Note: I erred in assuming that the gentleman with whom I was corresponding was a Captain. He since informed me that he holds a different title. My apologies.

November 11, 1996

Mr. Gerald Greenwald
President
United Airlines
PO Box 66100
Chicago, IL
60666

Re: REF #: 0220779A

Dear Sir:

Since our initial letter to you on June 13, our follow-up on July 31, and our note of September 6 to Mr. M__, of your Customer Relations department, in response to his pre-dated (by one month) form letter, we had not received a single piece of evidence that anyone at United Airlines cares about customer relations, until the following arrived by electronic mail from one of your pilots, Captain ______

I have clipped the Pilot's message since I have not requested his permission to reproduce it here... his objection to the existing material in these Web pages was already made very clear.
My reply follows:

Dear Captain ____,

Thank you for your note and my apologies for not replying earlier. I was on holiday for the last week and did not have an opportunity to answer your mail before departing. In answer to your comments, I would first like to point out that when you wrote me on October 26, you likely expected the courtesy of a reply, thus, your follow-up note on November 6. When I wrote of our unpleasant experiences to United Airlines Customer Relations on June 13, I too expected the courtesy of a reply, but it took 10 weeks and a follow-up note before one was sent. What prompted me to set up my "United Airlines = Poor Service?" web pages was not the treatment we received at the various airports but rather, the callous disregard for the detailed, polite, written description of these experiences that we sent to your company. The pre-dated form letter we received as a reply from Mr. M__ of United Airlines Customer Relations clearly indicated that he had not even bothered to read our letter. My follow-up note to Mr. M__, with a copy to Mr. Greenwald, President of United Airlines, sent on September 6, has so far elicited no reply from anyone at United except yourself.

While you are no doubt an excellent pilot who takes pride in his work, I ask you if the services performed by the gate agents and flight attendants during our trip, and later, the Customer Relations department of your airline, meet the professional standards you expect of your fellow United employees? My "vindication" for advertising the consistently rude treatment that your company showed two paying customers was simply that I could not in good conscience remain silent in the face of such behaviour. If United Airlines has no interest in the experiences of its customers, then perhaps other individuals might benefit from this knowledge. Judging by the feedback I have already received from some of the 1000 individuals who have already perused these web pages, I find it interesting to note that apart from the two misinformed letters I received from "John" and Michael Kruse, the overwhelming majority of comments have been highly encouraging.

As for your remark, "ONE THING I WOULD NEVER DO IF I FOUND A CRAPPY PRODUCT FROM SONY WOULD BE TO PRINT A PAGE ON THE NET DESCRIBING HOW BAD YOUR COMPANY IS" let me take this opportunity to illustrate a significant difference in the treatment that Sony and United Airlines show their respective customers. Approximately nine years ago, I purchased a Sony walkman that, after half a year, began exhibiting some audio problems in the right channel. I brought in the unit for repair under warranty, but the problem resurfaced shortly thereafter. After a second repair, I left Canada to spend a year abroad, and again, the repair proved to be insufficient. By now, however, the warranty period had expired, and I was required to pay for the third repair. Furthermore, because the required part was not in stock, I had to wait an additional month before the unit was returned to me. I wrote a letter to Sony, explaining my frustration, and not only did they send me a prompt reply with a full reimbursement for the repair, they also included an additional replacement part in case it was ever needed in the future. While this experience does not necessarily speak well of authorized Sony repair centers, it says a great deal about the respect that the company shows to its customers.

Captain ___, my letters to United Airlines Customer Relations and the ensuing web pages are in no way intended to malign yourself or the many other fine employees of your company. However, if you truly do take pride in your work, then perhaps you will see fit to suggest to your employers that they take a few minutes to consider how United Airlines should treat the paying passengers, such as Ms. D'Souza and myself, who constitute the source of your livelihood. So far, I have seen little that would make anyone wish to be a repeat customer.

Regards,
Jeremy Cooperstock

Cc:Mr.Jerry Greenwald, President, United Airlines
Mr. "M", Customer Relations, United Airlines

Again, there is a reply from the Captain that I have not included here. In summary, it is a polite reply, reiterating his opposition to my approach of advertising these experiences on the web.

Captain ___ and I have an obvious difference of opinion regarding what constitutes an extreme in terms of disseminating information of potential value to consumers through the World Wide Web. However, I respect his professionalism and his forthright assessment of the treatment to which we were subjected by several gate agents and a customer relations representative of your company. In his own words to us, this was, "the B.S. that you were put through."

As a previous passenger aboard multiple United Airlines flights that took us from Los Angeles to Tokyo to Honolulu, and back to Toronto, I am very glad that people of Captain ___'s calibre fly your planes, rather than those of the calibre of the check-in and boarding gate agents, the flight attendants, and customer relations representatives with whom we have recently had the misfortune of dealing.

If Captain ___ is correct when he states that you are making changes, we have yet to witness any results of this process. Certainly, the lack of a reply from your company (beyond a form letter from Mr. M__, clearly demonstrating that he did not even read our initial letter, which we had spent several hours patiently writing), to our three letters, sent between June 13 and September 6, gives us little confidence in the significance of these "changes."

Sincerely,
Dr. Jeremy R. Cooperstock

Cc: Mr. M__, Customer Relations, United Airlines
Captain ___ ___, Pilot, United Airlines