First Impressions

Sunday, June 8, 2008

First Impressions

YOUR RECENT ARTICLE "Refund Wars" [Coming and Going, June 1] reminded me that the reputation of an airline is forged by how it performs under adverse conditions.

Several years ago, I was able to book two free seats in August on US Airways from Dulles to London via Pennsylvania. When the departure date arrived, thunderstorms near Dulles resulted in cancellation of our first flight, making it impossible to make the Pennsylvania transatlantic flight. I calmly asked if it was possible to rebook (assuming it would be the next day). The relieved agent rebooked us on a nonstop United flight set to leave a few hours later.

We boarded and flew to Heathrow, but our bags did not make the flight. We filed our claim and went downtown to begin our vacation. Unfortunately, theater tickets were in the lost luggage, but the agency we bought them through provided replacement tickets without charge. The next day, the bags still had not arrived, and the United office provided us with $400 in compensation for our troubles. Two hours later, the bags were delivered to our hotel.

Both US Airways and United provided excellent customer service. Over the next few years, whenever I experienced a weather delay, I had a reservoir of goodwill to tap that helped me through.

John Flood

Vienna

Feet on a Plane

I WAS INCREDULOUS at the outrageous statements and inferences to be drawn from Scott Vogel's recent Travel Q&A column [May 25], wherein Vogel was responding to a question of how to deal with the admitted faux pas of a traveler taking off his shoes and placing his feet on the bulkhead (as if said passenger were at home watching TV with his feet on the coffee table).

While I agree with the article's stance that travelers should refrain from this obnoxious behavior, Vogel's resource for his advice on dealing with such misbehaving passengers left me wondering about the elitist attitudes of both Vogel and his adviser, Letitia "Tish" Baldridge, who suggested that the best approach is to shame the passenger by insinuating that his socks are less-than-respectable.

Two insults immediately leap from Baldridge's rant, both of them disgusting in their assumptions: 1) that only someone who has less-than-high-class-socks (read: not rich) would commit such a brazen faux pas, and 2) that those who buy their socks at Wal-Mart should feel shame in having this pointed out in public (if only by inference).

Bill Lundy

San Francisco

Letitia Baldridge responds:

Wow, you really let me have it! But I deserved it, because I did not express myself fully and properly. I did sound like an unmitigated snob, but believe me, I'm not. My reference to the Armani socks was strictly in fun. The men in my family have never bought any men's designer hosiery and probably don't even know who Armani is. And we are all loyal shoppers at Wal-Mart.

I have yet to learn, after all these years, that one has to be on the same page as one's readers before removing the possibility of sounding uppity, snobbish and all the other ghastly adjectives you could use -- and probably have used in my case.

You have my apology.