Over the past couple of years, I have written about United Airlines (see here and here), and their abysmal track record of customer service, from manhandling and injuring a passenger off an overbooked flight, to stealing a fully paid-for seat for a child, whose mother then had to travel for several hours with her toddler in her lap.

Both of these incidents got plenty of negative publicity, which evidently failed to convince United to re-think their customer service policies.

Understandably, airlines make passenger safety the number one priority, as well they should. Consequently, they have created sets of strict rules for everything from maintenance of aircraft to on-board procedures and much, much more. The flying public is safer than ever as a result.

But some of the most egregious failures of customer service occur hundreds or thousands of yards from an aircraft. It’s called Baggage Claim.

A story circulating in the news recently concerns a Denver woman’s efforts to locate and recover her lost belongings. (Technically, it was a bag containing $2000 of sports equipment that belonged to her daughter.)

Upon landing in Denver on a flight from Baltimore where the daughter had competed, there was no sign of the bag on the carousel. But what was different about this lost luggage from most other lost bag tales is that Mom had thought ahead and placed an electronic tracking device in the (now) missing bag. The flight had a stop in Chicago and the gear bag was mistakenly offloaded and sent to O’Hare baggage claim.

Using her cell phone app, Mom was able to instantly locate the missing bag and went straight to the lost luggage counter at the Denver airport.

There, she was assured that the bag would be on the next flight from Chicago to Denver. It wasn’t. It wasn’t on the next one, either.

The mom showed the app to the clerk at the lost luggage counter. It clearly showed that bag was at the baggage office in Chicago. When she asked the clerk to call baggage claim in Chicago, the reply was, “We’re not allowed.”

This is customer service at its very worst. But the story becomes even more outrageous. Getting no satisfaction from United, and with her daughter scheduled to play in a tournament in a few days, the mom cashed in the necessary frequent flyer miles and flew from Denver to Chicago, where she recovered the bag and flew home.

One of the reasons United Airlines can get away with this crap is that increasingly, travelers have few or no alternatives due to consolidation among airlines. Why bother being helpful when you must fly with us or else not fly at all?

I have no doubt that the clerk in Denver wished he or she could have called O’Hare and got the bag back on a plane.  I also have no doubt that there is indeed a rule in a United rulebook that specifically prohibits the making of such a call. Who knows why? Probably nobody who was responsible for creating the rule is still alive, but the rule lives on.

In order to provide excellent customer service, customer-facing employees need to be empowered to take reasonable steps to solve a problem – nothing that would jeopardize safety, but maybe a phone call to Chicago?

When my LL Bean watch broke, I took it to a local jeweler, who charged me $80 to fix it. I then learned that the watch had a lifetime guarantee from LL Bean. I called the company and explained my situation. Their response? “Email us the receipt from the jeweler.” In about a week there was a check from LL Bean for $80 in my mailbox. No other manager needed to be consulted – LL Bean trusts their employees to do the right thing.

Famously, any Ritz-Carlton hotel employee can spend (without getting permission) up to $2000 to solve a guest’s complaint or problem and some of the online anecdotes from this policy are truly awesome. That’s what employee empowerment looks like.

In today’s world, customers who have experienced very good or very poor service often take to social media. Enlightened companies like Ritz-Carlton understand that a rave from a customer, while nice unto itself, may also be influential among people who see that rave, especially when they need to pick a hotel to stay in on their next trip. It may be a differentiator in a marketplace full of options.

Not so with the few remaining airlines in the U.S. Clearly United doesn’t need to give a crap and clearly it doesn’t.