dan1431

I was flying to PBI a while back and sat next to a COS who could not comfortable fit in a CO first class seat.

After he finally got himself seated the middle armrest/cupholder thing actually started to bow/lean towards me.

After takeoff we had a choice of cream of mushroom soup and a fairly good grilled chicken sandwhich or a shrimp salad. I do not really like cream soups and decided to skip it and simple concentrate on my sandwhich(which was huge). My seatmate seeing that I was not going to eat my soup asked if he could have it. IMHO if this gentlemen wanted to help with his problem he could have skipped the second cup of cream soup. In the end I guess I am somewhat complicit(sp?) as I did give my seatmate the cup of soup thus not helping him really.

Dan

LawFlyer

Just when I thought this was finally over, CO sends yet another communication to me: not a form letter, but an honest-to-goodness reponse from an Exec in Houston. I am tempted to mention the name, because I've heard only good things about him, but I'm not sure that would be best. Those of you "in the know" probably know who it is, anyway. Someone from CDG hand-carried the letter to my flat here in Paris! I'm not going to type in the whole thing, but here are the most relevant portions in blue print:

"We have thoroughly investigated the incident that occurred on Flight 11 on [date], and we assure you that appropriate actions have been taken. For instance, the flight attendant who made disparaging remarks about your being re-seated in the crew-rest seat has been reprimanded, and all of our BusinessFirst and Economy cabin flight attendants who viewed the situation have been interviewed. ...[skip]...

We appreciate your kind words and comments directed to [the ISM and the BF concierge]; likewise, these gentlemen have been commended for the outstanding service they gave you in correcting a difficult situation. ...[skip]...

Continental is continually in the process of revising and updating all of our in-flight and ground-handling policies to better serve our customers. Your needs and comfort were not met on Flight 11 as they should have been because our existing policies were not flexible enough to handle the situation you encountered. Please be assured that this incident has caused us to review and revise our existing policies to ensure that your next flights, and indeed the voyages of all our customers, will be more comfortable....[skip]...

The station chief [at CDG] is aware of the situation as well, and [the BF concierge at CDG who misrepsresented things] will be interviewed and reprimanded, if appropriate. ...[skip]...

Your concern for [the COS] has not gone unnoticed, nor has your deliberate and calm concern for the welfare of all our passengers put in similar situations. ...[skip]...

We hope that the compensation we have offered you will remind you that we are committed to delivering safe, convenient, and industry-leading service to all of our customers. As a Platinum-level Elite member, you business is extremely important to the future of our airline, as is your feedback and constructive comments. ...[skip]... Thank you for your continued patronage[blah blah blah]."

So -- Since I already had my "compensation," I was surprised to see anything turn up, much less a hand-delivered letter. I looked closely at it, and it was, in fact, hand-signed in ink. That means it was flown over from Houston on CO 10 without going through the mail (unless it was FedEx'ed to the station chief a CDG, then taken out of the FedEx envelope, then hand-carried to my flat).

I will never say again that CO doesn't take a complaint seriously. And yet nagging questions continue:

(1) Did they react this way because I'm a lawyer? (I hope not.)
(2) Did they react this way because I'm Plat? (Maybe, but I hope not.)
(3) Did they react this way because I'm a passenger who had a problem? (I hope THAT is the answer!)

CO FF

I've lurked the whole thread, and finally will comment. I disagree with you on #2.

What's wrong with better customer service to regular or preferred customers? If 2 clients send you emails at the same time, asking you to "drop everything" and attend to something, you have to choose. Who will it be - the multi-million dollar/year client or the $50,000/year client?

Who gets the tickets to the playoff game - either the best client or the best prospect, not the "little guy".

There are only so many seats in BF, and only so many hours in a day. There's nothing wrong with choosing to prioritize.

gnomie

I am glad that the OP was able to accomplish what I was unable to do - get someone with authority to review the problem and possibly come up with some type of solution. I am not an attorney, have no elite status and was traveling in coach on a discounted ticket which is probably why my complaint fell on deaf ears.

Of interest, when I checked my luggage, it weighed 52 lbs and I was required to remove 2 lbs of items or be subject to an overweight surcharge. Maybe CO (and the other airlines) should establish a policy regarding COS the same way they do luggage.

Nightflyer

[QUOTE=LawFlyer

I will never say again that CO doesn't take a complaint seriously. And yet nagging questions continue:

(1) Did they react this way becauspee I'm a lawyer? (I hope not.)
(2) Did they react this way because I'm Plat? (Maybe, but I hope not.)
(3) Did they react this way because I'm a passenger who had a problem? (I hope THAT is the answer!)[/QUOTE]

____________

Unfortunately, I suspect it was none of the above. In light of gnomie's experience, I suspect they are falling all over themselves because you are a customer who consistently pays premium fares, and whom they know must fly overseas regularly. I doubt that even a platinum elite who buys mostly discounted fares, and happened to be in BF on an award ticket or a discounted Z fare, would have received the concern (not to mention the compensation) that you received.

Do I think gnomie should have been compensated as LawFlyer was? Of course not, but she should have received the same concern and attention to the problem that he did.

I sincerely hope I'm wrong and we are seeing the return of a customer-friendly attitude at Continental. Who knows how much CO's "The-customer-is-the-problem" attitude contributed to their going in the red after 9-11.

(Edited for confusing punctuation.)

Jaimito Cartero

This must have been a domestic flight (Well, CO definition of domestic US-Canada-US VI), as international limits are 70 pounds.

Analise

Lawflyer, you seem quite impressed with CO yet I have not seen where they have corrected the problem concerning people whose obese bodies spill into other people's seats. How have they made sure that this incidence in which an obese person's body spilled over into another person's seat will never happen again?

LawFlyer

Analise,

You are right on both of your points, so I'll address each.

(1) I was impressed by the handling of the problem because the way CO has handled many other problems often seems less than adequate. I've never had a major problem like this, granted; but we all have read threads on this board of horror stories and terrible treatment where CO just turns a blind eye. Yet other times, CO addresses it properly. In my case, I will admit that CO provided much more "follow-up" and customer-care response to this problem than I expected. I was impressed in part because I didn't expect anything...so the the calls, letters, and comp from CO are now bordering on overkill!

(2) As for CO making progress on finding a long-term solution: none that I have heard, except what I described in Post #167 of this thread. I posted a paragraph of the letter I received here in Paris. Here it is in blue:

"Continental is continually in the process of revising and updating all of our in-flight and ground-handling policies to better serve our customers. Your needs and comfort were not met on Flight 11 as they should have been because our existing policies were not flexible enough to handle the situation you encountered. Please be assured that this incident has caused us to review and revise our existing policies to ensure that your next flights, and indeed the voyages of all our customers, will be more comfortable."

That's not very specific, is it?! Frankly, the ISM that I chatted with on CO 10 on the way back (same as the original ISM) summed it up by saying -- and this is not a precise quote -- that CO just doesn't have a good policy for COS situations. Usually, the crew are able to find some workable solution, even if the "workable solution" means inconveniencing another passenger who looks unlikely to complain, unfair as that sounds.

Sad fact: even after all this mess, the incident aboard CO 11, the massive FT thread circulating at HQ in Houston, the calls and letters, the J ticket comp...even after all THAT, none of us really know what CO is likely to do the next time this happens. It could be better, worse, or exactly the same because it depends on the crew and their "resonable" latitude to handle the problem.

Many posters here have said that weighing in, having measurements taken, and paying overage charges just aren't going to work. It all sounds great, but in practice...? Sorry, I just don't see a CO check-in agent asking a COS to please step up on the scale while a female colleague measures the ..., hips, stomach, and chest of the COS. Just won't happen.

How about the easiest test of all:

IF THE ARMRESTS CANNOT GO DOWN, THE C.O.S. MUST BUY TWO SEATS. IF TWO SEATS ARE AVAILABLE ANYWAY, THE C.O.S. GETS A REFUND FOR THE EXTRA SEAT.

No, it's not a perfect rule, and there will be all sorts of exceptions, and "what if's" and "But how about when..." ad nauseum. Yet as a starting place, it would work.

NNH

Or alternatively, CO could try Gnomie's proposed solution of removing the excess 100lbs from the passenger (my bolding above, in fairness to Gnomie)

hughw

Following is an exceprt of an article from salon.com concerning passenger weight and fuel costs.

According to a new study by the Centers for Disease Control, the average weight of Americans increased 10 pounds in the 1990s. Heavier fliers, says the report, require planes to burn more fuel, which in turn drives up fares. I find it hard to believe that the theoretical extra ton or two from chubby butts would seriously change fuel consumption. Am I wrong?

More weight means more fuel; there's no way around it. Two hundred passengers on a given flight, at an extra 10 pounds each, means 2,000 added pounds. Specifically, the CDC states that in the year 2000, U.S. airlines had to burn 350 million extra gallons of fuel, at a cost of more than a quarter of a billion dollars, to haul the added weight of ever-widening Americans. That extra fuel released an estimated 3.8 million tons of climate-changing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Those are, if I may, pretty fat numbers, but they deserve some perspective. In the case of a fully loaded 747, which has a maximum takeoff weight close to 900,000 pounds, the sum heft of an overbooked cabin (about 400 well-fed souls) represents less than 10 percent of the total, which mostly consists of fuel (about 400,000 pounds), freight and the vessel itself.

That ratio isn't so impressive with every model, as the 747 has outrageous economies of scale. Generally, the smaller the aircraft, the more your girth matters. With the 747, our extra 10 pounds equate to .046 of the maximum. In the case of a 19-seater, it's about 1.2 percent.

That's not to downplay the significance of those 350 million extra gallons; only to point out that the weight of the passengers may not be as crucial to overall efficiency as you think. A less than optimal cruising altitude, for instance, can burn a lot more fuel than the expanded waistlines of those on board.

But for good measure, at least in this country, the airlines have turned proactive by refusing to feed you.

As for "driving up fares," while the impetus is there in concept, fares remain cheaper than ever. Mean ticket prices in today's dollars are the cheapest they've been since 1987. Adjusted for inflation, they are the lowest ever.

So I did some calculation basedon the above. If the extra 10 pounds per persons represents .046 of the fuel load of a 747 totaling 400,000 pounds, that means the additional fuel required is 18,400 pounds. On a per capita basis, assuming 400 persons on a 747, that's 46 pounds per person who is 10 pounds overweight or 4.6 pounds of fuel per pound of person. I'm assuming that 4.6 pounds of fuel is about 1/2 gallon. I don't know the cost of jet fuel but assuming $1.30/ gallon, then the cost of flying 1 pound of person is 65 cents.

If a person is 200 pounds overweight, they're costing the airline $130 in fuel costs.

philipperv

With the time you spend posting to this forum i'm glad that you aren't MY lawyer!

jackal

Wrong! LawFlyer knows how to get results. He'd be my first pick as a lawyer, except he did say that the compensation from CO was bordering on overkill. That reminds me of a story.

Way back in the late '30s, my grandfather was riding his bike when a car hit him and ran over the bike. His dad took the man to small claims court, and the judge awarded him the money for a new bike as well as medical expenses for my grandfather and a little bit for pain and suffering. Foolishly, he told the judge, "Your Honor, thank you, but all we really wanted was a new bike."

The judge's reply? "All right, then that's what you'll get."

The moral of the story as told by my grandfather: Once you've won, shut your mouth!

Fortunately, I've never had the, er, honor of experiencing sitting next to a fat, smelly person, but then again, I'm a poor college student far from any elite status since I fly relatively (to you guys) rarely. (I'm just about ready for my private pilot license's check ride, and I hope to eventually be up in the cockpit's left seat, the most elite seat available!)

LawFlyer, did said executive provide you with a return address to reach him directly? Would you be able to ask him what specific measures will be taken?

He probably wouldn't answer (policy and legal reasons, I guess), but it's worth a shot.

Jackal

Derrico

Someone lock this lame thread. It seems to be hanging out and yet it has very little value. While being stuck next to an extremely large person sounds traumatic, I do not think this is a very common occurance. (maybe I am wrong, but I fly all of the time and never have this issue. ) It just seems like an excuse to lash out at people we do not feel comfortable with.

Lets pick on critically ill flyers next. They take up all my room at the bulkhead, and their IV lines get wrapped around my bloody marys! Oh yeah!! They Smell!!!

jongar

i said this on an other forum, i believe it is equally valid here

the best way to solve the problems of the world is to exterminate fat people. Set up camps - reduce your weight to acceptable levels or get turned off - permanently. Let’s look at the facts. There are loads of fat people in the world, but with huge concentrations in America. Chances are they are dumb as well, as they are unable to correlate that inhaling twinkies and big macs is assisting in their campaign for championship level cholesterol. There for a lot of people in America are dumb. You could largue with that logic, but first and bare in mind your mostly dumb yanks you have to understand the point first.

Ok, next we set up a kfc franchise on the other side of the camp fence. we make money, and lose another 500,000 obese citizens to the cause.

Now for the environment. Well there will be less suvs driving between home and the mickeyd drive through, which is probably next door anyway. then there are the bodys, all them bloating bloated corpses are gonna rot down nice and make gas - we burn it to make electric to power the music systems on the treadmills the ones who want to live are on.

Oh, and we dont discriminate, we dont care what religion or colour, or even you sexual orientation, if you fat your in.

Slim down or ship out.

Just a few ideas from me to you

Derrico

Another intelligent friendly poster from the UK.