Aubie: Oh how much I disagree with you.

The CEO is the person who steers a company. Who directs change. Who has the visison.

In order to do that most CEO's (and other Executives) will tell you that they need feed-back from their customers -wether their customers are internal or external - what you are doing by complaining to the CEO is flagging up a service deficiency ie. giving them an opportunity to improve the service they offer, improving customer satisfaction resulting in higher yield and increased share-holder return.

Read Greenwald's book and he will tell you that he makes a point of reading customer comments good and bad. It is how he keeps his finger on the pulse of things.

I agree that if a service deficiency can be resolved on the spot then fine - but that didn't happen in this case.

So the problem has been flagged to the airline and the airline has not resolved matters. You contact the CEO. If the CEO is the type who likes customer feed-back he will read your comments, and forward them to the appropriate person to respond. On rare occassions he may wish to be advised of the outcome (if he is inclinded to take a personal interst) alternatively if he does not want customer feed-back he will have a mechanism in place whereby customer comments are removed from his 'in-box/post etc' and dealt with by appointed PA's/Assistants.

The alternative is that you spend a great deal of time progressing your complaint up the hierachy, when you eventually get to the CEO will he do anything? Of course not, because that would mean questioning the decision one of his colleagues has all ready made.

Of course the amount of clout you have makes a big difference: Do you think the CEO of NBC makes complaints to Susy Bigging who works in Customer Admin in Atlanta... I very much doubt it, I would imaging he picks up the 'phone and speaks to the CEO's office.

If you are dissatisfied you have every right to complain. If you wish to complain to the CEO fine, it is part of their remit to listen and learn from complaints. If they don't want to listen their is very little you can do about it, if they do listen you are helping yourself, the airline and your fellow passengers.

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NOw do you know why I am HR? If one of my lot upsets me I just talk them to death!!

MF