TripAdvisor的全球飛行業務高級副總裁布賴恩·薩爾茨伯格(Bryan Saltzburg)表示，這兩家航空公司都在改善。

One can imagine how such reviews could prompt improvements in airlines. If instead of just price, travel search engines included prominent warnings from reviewers — “This airline might give you a bloody lip while kicking you from your seat, 1-star!” — that could alter travelers’ calculations in booking.

你可以想像這樣的評論可能會如何促使航空公司做出改進。如果旅行搜索引擎不只包括價格，還包括顯眼的乘客警告——“這家航空公司可能會把你從座位上趕走，還把你的嘴脣打流血，1星！”——這可能會改變旅客預訂時的盤算。

“That would be a good idea — a filter on travel search that says, ‘Click this filter and it might cost you a few dollars more, but we’ll bias you toward airlines that treat their customers well,'” said Paul English, co-founder of the travel search company Kayak who now runs another travel startup, Lola.

“這將是一個好主意——在旅行搜索引擎上加一個過濾器，它會提醒說：‘點擊此過濾器，它可能會讓你多花幾塊錢，但它會把你引向對客戶友好的航空公司，’”旅行搜索公司Kayak的聯合創始人保羅·英格利希(Paul English)說。他現在在經營另一家旅行初創公司Lola。

That is small potatoes, though. A bigger disruption would come from altering how we pay for airfares. In the same way that Netflix changed the DVD business by charging a monthly fee, some consultants argue that a membership fee could radically improve flying.

不過那只是小打小鬧。更大的調整將來自改變我們支付機票費用的方式。與Netflix以收取月費的方式改變DVD行業一樣，有些顧問認爲，會員費可以從根本上改善飛行體驗。

“We’ve prototyped a subscription airline in the past, and it basically gets the airline out of the business of reducing service for offering the lowest fares,” said Devin Liddell, principal brand strategist for Teague, a design firm that works with Boeing and other transportation companies.

“過去，我們設計過一個會費航空公司的模型，它基本上能讓航空公司擺脫爲提供最低票價而減少服務的做法，”與波音(Boeing)等運輸公司合作的設計公司Teague的首席品牌策略師德溫·利德爾(Devin Liddell)說。

Some startups have tried a monthly subscription model, and none have taken off. But airline startups face high capital costs; a new business model might work, Liddell said, if an established airline tries it as a way to break free from the accepted way of doing things.

有些初創公司嘗試過會費模式，但都沒有壯大起來。不過初創航空公司面臨高昂的資金成本。利德爾表示，如果成熟航空公司嘗試這種新的商業模式，以擺脫以往的運作方式，它有可能會成功。

Your only technological hope for better service is your smartphone camera and the viral push of social networks. If you are violently kicked off your flight, at least your fellow passengers will post a video to Facebook.

你想獲得更好服務的唯一技術希望，是你的智能手機攝像頭和社交網絡的瘋狂轉發。如果你被粗暴地趕下飛機，至少你的同行乘客會拍個視頻，發佈到Facebook上。