From airlines to Amtrak, U.S. transportation has some of the worst technology platforms for booking, notifications, credits, schedule reliability, and the value provided for the price paid. And yet, airlines have record profits. We've all experienced these issues and each year, they get worse, not better.
Amtrak texted me at 1:35pm to tell me my train was arriving at 1:32pm. A timestamp is an easy piece of metadata to rely on and is universal. Airlines can't communicate delays properly either, with screens at the gate not matching what they say in their app versus what they say from their text. Amtrak loves to talk about getting work done on their trains, yet I haven't been able to get more than 150Kbps from their wifi for the entire trip. And even something as simple as communicating via audio isn't reliable. On my last JetBlue flight and this Amtrak trip, none of the announcements over the speakers could be understood. Of course, all these transportation companies say they are improving, but we know they aren't.
Take it one step further with transporting packages, and UPS won't refund your package, even when they admit that they lost it, citing COVID-19 as an excuse and saying they can only make a "best effort." The USPS would have gone bankrupt years ago if it was a company, having just lost $6.5 billion in its latest fiscal year. Five years after acknowledging they have a "sorting issue" at the main distribution hub regarding my address, they have told me it's best not to have people mail me anything.
From people to packages, U.S. companies struggle when it comes to transportation. They fail to provide reliable logistics, operations, and communications. #infrastructure #airlines
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3yI wonder too how many would pay that don't have to. Was a happily paying customer and then Verizon gave it to us for free.