I have a long story about controlling your consumer frustration.
When I was 19, back in 2004, I was in the navy, stationed at the naval airbase in Rota, Spain. I got leave to go home for the first time since bootcamp. I was going home for the first time in almost two years. I had a flight on Iberian airlines to Heathrow, and from there on Virgin to the US. Wellā¦ the Iberian flight landed late. Me and three other people ran to our connecting flight, which was leaving in 32 minutes, but it was never going to happen. If you know anything about Heathrow, you know that a connection break that narrow is impossible. So,Ā I had to get another flight home.Ā
Hereās where it gets rough. Iberian said it wasnāt their responsibility. They had no affiliation with Virgin airlines and wasnāt responsible for my connections. I missed my flight because of them and they didnāt care (or, rather, the company didnāt care and the employee had no means with which to help me). Virgin told me that missing my flight was also not their fault and I would simply have to buy another ticket on a later flight. So there I am, 19 years old, stranded in a foreign airport with $120 to my name, being told I need to buy a day-of ticket across the Atlantic (which cost more than I made in a month).Ā
I cried in the bathroom, guys. I wandered around an airport that was the most sprawling, nonsensical spaghetti mess of old, new, clean, dirty, I had ever seen (there were whole terminals that looked like they had been just been abandoned in 1972. Like someone just said, āfuck it, weāre not going use this whole wing anymoreā). At one point, I was looking at my ticket from the first Iberian flight and on the back I saw the various symbols of all the airlines who were together in some business cooperation, like they all dealt with one another. One of them was British Airways. Okay. Iberian saidĀ āget stuffed, you live in this airport nowā, but maybe one of their businessĀ āpartnersā could help me. I was young and scared and stupid and my American brain saidĀ āIāll try the British. Iāve seen British TV shows. Weāre cousins, right? Oh, please, dear God!āĀ
I was told that to talk to the British Airways people I had toĀ ālandā, as they call it, getting my passport stamped and go to the main front entrance where all the airlines desks are. My Iberian ticket didnāt give me permission to do this, but luckily the British security guy seemed to be about 146% done with lifeās bullshit too that day and just waved me in. I saw the British airlines desk, I saw the guys sitting there doing some kind of paperwork, and I decided I was going to play it cool. I was going to be confident. They WERE going to help me get home because that was what they had to do (they didnāt have to), but I wasnāt going to bomb this guy with my crisis. I wasnāt going to make my terrible problem HIS problem. So I rolled up, smiling, and told him that my Iberian flight landed late and my connection wasĀ āa whole 35 minutes, but I guess thatās not enough?ā and I let HIM tell me how that was way too short and oh my God you were never going to make that connection, maāam, no way at allā¦and Iām sorry thereās no flight to Ronald Reagan, but we have one leaving for Dulles in 3 hours. Will that do?Ā
Will that do? WILL THAT DO?! I wanted to marry that scruffy flush-cheeked dude and his accent. I laughed about the connection, and laughed harder when HE started bitching about Iberian and how they never helped anyone ever, and so on, until I found myself with a business class ticket to the US for no extra money after 9 hoursā9 HOURS!!āwandering around an airport trying to figure out how I was going to get out of there without getting into massive trouble with my squadron.Ā
Now, I canāt be 100% sure, but Iām very confident in saying that if I had come up to that guy yelling and freaking out and saying how he HAD to do this and that, and I DEMAND this and that, I probably would have gotten nothing. He would have shut down, rambled off whatever rejections he could to get rid of me as fast as he could, and I would have had no choice but to contact the US embassy and beg a place on a military flight or whatever elseā¦which would have definitely gotten back to my CO and gotten me in massive trouble.Ā
Be calm. Be kind. No one wants to help an asshole.Ā
dededos
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jbbartram-illu
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