BF incident -- what would you do?
 

Flew BF (upgrade) CDG-IAH. During the ice cream service, I got a T-shaped piece of plastic in my ice cream, which (covered in fudge and nuts), I started to eat, only to find it a bit harder than the surrounding nuts. I took it out of my mouth, examined it, talked to an FA about it, who called the service manager.

The piece of plastic apparently comes from some restraining thing for BF food. It's sharp on 4 sides (a fourth edge protrudes a bit) and if I had swallowed it, we would have been landing in England :|

The customer service manager had me fill out an in-flight incident report, but that goes to risk management, so the probability of getting any sort of positive action out of that is about nil.

What would you do in a situation like this?

I'm not a litigious person so I would be happy I wasn't hurt and go on with my life...

Agreed....stuff happens, no one was hurt. I am glad you found it in time.


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As God as my witness, I will never fly coach again. <sorry Scarlet>
I am not real smart, but I can lift heavy things.

Since you weren't hurt, of course you wouldn't sue. BUT aside from the report I would also write a letter about the incident to one of the Continental exectives [Suggestions, anyone?].

My reasoning is, if that was, as you were told, something that outside the package, then it strikes me that the person in the galley was not paying proper attention and/or was distracted and not following proper procedures. If it were inside the ice cream, then they are having a problem with the maker of the ice cream and may wish to consider a change.

The tone of your letter should be concern about safety, following proper food prep techniques, and quality of the overall BF experience. You should emphasize how it is both in their interest and yours to see that things go more smoothly without such an incident. The tone should be graceful and helpful.

Don't mention you were on an upgrade reward, merely that you were flying BF. See what sort of a response (or anything else) you get and please let us all know the result.

[This message has been edited by sfupgrademe (edited 06-14-2002).]

Wait a second. This is America. Isn't RiceGradStudent obligated to sue? Hot coffee anyone?

Litigation would only be pursued if a future dental (or whatever) exam shows some injury resulted. I was thinking along the lines of an FAA complaint cc'ed to we-could-care-less, but the idea of an exec is a good one (maybe Deborah McCoy, flight ops, or Bonnie Reitz, sales and distribution).

Well, I would not have eaten it, either!

Then go on with my life as someone else suggested.

I am amazed at how many people expect something for every little thingy!
Then I wonder if they are as compensatory, when they do something out of line?




[This message has been edited by ROADRUNNER (edited 06-14-2002).]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by ROADRUNNER:
I am amazed at how many people expect something for every little thingy!
Then I wonder if they are as compensatory, when they do something out of line?
Continental almost killed me today. If this is a little thingy, perhaps you could get run over by a car, and not sue for tort.

That said, yes, I do compensate, when I do something out of line. I have paid cash compensation for car accidents, beyond what my insurance company would have, with none of the hassles of same.

What a moron you are. CO bumps a pax, costs them 3 hours, gives them $300 in compensation. CO almost kills a pax, and no in-flight fix. If you think I'd let this go without a complaint to the FAA, you're rather mistaken.

However, what does CO give someone if they "almost" bump a pax... I would write a letter to make them aware of a potential problem, but that is as far as I would take it.

[quote]<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by RiceGradStudent:

Quote:

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Continental almost killed me today. If this is a little thingy, perhaps you could get run over by a car, and not sue for tort.

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Call me crazy, but I doubt that swallowing a little piece of plastic is as dangerous as getting run over by a car. And I would hazard a wild guess that swallowing that piece of plastic probably wouldn't have killed you.

Actually, you could be wrong on both counts. I am a very litigious person, being a personal injury attorney, and I represent may people who have been struck by an auto and suffered injuries that were not life threatening such as fractures, concussions etc. Of course, some have died as a result of their injuries. On the other hand, I have also represented choking victims' estates because getting something lodged in ones throat is often a deadly act.

That said, and without giving legal advice, and from the facts given I do not see any basis for compensation here since there was no injury to RiceGradStudent. There is simply nothing to sue for. That does not mean Continental won't give RGS something for their trouble, but without injury there is no basis for a lawsuit.

Well, I guess speaking as a minority, I'd sue their asses off.

CO has shown over the last few years that nice letters and complaints asking for reasonable mileage/upgrade based compensation are useless. Forget trying to gain a FF benefit from them for this unfortunate incident.

Find a lawyer who will work on contingency, have photographs taken of your scratched tounge, fly another airline from now on, and let the lawyer get whatever he can. $1,000...$10,000...more....whatever, it's found money. Just get it started and don't think about it any more - let the lawyer deal with it.

CO would not think twice about ignoring your complaint and/or sending you a form letter. Threatening legal action makes no difference. Just do it. I assure you, the lawyer will get something and so will you.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/rolleyes.gif

RiceGradStudent, you may want to include on the CC list the Department of Health at the departure city.

How about the destination city? My French isn't so good http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/biggrin.gif

I called customer disservice, and they could care less. No FF benefits forseeable, since they successfully transported me from Paris to Houston. No matter that the same would have happened without the upgrade... So NJDavid, you were right about that, as I expect. However, I think it's unethical to sue, since I wasn't actually _injured_, and as amazing nj says, probably unproductive too.

I've written a letter to the FAA addressing the customer service, cleanliness, food safety, and maintenance issues related to the incident. The letter was not cc'ed to customer disservice.

As for NJDavid's suggestion about not flying them anymore, they're convienent for now, and once I graduate (real soon now) I'll probably stop, since I'm unlikely to live in a hub city.

Thanks for everyone's suggestions and input, even those of you I (perhaps inappropriately) flamed... On the scale of what people would do, it seems like I've already done more than the majority of you would have.