• What's ticked?
• Accolades
• Contact us

c o l u m n s

• Cheap Charlie
• ChrisCrossings
• Err Travel
• Leocha
• Travel Notes
• Archives

Policy Heartbreak
Cheap Charlie · August 21, 2000

It had to happen. Sorry to say, but Alaska Airlines got stuck with the booby prize and an Alaskan family suffered one of the ultimate tragedies. All because of miserable customer service, missing common sense and unyielding airline policies.

Here is the sad story:

A small baby was badly burned and sent to get emergency treatment in Seattle from Alaska. The mother and father, together with the grandparents, wanted to accompany the charred and frightened child, however the flight was booked to capacity.

The child and the mother managed to get on the flight. But the gate personnel, strictly following airline policy, would not bump any other passengers to make room for the father and grandparents. Unfortunately, by the time the father and grandparents managed to get to the hospital (after reportedly being denied boarding on the next flight because that flight was full also) his daughter had died.

Of course, after the media picked up the story, Alaska Airlines was apologetic. They have stated that their policy is, "Simply do the right thing - use your best judgment." I'm sure it isn't written in their manual in those words.

According to the Anchorage Daily News, Alaska Airlines' employees in Anchorage expressed a wide range of emotions after learning of their fellow employees' lack of compassion for a burn victim's family earlier this month in Ketchikan, Alaska.

"These people were just not using their heads," said another employee. "This was an emergency situation, compassion should have taken precedence over company policy."

I admit that this is an extreme situation. But other not so life-and-death customer service situations come up every day that do result in severe trauma and discomfort.

Last summer about this time I related a story (AAwful Flight) about a six-foot-six-inch-tall crippled passenger flying on American Airlines being forced to sit with a broken ankle in the last row against the bulkhead in the back of tourist class. His discomfort was limited because his wife stood up for most of the flight to give him room to stretch his leg.

The response from American pilots and flight attendants was astonishing. I thought there might be some compassion. However, the bulk of e-mails sent to me after the column appeared stated that if he needed extra room, he should have paid extra for another ticket even though it turned out that there were empty seats on that exact flight.

All that was required was a shift of one passenger into an empty seat to leave a bit of space against the back bulkhead, but policy, not common sense or compassion, held sway.

No one ever apologized. No one even sent a free drink coupon with a "we'll try to do better next time" note.

They really don't care.

I find that lack of compassion amazing. The hardened attitude that many airline employees have developed is disappointing to me.

Airline service isn't compromised by these major breaches in service. Service dies a slow death in the name of "policy." "I was only following policy," is heard too often.

"If I let you go I may lose my job," was the last comment I heard when I tried to go through one of those new baggage templates. When I got on the flight, there were only 82 passengers on a 757. Needless to say, there was plenty of room.

When I once tried to shift my flight from the afternoon to an earlier flight that the reservation agent said was "wide-open," he still insisted that I pay the $75 change fee. I refused and went standby on a half-empty flight.

Airline service is dying a death of a thousand tiny cuts with a few media-inspired slashes here and there. I hope more airlines begin to follow the customer-friendly course of Continental Airlines rather than the mindlessly restrictive route being charted by Delta and United.

In life-and-death situations as well as everyday situations, good service does count - whether you are an airline or not.

Charlie Leocha is the Boston-based author of Travel Rights: Know the Rules of the Road and the Air Before You Go. Cheap Charlie appears every Monday on this site. E-mail him at charlie@ticked.com or access his Web site.