When an Apology is Not an Apology

* This is a postscript from the previous blog.

Before boarding the plane, we were told about and then handed two "apology" cards from Alaska Airlines, each good for 1000 frequent flyer miles. While I like Alaska (especially their direct flight to Boston), while I appreciate the apology, and while I know on some level that what happened with the plane was not their fault (I'd blame Boeing before Alaska Air), I have several problems with this solution.

1) The only way to benefit from the apology is to be a frequent flyer of and use Alaska Air. This is similar to when a restaurant gives you food poisoning then apologizes by giving you a coupon to their restaurant. Do you really want to use that service again after they hurt you the first time? And for those people who aren't frequent flyers, they virtually got nothing for all their trouble.

2) Printed on the card it says that you can hand it to an "airport employee" or mail it in for the miles. However, because we were given the cards as we were boarding (and not during the 6 hours we were waiting at the gate), we had no chance to hand it to that employee. Therefore, in order to benefit, we have to spend our own money on stamps, not to mention the fact that there will be a significant percentage of people who will lose the cards or just plain not mail them in (I haven't mailed mine yet - and I was pissed off!). I believe this was done on purpose so that Alaska would have to give the miles to as few people as possible. That doesn't seem like a sincere apology to me.

3) Assuming that Alaska will accept both cards from the same person, this means that at most I'll be getting 2000 miles added to my frequent flyer miles. In the grand scheme of things, this is pretty insignificant. This also reminds me that Alska has a system for gaining gold members: those who fly 20 (or is it 25?) thousand miles a year automatically become gold members. Unfortunately, this is a calendar year, so no matter when you start, you only have to Dec 31 to get those miles. At the end of the year, your total is erased and you have to start over again. Last year I was one trip away from reaching the goal, but because I didn't know my miles would be erased, I never took a trip and never made it to gold member status. Ugh.

While on the plane, the male flight attendant (almost certainly Family) whispered to me that there were a ton of extra cheeseburgers and did I want one for free. Since I don't eat beef, I declined. That got me thinking, however, about how much food might be wasted because of our huge delay. Why didn't they just announce that they'd give them away on a first-come first-served basis?

While waiting for my luggage in Portland after the flight (I loaded my small bag with books from my parents' house, so I decided to check it rather than carry it on - that was a good decision considering I would've had to lug it around the gate area for the 9 hours I was there), a fellow passenger started to make small talk. He said that he was ultimately pleased with the way that Alaska treated us. Huh?! When I asked him for clarification, he said that his wife got free drinks (ie. alcoholic beverages) on the flight. This made me even more upset.

1) I had been on a plane before that did the same thing, but this time I forgot to ask the attendants. Now I was kicking myself for not requesting wine.

2) They specifically made announcements on the flight that alcohol could be purchased = a deliberate deception to not give out free drinks. Why was this so bad? Most people were sleeping, so they would've gotten more good will if they announced the free drinks without having to give out too many. Besides, how much would it really have cost them to give out some free booze?

All of these cost-saving methods of apology - handing out the cards just before boarding, only giving out 1000 miles to return customers, saving on food and booze - are more upsetting in light of the fact that Alaska is now in the middle of a huge PR campaign. Everywhere I turn I see advertisements for their "north of expected" campaign. Their attempt at an apology was definitely SOUTH of expected.

Ultimately, I have to say that despite this negative experience at Logan and despite this lame attempt at an apology, I still like Alaska. I only wish they were actually as sincere and friendly as they try to appear.