tcook052

Normally I bring an e-book and never trust the IFE but upon returning home to YEG from FLL via EWR & IAH today was surprised to find the Super Bowl on the DirectTV in the F cabin of the 737 model so settled into 1A and enjoyed the first half of 1st quarter while economy loaded. I thought great, I'll get to watch the whole game on the IAH-YEG segment and it'll keep me awake after a longer day with a few connections.

Upon take-off the reception drops out a bit but I'm patient and it eventually improves only to have the system tell the F cabin our free preview time has run out and we gotta swipe our CC to keep watching. This hasn't happened on the other two CO flights I was on earlier today so I politely advise the FA who disavows any knowledge of the system or desire to help resolve it faster than I've ever heard from an airline employee in my years of travelling. There were a few unhappy campers in a full F cabin but all she would repeat was that there was nothing that could be done, it was the "system" and it couldn't be reset or the fee waived for F passengers. One even suggested someone from the crew swipe their own CC and get it reimbursed from the airline to which she sputtered an ardent and emphatic 'no'.

After a few tense moments she basically went and hid in the galley but did come back later to offer the meal service and advised me others had caved in and swiper their CC to watch the balance of the game but I said no way, jose and turned the unit off altogether as did a few others around me. Once the free preview is over there isn't much point to having it on anyway IMHO as it just shows movie trailers on a loop.

Does this happen often and was it just my bad luck for the tech gremlins to strike early in the game? Other than the technical difficulties all my CO flights in the front cabin went very well today and I appreciated the service overall but the reaction to the DirectTV troubles sounded so classic airline buck passing it was disappointing. Maybe my 15+ years in the customer service trenches has taught me the effort has to be made even if the outcome is never really in doubt. Had the one FA even tried to talk the matter through with her co-workers the passengers would've appreciated the effort but that wasn't the approach taken and the take it or leave it 'no' seemed IMHO a poor choice with folks in the F cabin.

Now, those are my impressions and if I'm wrong about the system someone can point it out as it seems almost every system has a small degree of ability to reset or reboot or manually override an obvious error but it just seemed the all too familiar airline unwillingness to apologize for an error let alone bother seeking a solution. Had one or the other been done it would've smoothed a few football fans feathers.