Kudos to an Airline???

I know, I know, nobody gives kudos to the airlines (late arrivals/canceled flights, lost luggage etc.). However, for my new job, I've had to do a lot of flying recently. I've flown 18 segments with Continental airlines over the last 30 days to multiple airports all over the East Coast. In 18 segments NO FLIGHT was over 15 minutes late (lets face it, the whole world seems to run at least 15 minutes late) and even those that were a little late taking off managed to make up time in the air and arrive in plenty of time for me to catch connecting flights, or get to meetings etc. On top of that, miraculously, my luggage followed me everywhere without incident and I never waited more than 5 minutes at the carousel for it. On one trip into Nashville, the luggage was all ready on the carousel by the time I got to baggage claim! Top that off with flight attendants (except for one old grouch on the way to Cincinnati...) that were personable, helpful and friendly (to everyone, not just me), the experience was very pleasant.

Looking at this from a pure customer service perspective, in an industry where consumers expect to receive poor treatment, perhaps just solid service without being exceptional is good enough? Thank you Continental for providing solid service throughout my flights. Keep it up.

My only complaint, and it really applies to all the airlines, is the totally bogus $15-20 baggage fees that were created to offset the airlines rising fuel costs. Conveniently, those fees never went away. Fuel costs fell back to the floor and those old expensive fuel contracts are long over, but I'm sure the airlines have now built that profit into their long-term balance sheets. Since they have cleverly desensitized us to it, there is zero chance that those fees will ever go away. Pass-through costs to compensate for extraordinary circumstances are one thing, but continuing long after the circumstances have changed are unconscionable! Its surprising to me that other large corporations and travel agencies with contracts haven't put up more of a fuss about that, since businesses do the lion-share of the air travel and that means corporate America is picking up the tab.