AMERICAN AIRLINES APOLOGIZES

Last night, around 7:18, I’m paying my bills and sipping a sassy, yet chic, Pinot Noir from Oregon, when my phone rings. Short story shorter: Ann Vartiga, a passenger service representative at American Airlines, called with “her humblest apologies.” She said she “reads FrontBurner” and was horrified to find out that she was the responsible rep on duty Monday night — she got “the call” from the nimrod downstairs and dispatched the nimrod who “helped” us. I thanked her for calling and then we got into a long chat about what it’s like to be a customer attempting to travel these days. At one point, I thought she was going to cry, especially when I told her the story about my D Beauty beauties. She just listened, which I guess is her job, and continued to repeat “my humblest apologies” and we hung up. I didn’t really feel much better. I mean she only called me because I posted my experience on our all-powerful blog. In fact, I felt worse because I was hoping that, after hearing about the D Beauty beauties who were treated much more poorly than my group, she would look into their situation as well. Perhaps the limit of her job, which must be just awful, is controlled by higher-ups and she can only make apologies. Perhaps if I’d been a real hag, I’d have gotten bumped up a couple of notches to the Supervisor of Haggy Customers. At the very least, I did get to emphasize that courtesy at American Airlines isn’t common and most customers just want someone with a smile to listen to their frustrations. I am not finished spreading this message to this airline.