CalPilot:

I can tell you for a fact that this is not what happens, and this has a great deal to do with our dissatisfaction. Let me recite one instance on CO99 where a non-rev who clearly missed the memo on not hauling crew luggage on board while non-revving got comfy with her four grade-school age travel companions spreading out among the last three rows of the B-section of BusinessFirst. Want to take a wild guess at how I know that the pax watching all of this from 18A was a Platinum Elite on a K fare with 2MM OnePass miles in his account who did not clear the upgrade waitlist that he was on well in advance of 72 hours before the flight?

Mind you, it's not only this issue that has our panties in a wad (it's never just one thing), though it is a big one.

Shoe on the other foot, if when exercising your personal travel privileges, there are still empty seats in F even after revenue pax and frequent-flyer upgrades have completely cleared, and you are shut out even from consideration to be given a boarding pass to sit up front due to some arcane policy made up by suits who despite working for an airline probably never really had a job that involved as extensive air travel as some of us do, how would you feel? With a snatchety "International Concierge" who through their "exceptional customer skills" doesn't even lift their head up to acknowledge your inquiries about the relevance of this policy, to boot?

As noted previously herein and echoed throughout the CO forum of late, it's the confluence of repeated actions and policy-changes implemented by your management that has created among your Elite flyers who are, by definition, your bread-and-butter, a great deal of confusion in many cases and enmity in nearly all others to bring us to alienation of a once-favored airline.

Particularly infuriating is how Houston dishes up such changes as "enhancements."

How would you like it if you got a furlough ticket in your mailbox tomorrow, with a note from management telling you that this modification to your employment status should be regarded as an "enhancement" that affords you more "flexibility" to pursue your career ambitions in more dynamic ways?

If you guys keep believing your own press releases thinking that CO does no wrong when it comes to customer satisfaction, very soon that "F" word is going to be increasingly used in the vernacular of your conversations with your colleagues. I left CO months ago for UA, something I wouldn't have even considered doing until enhancement upon enhancement left me gasping for breath, and now I haven't looked back save to encourage remnants at this CO board to give a switch - any switch - a shot as my only regret in having left CO is that I did not do it sooner.

As a fellow pilot who owns and runs a business as a day-job, but who is considering swapping for a desk at the front office on some heavy iron ("because I can," and the next time Gordo badmouths T/Q fare riders, let me tell ya, millionaires do sit in coach; the question is, how do they decide on which airline to book when they go full-fare premium-cabin?), I know I'd be very concerned about the sentiment of an airline's management toward its employees if by virtue of its actions it regards its customer base, particularly the best among them (i.e., its Elites), as an expendable commodity.

It's really not us vs. them, CalPilot. We may be playing different sports, but we're playing them on the same field, so it shouldn't be that far of reach to conceive what we're mutually up against. What the hell has Gordon been smoking (gee, where did I hear that expression before?), expecting businesses and individuals to scatter their wallet contents to the wind and deep sacrifice when he himself knows that what's in order for the good of his own business is to put a clamp on his changepurse and forego that second dip of the annual bonus scoop?

P.S. To that Harvard Business Review article a few months back on customer loyalty, which incredulously indicated that a certain segment of loyal customers is unproductive and should be discarded, I retort, borrowing from Woody Allen, "Those who can't do... teach." Wonder where that leaves the students... as MBAs, particularly in airline management, perhaps?

[This message has been edited by Beef or Chicken? (edited 09-01-2002).]