The other day I heard a story about a couple who was travelling by plane in North America, in particular to Canada. They were not able to do internet check-in, and were asked to go to the counter. The counter hostess was not able to do it on her system, and contacted a helpline. To her amusement, she was directed to ask the couple two questions and inform the person of their respective replies:
- Will you respect the airline personnel?
- Will you follow the instructions given by the personnel?
They both answered ‘yes’ to both questions in bewilderment. The check-in was done and they proceeded shaking their heads.
I could not help but to enquire about it, following which, I had found out that early last year they had a discussion－not a fight nor a shouting match－with the air hostess on a flight, when asking her for basic information about the delays that were impacting their connection. She had been unresponsive, telling them her first priority is safety. Anyways, there was no shouting, no insulting, and certainly no misbehaving on the part of the couple, just a vocal complaint that she is not providing a satisfactory reply to their legitimate question!
I am pretty sure the events happened as I describe them above, and there were no harsh exchanges to warrant such a behavior from the airline. Furthermore, the specific airline is building a reputation in the media about such outlandish behavior, and certainly their dismal on-time arrivals.
The irony is that at the same time that airlines in North America have become less and less tolerant about people expressing their dissatisfaction verbally on the spot and to the person, they have developed the survey system and bombard you with spam-surveys of ‘how did we do?’ Yet there is no more a real means of complaint, just answering abject surveys that serve to satisfy some communication department’s ‘production’ objectives.
On the other hand, this strategy has been successful: now instead of expressing our dissatisfaction to the front line, we take revenge on surveys and (sort of) feel good that we gave them a bad review. The system has neutered human verbal expression of protest. We are one step closer to becoming Cyborgs!
Paris, January 29, 2024,
Zeejay