Open Letter Jeffrey Smisek, President and CEO of Continental Airlines

I am neither a frequent flyer nor a member of the elite program, but that shouldn’t mean that I should receive bad service.

I recently flew Continental Airlines out of the country and back. To my dismay, there was a lack of customer service. You would think in this day and age, where money is tight; customer service would be top priority. The airlines in trying to compete and keep ticket prices done, add surcharges to every little thing.

I am a tall person and was told that I would have to pay an additional $59 for extra leg room. Ridiculous! I sat in a window seat with a few inches to spare until the child in front of me moved their seat back. I endured this for the 3½ hour flight. During this flight, the flight attendants handed out custom and immigration forms to the passengers. They handed out more custom forms than immigration from until they realized that they were to hand out immigration forms to each passenger. They ran out of forms and told us that we’d have to complete them once we arrived. (That slowed up the processing at the airport!) I’m sorry, but if you fly to another country on a regular basis and know that you have a full plane, wouldn’t you think of having enough forms before you took off? Also, the flight attendant did not acknowledge the passengers as they boarded and disembarked from the plane. They were too busy chatting amongst themselves. I can get that kind of friendliness from a cashier at the local McDonald’s.

Returning was not much better. Since we boarded the plane from the tarmac, they had both the front and rear doors open and since we were seated in the rear we boarded from the rear. The gentleman at the top of the steps said hello. The other flight attendant said nothing. Since this plane had the newly installed DIRECTV, there was no music or movies to watch unless you paid a $6.00 fee. There was an Italian couple two rows ahead of us who wanted to know how to change the language on the screen. They asked the flight attendant when she came around service beverages. Her answer was “I don’t know, this is an American airline.” My wife told the other attendant how it was done, who passed it on to the first who couldn’t be bothered. Real nice attitude.

So I ordered a Pibbs (which was listed in the brochure). They didn’t have it, so I got a Coke. When they came around for seconds, guess what? They no longer had a Coke. Good planning.

And when we disembarked, again there was no acknowledgement of the passengers. Needless to say I will think twice before taking Continental again.