Finally I can seat down and write about this experience.
January 6, 2015. Aeropuerto Internacional El Dorado in
Bogota, Colombia. American Airlines flight # 916 leaving Bogota at around 3 pm
arriving in Miami, FL at around 6:30 pm.
The aircraft for this particular flight is a Boeing 767-300
which is wide-body type of aircraft. A lot of people in that flight. Actually,
I’d think the flight was completely sold out: First Class, Business Class and,
of course, the one I can afford, Coach class (Economy as airlines call them),
and for almost $1,000.00 I got my round-trip ticket from Boston to Bogota to
spend the New Year with my family.
Anyway, a thousand dollars that takes you from point A to
point C (because there is a point B called Miami in between), which includes free meal (dinner) for the
international portions of the trip, but also includes 2 free bags that you can
check, free water, sodas, juices, and coffee, a free movie. Also, you can use
the lavatories for free (don’t use the ones located in the first class section),
and finally, if you don’t like any of those “amenities”, you still can turn on the
reading light over your head, pull out your issue of “The Atlantic” from your
carry on (free, of course…although I paid $ 1,000 round-trip ticket) or the
newest novel from Paulo Coelho you bought in Bogota, and enjoy your flight
(over 3 hours) by reading great writing.
Then, I tried to turn the reading light once, twice, 3
times, 4 times, 5 times, until I realized the try were not doing anything. So,
I called the flight-attendant by pressing the “call flight-attendant) button
and nothing happened. And, guess what? The button wasn’t working either.
I decided to get up and ask for assistance. Ultimately, the
captain said something like this “please, do not hesitate to ask anything in
order to make your flight more pleasant and enjoyable.”
So, I asked to have the reading light worked, ON, illuminating
my magazine and book.
The crew was surprised. “Isn’t the reading light working?”
one of the flight attendants said to me, as I am going to leave my seat, go to
the back of the airplane and interrupt their dinner and chatting to ask for
something that should be working in the first place.
After waiting for about 30 minutes, and basically having to
call the flight attendants several times, they finally came over my seat (31 C),
and first, they tried to turn the reading light on (maybe because they thought
I was lying), then “reset”, and “reset” again (the captain supposedly did it),
and nothing worked. The middle section of this wide-body Boeing 767-300 wasn’t
working properly, and still, American Airlines deployed this aircraft to
provide “a full service” flight from Bogota to Miami.
I can only afford an economy class ticket (I call it Coach),
but this price ($1,000.00) included having the overhead reading light worked
properly, so I could enjoy my book and magazine. The airline must provide this.
Otherwise, give me some credit, or give me some extra miles for this inconvenience.
And now, this is the part where I am going to publicly and
LOUDLY ask American Airlines to give me something for this failed service/feature/commodity/amenity
on my flight AA 916 from Bogota to Miami on Tuesday January 6, 2015.
I want to receive a credit, or a few thousand miles for your
incompetency to deliver what you promised, and I hope you do reward my
unpleasant experience on this flight. We are your customer, and we’re paying
good money for the airfare ticket.
The industry is finally making money by charging us (the consumer)
anything they can, and we deserve some kind of reward when you fail to provide
the service you promise.
My name is Juan Carlos Pinedo and I really hope to hear from
you, American Airlines, and to know that you care about small details and your
consumers. Of course, this note I will post as part of my blog, and Twitter,
because I believe the more we demand the more we’ll get back when you fail to
deliver, and the better servercie we will receive.
Sincerely,
Juan Carlos Pinedo
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