Posts Tagged ‘Cleveland or Newark?’

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National news roundup

Sunday, June 21st, 2009

For those of you who are curious…

  • CBS Early Show video
  • NBC Today show video: Wendy Babineaux live phone interview; story about my daughter cribbed from local affiliate; story about both girls
  • Fox & Friends: I appeared live but don’t have video and can’t find it online.  If you’ve got it, please let me know!
  • ABC Good Morning America: They interviewed me, but I didn’t see the story on TV, can’t find it on their Web site, and can’t find anyone who saw it.  Don’t know if they just didn’t run it or what.  If you can shed any light, please let me know!
  • CNN: They tried to get me for an interview but it didn’t work out.  My in-laws were interviewed, and they said they actually saw the story run on CNN, but I didn’t see it, don’t have a recording of it and can’t find it anywhere on the CNN Web site.  If you saw it or have access to the video, please let me know!

Anything I missed?

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Posted in Boston, Consumer activism | 2 Comments »

NYC Fox News ticker reports the story

Friday, June 19th, 2009

I snagged this video with my phone on the way out of the News Corporation building in NYC after I was interviewed on “Fox & Friends”.  I found it amusing, and some of you might too:

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Media done, time for the government

Thursday, June 18th, 2009

Once the media frenzy dies down, the odds are Continental is simply going to go back to doing things the way they’ve always done things, and nothing will improve.

There are two ways to potentially prevent that from happening: (1) get the media to stay on the case; (2) get the government involved.

I’m hoping that at least some media outlets will continue to follow this story.  A reporter for the Houston Chronicle assured me that as the home of Continental’s headquarters, Houston is very interested in this story, and as a parent, she is as well, so she’s going to keep following up to find out the results of Continental’s “investigation” into the incidents and what steps they are taking to prevent recurrences.  We’ll see if she follows through.

I’ve just placed a phone call to Senator John Kerry’s Boston office.  I am one of Sen. Kerry’s constituents, and he is a member of the Committee on Commercie, Science & Transportation, so he’s a good start in my efforts to catalyze real change in this area.

I spoke to a staffer in his Boston office and told her that I am hoping to enlist Sen. Kerry’s help in accomplishing the following:

  1. Ensure that the incidents over the weekend were reported by Continental to the appropriate governmental agencies as required by law.
  2. Ensure that those agencies conduct investigations into the incidents, and take appropriate enforcement action, e.g.:
    1. levy fines,
    2. compel Continental to change their policies to prevent recurrences, and/or
    3. do whatever else is in their power to motivate and/or compel Continental to improve.
  3. Evaluate whether it is necessary and appropriate to add to or modify existing regulations to prevent recurrences of such incidents.
  4. If so, drive the necessary changes through Congress.

The staffer with whom I spoke said she was certainly interested in pursuing this and would get back to me soon.

We’ll see. :-)

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Posted in Boston, Consumer activism | 3 Comments »

Heard last night on the T

Thursday, June 18th, 2009

Last night on the T, a complete stranger walked up to me and said, “You know, you really ought to sue that company!”

I was amused.

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Posted in Boston, Consumer activism | 2 Comments »

Electronic irony

Wednesday, June 17th, 2009

I just received an email message from Continental Airlines which starts as follows:

Subject: Continental Airlines Feedback

Dear M Kamens,

Your opinion is important to us.

You are receiving this email because you recently contacted Continental Airlines Reservations. Continental kindly requests your feedback regarding the service you received when you contacted them regarding travel options.

’nuff said.

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Yes, Continental, you CAN prevent this from happening again

Tuesday, June 16th, 2009

Some have suggested that Continental already has the right policies and procedures in place, it was nothing more than an unfortunate mistake (a series of mistakes, actually) that caused my daughter to end up on the wrong flight, and there’s nothing more that Continental can do to make it right.

Well, I beg to differ, and to prove I’m right, here’s a list of ways to prevent this from happening again that my wife came up with off the top of her head (and these must be pretty obvious, given that she doesn’t work in the airline industry):

(more…)

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Posted in Boston, Consumer activism | 25 Comments »

We are not alone

Tuesday, June 16th, 2009

On Tuesday afternoon, the Houston Chronicle broke the story that just a day before my daughter was put onto the wrong plane by Continental, they did the same thing to an eight-year-old girl in Houston.  She was supposed to be flying to Charlotte, but instead she ended up in Fayetteville, Ark.  Her story is eerily similar to ours, even down to the two ExpressJet planes being boarded on the tarmac through the same gate.

Now we have to ask ourselves an obvious question.  If this kind of thing can happen twice in two days, and if none of the staff members involved in cleaning up the incident involving my daughter on Sunday felt that it was serious enough to warrant initiating damage control procedures at corporate HQ on a weekend, then which is more likely: (a) these are isolated occurrences, highly unusual, which just coincidentally happened one right after the other; or (b) this actually happens on a regular basis, and the only reason it hasn’t come to light before now is because no one has made a fuss about it like I did?

I’m voting for (b).  I think Continental and ExpressJet have a lot to answer for, and I think it’s time for the DOT to start requiring the airlines to report when unaccompanied minors are lost or misrouted.

What do you think?

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Posted in Boston, Consumer activism, Government activism | 3 Comments »

News update: Early Show out, MSNBC (maybe) in

Tuesday, June 16th, 2009

The Early Show canceled because I wouldn’t let them interview my daughter; they said the story wouldn’t have enough “impact” without her.  Well, the “impact” of their story is less important than my daughter’s well-being.

That leaves Good Morning America and Fox & Friends as pretty certain.

I just recorded the Good Morning America interview; if you watch it tomorrow, keep in mind that I was sitting in a hotel room in Connecticut when they filmed me, and you will be amazed by the wonders of modern video editing.

Fox & Friends is sending a car to pick me up from Connecticut and take me to New York tonight, and then I’m going to be with them live in the morning.  I have to confess that’s a little scary.

MSNBC has also expressed interest, but I’m still waiting to hear back from them and nothing is firm.

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Media frenzy

Tuesday, June 16th, 2009

You’ve probably noticed by now that the story has gone viral today.  It’s been picked up all over the country, including the AP and USA Today.  It’s been covered in far too many places for me to list even a fraction of them.  The Consumerist story has over 40,000 hits, the story on my blog has over 8000 hits, and Google News reports almost 300 related articles.

Nothing is definite, but I will probably be appearing tomorrow morning on Good Morning America, the Early Show, and Fox News.  At some point in the future I may be interviewed by Inside Edition.

Aside from those, we’re turning off the spigot.  My goal was to make this incident so public that Continental would have no choice but to address the failures which allowed it to occur, and that has clearly been achieved.  It’s time for our family to return to our private lives.

Everyone who has covered the story has asked to interview our daughter on camera.  We have politely but consistently denied such requests and will continue to do so.  The incident on Sunday was far more traumatic for my wife and me and her parents than it was for our daughter.  Letting reporters stick cameras in her face and ask, “Were you scared?” would produce a harmful self-fulfilling prophecy.

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Posted in Boston, Consumer activism | 7 Comments »

Offer from Continental

Tuesday, June 16th, 2009

I spoke again today with the Continental customer service representative who has been handling this issue.

She apologized again, assured me again that the airline takes what happened very seriously, assured me that the issue is being handled at the highest levels of senior management, and assured me that a full investigation was being conducted, including interviewing every employee at every airport who had anything to do with my daughter, and approriate steps would be taken to ensure that something like this doesn’t happen again.

She said that Continental is going to refund my daughter’s entire fare and fly her back to Boston in first class for free.  They are also going to refund the round-trip tickets that my in-laws bought to fly to Boston with M and then back to Cleveland, and replace them with first-class tickets as well (note: they had already planned this trip before what happened on Sunday).  Finally, they are giving my wife, my daughter and I “Silver Elite” status in their frequent-flyer program, OnePass, until the end of the current program year, which apparently is next February.

I doubt we’re going to be flying much between now and then, so the frequent-flyer upgrade doesn’t really mean all that much, but it’s nice that they offered something extra.

The real question is, when they’re done with the investigation they claim to be doing and they’ve taken whatever corrective action they decide to take, are they going to release any information about what they learned and what was done?  I sure hope so.

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Posted in Boston, Consumer activism | 7 Comments »

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