follow-up to flying the unfriendly skies

In addition to posting my angry letter to United Airlines up here I also emailed a copy to the CEO. Naturally, it only got as far as the customer relations department, but here is their response:

Dear Mr. Ross,

Thank you for contacting us.  We are currently experiencing a high volume of emails, so please accept my apology for not being able to respond with a more personalized reply.

Mr. Ross, we’re sorry to have given you such a poor impression of our operation.  From what you describe, we failed to meet your expectations for providing good service.  Your feedback is important to us and in fact, helps us identify our shortcomings and gives us an opportunity to make service improvements.  Be assured that your comments will be included in a report to the appropriate management team for internal use.

As a gesture of goodwill, I am sending a travel certificate as a genuine and sincere expression of our apologies.  Please accept the attached travel certificate, which can be redeemed on united.com.  Before redeeming, review the attached terms and conditions.  Enter the certificate number on the home page Fare Finder box or on the Create Itinerary: Shop for flights screen located under Planning Travel.  Your certificate will only be redeemed if you select Purchase.

 
We appreciate your business and hope you will give us a future opportunity to restore your confidence in our products and services.

Regards,

Rebecca Kaur
United Airlines Customer Relations

I have to say, I didn’t anticipate this response. I assumed I wouldn’t even receive a reply email from them. Rebecca seems sincere in the letter. I wonder how many of these letters she writes in a year. Is this a question of integrity? Am I sacrificing integrity if I redeem the certificate? I guess that would depend on whether or not you believe the letter is sincere. In any case, the odds of me getting better service the next time I fly United are not in my favor.

 

flying the unfriendly skies

Mr. Glenn F. Tilton

Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of United Airlines

Mr. Tyler Ross

Filmmaker and airline customer

Dear Glenn,

I have never written to the head of a company before, but my frustration and disappointment with flying on your airline compels me to do so. I am angered and appalled at my experience with United. Yesterday I flew from LaGuardia Airport to Los Angeles Airport by way of Charlotte Airport. This was a flight that United code-shared with U.S. Airways, but since you sold me the ticket and had U.S. Airways do the flying I feel I must take you to task. Everything seemed fine when I bought the ticket online. Everything quickly went downhill when I arrived at the airport.

I stopped at curbside check-in and when the porter handed me my boarding pass I noticed that the flight numbers for both of my flights were now different. It wasn’t until I arrived at the gate that I looked closely at the boarding passes and noticed that my seats had changed as well. I had booked two aisle seats and now the first seat was on the aisle – purely by chance – and the second was next to a window. Do you have any idea how obnoxious it is to sell someone one seat and then switch it to another one? Imagine that you bought a ticket to a concert and you knew you would be sitting in the fourth row from the stage. You arrive at the concert hall and the usher tells you that that you’ve been re-seated in the balcony. Would you feel happy about this change? The fact that you haven’t instructed U.S. Airways not to change people’s seats demonstrates your utter apathy towards your customers. I asked the ticket agent if there were any seats available on the aisle and she told me that there weren’t. It would be unfair of me to ask her to switch my seat with someone else’s so I let it be. I didn’t want to inconvenience a fellow air traveler the way your airline had inconvenienced me. Moreover, because you allowed U.S. Airways to throw out the United flight numbers and use their own, my friend had difficulty locating my flight at the LAX baggage claim when he came to pick me up.

When I arrived in Charlotte things only got worse. My flight was overbooked and took off late as the ticket agents engaged in the absurd auction of bribery required to free up seats. Do you see the lack of logic in over-filling a plane to maximize profits only to lose profit by giving away free tickets? I know you code-share with U.S. Airways so you would probably like to pass the buck here and say it is their fault for overbooking the flight, but they are providing a service that you have sold. Therefore, you must set the standard for customer service and they must live up to that standard. Otherwise, you are essentially saying “Oh, I don’t care about those customers, they’re U.S. Airways’ problem now.”

So, my flight took off late and I shifted from being annoyed at your company to being infuriated. First you throw out the seats that I specifically reserved, then you have the audacity to allow your code-sharing partner to overbook its flight and delay its passengers. Apparently, in your mind the satisfaction of the people that patronize your service doesn’t actually matter, only the fact that they paid to fly on your airline. You expect their loyalty and continued business, yet you continue to fail to meet even the simplest of their expectations. And you wonder why your operating margin is so low.

On the Charlotte flight I learned that food is no longer included in the price of the ticket and I had to pay yet more money to buy my dinner. Five dollars would have bought me a hamburger, french fries and a drink at the McDonald’s in the airport, but on the plane it bought me a paltry excuse for a turkey sandwich. So, now you have thrown out my seat reservations, changed my flight numbers, delayed my second flight and you want me to hand you more money for food? Here’s a little suggestion: Stop providing food on your planes. Or, if you feel you must provide food simply build it into the price of the ticket like you did in the old days. But don’t ask a passenger that you’ve already alienated to hand you more money for bad food.

In addition to the bad food I was also “treated” to a movie with no sound. Is it asking too much to want to watch Spiderman 3 with the sound turned on? I understand that sometimes there are technical difficulties with audiovisual equipment but what really bothered me was that none of the flight attendants seemed to care or make an effort to get it working. I know that the cost of that movie was included in the price of my ticket and that if I had gone to see it at a theater and there was a technical problem I would have been given a refund. I’m not asking you or your company for a refund. I’m simply going to say goodbye to United Airlines.

If you have seen fit to treat your customers in an alienating and downright obnoxious manner then I have no choice but to take my business elsewhere. Perhaps someday you will realize that air travelers are simply asking to be treated with respect and are only seeking to have basic expectations met. The correlate here is that if you treat customers with respect and meet their expectations they continue to fly on your airline and your operating margin increases. Apparently, this elementary precept of business escapes your understanding.

Your Former Patron,

Tyler Ross

 

down to sea: pt. 3

So, in the month of June I went on two amazing sailing trips. Enjoy.  http://www.flickr.com/photos/17102886@N00/

The first trip came about as a result of bad weather. My dad was sailing with his friend “L” and L’s girlfriend “M”. They were sailing L’s J42 from Great Exuma, Bahamas to East Hampton, New York. This is a roughly 1000 mile trip. They tried to beat a storm that was heading northeast up the Atlantic Coast. When the storm got in front of them they turned West and docked at a marina in North Carolina. Enter me.

I had flown from L.A. to North Carolina and was staying at my folk’s house – which was empty. So I got in the evening of Friday, June 1st and I was vegging in an easy chair watching the Discovery Channel, and I was thinking “I should be social and go introduce myself to the neighbors” because my folks had told the couple that lives across the street that I would be at their house, when about ten seconds later, there was a knock at the front door. I answered it and met “D”, the neighbor from across the street who told me my dad was on the phone and that his wife was talking to him – my parents had turned off their phone since my dad would be sailing and my mom would be staying on their boat in East Hampton. So I shook his wife’s hand, took the phone and heard “Hey Ty. How was your flight?” followed by “I need you to jump in the car and pick me up. I’m at Southport Marina in Southport, North Carolina which is about three hours south of you.” So I Google Mapped it, printed the directions, jumped in the car and drove down there.

I passed both Cherry Point Marine Air Station (largest Marine air base in the country) and Camp Le Jeune which is a Marine training facility and base on the way there. I also drove through some beautiful country. North Carolina looks a lot like Eastern Long Island. Sandy soil, lots of pines and deciduous trees, it’s pretty flat and very rural. It has that somewhat windswept look, with huge expanses of land and farms. Long Island and North Carolina both have a lot of corn fields too. So I got down there, found the marina and hopped onto the boat. I chatted with L and met M for the first time. And then my dad pulled me aside and told me the trip I was supposed to go on had been pushed back for a scheduling conflict, but I could go with him and L and M to East Hampton if I wanted and then if I wanted to go again I could go on the second trip.

I jumped at the chance and we left on Tuesday, June 5th. We left Southport at about 9:30 in the morning and had to motor for a while. But later in the day we put both sails up and hauled ass. The J is a racer/cruiser so it moves very quickly, even in light wind. We sailed right into the Atlantic. The following day M caught a Dorado(Mahi Mahi) off the back of the boat. Amazingly she caught it using a spinning lure with a piece of chicken on the hook and a plastic hand reel of line. She filleted it so deftly on the deck, behind the helm. It was like she was performing a magic trick. It reminded me of a samurai in battle. Really something to see. She also cooked it and she’s a tremendous chef. The following day she caught a larger Dorado. She hadn’t caught anything until I came on board so I took that to mean I had brought some good fortune with me.

The weather was cool and very pleasant. We sailed most of the time and we flew. The J is really an awesome boat to sail. It just goes like a rocket. I joked to my dad “If Porsche made a sailboat it would be called a J.” There is one downside of course to all that fast sailing – you sacrifice comfort in rough weather. At one point, there were 3-4 foot waves coming from three directions. The bottles of water in the quarter berth where I was going to lay down and sleep were walking across the floor. I watched the bottles get closer to the door as I rode up and down on the bunk. Then I moved them back just in case I had to get out of my cabin in an emergency. Then I laid down and rode up and down the waves for an hour or two until I fell asleep. Other than that moment the trip was brilliant. It was fun, relaxing, spiritually fulfilling and generally a blissful time.

Then I stayed with my folks on their boat in East Hampton. Two weeks later I went on another trip from North Carolina to East Hampton. This time we left from the town of Oriental – three hours drive North from Southport. A crew of five guys including me, my dad, “S”, the owner of the Hans Christian 43, “F”, a friend of both S’s and my dad, and “B”, a friend of S. We left at daybreak on June 19th. We were followed by a couple in a Tayana 40, which looks very similar to the Hans Christian as they were designed by the same guy. We wound up taking the Intracoastal Waterway and the couple was planning to follow us to Norfolk, Virginia. Then they would head out into the Atlantic and on to Nova Scotia and we would head to East Hampton.

So we left on the Intracoastal which runs from Florida to New Jersey and is a series of natural cuts in the land that are connected by canals that were dredged by the Army Corps of Engineers. The couple who were very nice and funny, followed us to the Alligator River Marina and then had to turn back and head home to Florida because they’re daughter had just had a baby. So we said goodbye to them and they headed back and we docked in the marina and got up the next day and headed to Norfolk. Tuesday it was scorching hot and we had to motor and motor-sail so we lounged in the cockpit and drank tons of water. I got a bit sunburned. The next day it was much cooler since it was overcast. We still didn’t really get to sail because there wasn’t enough wind. Even if there had been we couldn’t sail because we’d have to avoid shoals and patches of the canals that weren’t dredged enough. The Hans Christian draws eight feet of water. It sits well in the water, it’s rock solid and it’s very safe. It’s a modified Norwegian lifeboat design, sort of the Volvo of sailboats. But it was a delightful boat to be in on a storm. More on that later.

When we left Norfolk and got into the ocean it was pure zen. We finally put up the sails and turned off the motor. It’s a cutter so it has a main mast, a forestay and an inner forestay with a club-foot on it. We raised the mainsail, rolled out the trisail on the inner forestay and also flew a Yankee from the forestay. The boat sails really well and with three sails going it points well. It’s also an easy boat to steer because the rudder is about five feet long and four feet wide. During the day we’d have great conversations in the cockpit. F is a semi-retired architect, so he and I chatted about architecture and art. B is an economist and economics professor, so we talked about economics and politics. S is a former marine biologist and researcher, so we talked about marine life and he told us some of his ocean sailing stories. He’s actually sailed off Greenland in the Arctic Ocean. A very cool guy and quite an intrepid sailor.

On Friday night we sailed through really strong winds. Technically they were Near Gale on the Beaufort Scale. Translation – 33 knot per hour winds and 10-15 foot seas. That’s when the boat’s seaworthiness really came into play. It was exciting and adrenaline-charged when I took the wheel at 12:15 at night. But I wasn’t scared. I knew the boat could hold up to way more abuse than the crew could. My only concern was stuff being thrown around the cabin and people being able to sleep. It is pretty awe-inspiring surfing down waves in almost pitch black darkness. I also now know what to expect from higher winds. Also, now I officially have boat fever and really want to buy one and live on it. Sailing offshore is fantastic. It’s truly ecstatic to get completely out of sight of land, put up the sails and fly. There’s no substitute for the freedom of just going and being beholden to only the weather and your own limits. I recommend everyone tries it at least once.

 

down to sea: pt. 2

As I mentioned in down to sea pt. 1, in two weeks I’ll be flying to the east coast and going on a sailing trip. A long sailing trip. A very long sailing trip. In a straight line from origin to destination it will be 415 nautical miles. At an average speed of only 5 knots (5 nautical miles per hour, a nautical mile being 6,000 feet since they factor in distance traveled over waves) it would take us 3.5 days. It is more likely that we’ll be sailing at 6-8 knots on average, due to the fact that we’ll be offshore in stronger winds and weather-permitting we’ll be able to move into the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_Stream and have it push us north.

3.5 days of non-stop motion.

Think about it.

When was the last time you were in a moving vehicle for 3.5 days without stopping once?

Unless you’re a sailor and you’ve done a voyage like this, or you’re an astronaut or a billionaire adventurer like Steve Fossett: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Fossett
you’ve probably never spent more than 6 or 7 hours traveling.

If you’ve ever flown from New York City to Sydney, Australia then you’ve spent 25 hours traveling, but only 20 or 21 in constant motion, and that’s with a stop in Los Angeles where you waited for 4-5 hours before getting back onto the plane – thanks to Qantas and Orbitz for that bit of trivia. Plus, flying doesn’t really count because you can sleep for most of it. Really, you could drink heavily upon leaving LAX or just pop a Lunesta or Ambien and wake up in the “Land Down Under”. You don’t have to take part in flying the plane. Worse case scenario you can read or if you’re like many if not most people these days then you can watch DVD’s in your laptop. Not to mention the movies the airline will be screening.

On a sailboat on a blue water passage everyone works. Your job varies, depending on what has been assigned to you by the Captain and the jobs change on a rotating watch system, similar to the one the Navy uses. You might be trimming sails, steering, navigating, cooking, assisting someone or sleeping.

As you can imagine, sleeping can get pretty interesting on a boat – particularly during a storm. When the seas get really rough you have to tie yourself into your bunk. Whether it’s stormy or calm, cloudy or sunny, warm or cold this is guaranteed to be the trip of a lifetime (at least until I top it). It will be a wonderful span of moments in bold relief, a little 72 point typeface to leap off the pages of my life’s book. I promise this will be my last blog about it until after I return, but can you really blame me for being this excited?

 

down to sea: pt. 1

I’m going sailing!! I’m going sailing!! I’m going sailing!! Those of you who know me know that sailing is my favorite outdoor activity. Those of you that don’t know me, I’ve been sailing since I’ve been walking, but really started to learn how to do it as a teenager. I’ve always loved doing it and I’ve always encouraged other people to try it. It’s a fun hobby that gets you out of doors to some of the most inspiring and beautiful places on Earth and it’s not that physically painful like say whitewater kayaking or mountaineering. It demands only enough strength to pull ropes and if my skinny ass can do it, so can you. These days I only get to sail once a year when I’m on the east coast on Long Island visiting my parents. They’re retired now and split their time between Long Island, New York and North Carolina. I’ve always done short inshore (within sight of land most of the time) trips. I’ve gone from harbor to harbor from Stonington, Connecticut up to Nantucket, Massachusetts which is an island southeast of Cape Cod. That trip was 82 miles on the rhumb line (that’s point to point in sailor-speak), done over two weeks, with a number of stops along the way in cool, historic ports like Mystic, Connecticut (for the film lovers out there I’ve had a cheese slice from Mystic Pizza) and Newport, Rhode Island (the setting for the John Cusack movie One Crazy Summer).

On May 19 I will fly from Los Angeles to North Carolina. I’ll spend a few days house-sitting at my parents empty home while I wait for my dad – the guy who got me into sailing and also passed along the ultimate risk-taking gene – to return from his sailing trip. Ideally he’ll jump off the that he’ll be moving from the Exumas (southern Bahama islands) to Beaufort, North Carolina on the 21st of May. Then he’ll head home and that day or the following day, he and I will drive to the town of Oriental, North Carolina (not a very p.c. town name, but let’s remember folks, it just means Eastern) and we’ll hop onto a and head to the eastern tip of Long Island.

This will be around a 415 mile, non-stop sail and we’ll be anywhere from 15 miles offshore, as we round Cape Hatteras to 100 miles offshore in the Hudson Canyon, as we approach the eastern end of Long Island. The trip should take three to four days. Am I scared? A little. If we have to go through a storm, or just continually rough water, I may be seasick for 100 hours straight.

Mostly, I’m excited. I feel like I did when I was 12 years old driving up to New Hampshire to go to the Eastern Mountain Sports Rock Climbing School. I couldn’t wait then and I can’t wait now. I get to meet new people as well, which is just icing on the cake. I’ve only met the boat owner and his son in passing, and I’ve never met the other crew members. And I get to take a much needed vacation. This is sure to be one of life’s rare and unforgettable adventures. My ticket is purchased and my adrenaline is just about crystallizing…