Introduction: Passengers and guest service are essential for airlines. One of the objectives of an airline is to provide quality service and meet passengers’ needs. If a company does not provide service, there is no revenue. Thus, passengers should perceive having their needs met. Inadequate service can result in a complaint from a passenger. However, that complaint can be used to improve the business (Withiam, 2013). This was not the case for Southwest Airlines flight #399. Several factors might have contributed to the incident of flight #399, including lack of training in customer service, crisis management, leadership, service culture, and communication.
In this term project, students will employ the course’s learning outcomes that identified the steps in handling guest complaints and appropriate service recovery. Service failures refer to service performance that falls below a customer’s expectations. Since service is human-related, zero-defect service is unrealistic, and service failure is inevitable. When a service failure occurs, customers get upset and lose trust in the organization, leading to customer defection and dissatisfaction. Furthermore, students will identify the planning steps and actions required for improving a service system.