Agradeço aos meus irmãos Maciel e Marcelo e à minha namorada Karina pela companhia e apoio. Teria sido muito mais estressante sem vocês.
To United Airlines Customer Relations
Dear Sir or Madam,
I am a proud Brazilian and I spent the last 3 months in the USA, working for my company to improve our business relations with our biggest client: Johnson & Johnson companies. I have been delighted with the service level of most of the businesses I encountered in the US which clearly shows how much evolved your society is.
United Airlines has been the one and only American company which brought me huge disappointments and I am sure you will be able to fully understand it after I explain my history bellow.
May the 17th was the day I planned to fly back to Brazil. I got to the Philadelphia airport four hours before my flight to Washington (UA 7881, 19:40) and spent all those hours in terminal D waiting for the aircraft to arrive. Fifty minutes prior to boarding time, we heard about some problems with the aircraft which was still stuck in Washington. I still thought this would not be a problem for me, since my plane to Brazil would take off at 21:43 in Washington (UA 861), one hour distant from Philly. My hopes finally vanished when around 20:00 the agent said we should head to the counters to reschedule our flights.
After a long line of discontent people, I managed to discuss my situation with the attendee. She gave me an option to fly at 7am (next morning) to LA and then to Brazil which for obvious reasons I did not take and another option to fly in the next afternoon to Chicago and then to Brazil. Although this would mean that I would fly two hours more in total, I chose to do it. I was given a hotel and meals vouchers which I found very reasonable. I had a good night at the hotel and returned with my luggage to the airport six hours prior to my flight planned to 4:54pm.
At 2pm a flight to Chicago took off and I got the feeling I should have gone in that one, but ok, my flight would leave only a few hours later.
Fifty minutes before the planned arriving time, an agent announced that our aircraft would land in Harrisburg and wait there for the weather to improve. Yes, we could see that the weather was pretty bad at that time.
Suddenly the weather got better and we were told the plane would arrive in Philly in a few moments. When I saw people coming out of it, I felt relieved and excited about finally leaving Philly’s airport. But I was really out of luck: the agent, with a clear tone of embarrassment, told us that the technicians had found a “serious problem with the engine” and that for our own security he would not allow the plane to take off before they made sure it was safe. I instantly felt that I would never feel safe on that aircraft no matter what they were going to say.
I then found myself completely lost. I knew I had just lost my second possible flight to my homeland and I did not know what to do. I went to the podium and the attendee, after understanding my situation, simply said “Sir, if I were you I would drive to Washington tomorrow and take your flight to Brazil from there, it is the only way to make sure you will not miss your flight to Brazil again”. I was astonished to hear this and from lost I became also hopeless.
I decided to wait for the flight to Chicago but after a few hours I was told that the flight would take off only after midnight. As I desperately needed to have a bath I decided to go to the counter again and reschedule my flight for the next day. It was past 9pm and there was nobody there for me to talk to. So I had to pass through security again and get back to terminal D gate 11 counter where I talked to an agent once again. I was nervous, stressed out and I could not be calm when talking with the guy but he asked me to stay calm. In his words “You are a very special case of a second day in the airport” and he said that if I stayed calm he would help me. And so he did, he scheduled me for a flight to Chicago at 2pm next day and upgraded me to “Business Class” in the flight to Brazil giving me also access to the red carpet lounge in O’Hare airport, Chicago. Well, that sounded great, really.
But when I asked about hotel and meals vouchers he said “oh yes, let me handle that”. After a few moments tough he simply said “I cannot do this Sir, I am sorry, there is no compensation when the problem is the weather” and I said “but the problem is not the weather, you said the plane has a serious problem in the engine”. He finally said “There’s nothing I can do Sir, the system will not allow me to give you vouchers”.
I went back to the front counter to talk with the supervisor and he also told me the same story saying “the plane is there, it will fly, you may wait for It, it’s not our fault, I’m terribly sorry for your any inconvenience Sir”.
Frustrated, disappointed and extremely tired, I abandoned my luggage at the airport (“we cannot empty the plane because of your luggage Sir, we’re sorry”) and headed to a hotel that I would need to pay for.
After a terrible night I got at the airport for the third time, now four hours in advance; I paid for lunch, and impatiently waited for the plane which arrived one hour late.
I finally flew to Chicago! There I stayed most of the time in the red carpet lounge where I had a good time.
When finally boarding to Brazil the worst happened: my Business Class ticket was rejected. The agent with a severe voice tone said “You’ve got the wrong ticket Sir, I’m sorry, you’re not business class, but coach”. I explained what had happened to me and he said “There’s no compensation of this kind Sir, whoever did it to you, did it wrong. There are people here who paid a lot to fly business and look at how much you paid (showing me the amount in the computer screen)”. And then I was humiliated having people pass through me until it was time for coach boarding.
Ok, enough, this is unacceptable. I was tired and astonished enough not to raise my voice or to react but what I felt I will never forget.
I know I must have been exceptionally unlucky but the inconsistency that I encountered throughout your company is really something for you to worry about.
Needless to say, I still expect to be contacted by you and to be properly compensated. I will be traveling a lot because of my work and I hope not to be forced to avoid United as one of my options.
Kind regards,
Marcio Cyrillo - +1 484 868 3145 - cyrillo@gmail.com
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