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.… Read More »
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… Read More »
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… Read More »
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;… Read More »
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… Read More »
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,… Read More »
I’ve been pilloried by many commenters on this blog and others for threatening to sue Continental over what happened to my daughter. You know, “This is what’s wrong with our society,” “People who think that a lawsuit is the right answer to every slight are scum,” stuff like that. The thing is, I never said… Read More »
In the midst of all this hubbub about what happened to my daughter on Continental Airlines yesterday, I thought I’d post briefly about a large company which clearly does understand how to provide good customer service when recovering from a mistake.
A number of commenters on this blog and others have blamed my wife and me for what happened to our daughter, saying that if only we had flown with her, it wouldn’t have happened. Other commenters have responded briefly and well to that accusation, but I also wanted to share my wife’s response…
Here’s how my wife tells the story…