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Title: Hilarious Airline Complaint Letters
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Published: Nov 28, 2013
Author: Arthur Hicks and anonymous
Post Date: 2013-11-28 23:47:12 by James Deffenbach
Keywords: None
Views: 108
Comments: 2
Airline complaint letters are often angry, as they are by their very nature written by travelers who have been through an unpleasant travel experience. A letter to LIAT, a small Caribbean airline that serves 21 destinations, received a complaint letter that is so humorous that Sir Richard Branson, the CEO of the Virgin Group, tweeted it to his more than three million followers. "How to write a complaint letter - read this hilarious note from a frustrated airline passengers," Branson tweeted. He was once the recipient of a hilarious complaint letter himself, where the traveler, Oli Beale, a British advertising executive, referred to his flight on Virgin Atlantic as a "culinary journey of hell." "Having once received what many regard as the world's best complaint letter, I was tickled to see another brilliant note to a different airline," Branson continued. "It is important to take customer feedback on board in order to improve - and also to be able to laugh at yourself." In his blog post about the letter, Branson explained the way he dealt with his complaint letter. "I phoned the customer who wrote the above note to apologize and thank him for his letter after he experienced a less than perfect culinary experience on board one of our planes," Branson wrote. The letter to LIAT appeared in the weekly British Virgin Islands newspaper, the BVI Beacon, in April. It was written by Arthur Hicks, a traveler from London, and titled, "An Open Letter to LIAT." In the letter, he describes being flown to six different airports in a single day, having to switch planes each time and being "patted down by a variety of islanders." Upon finally arriving at his destination, Hicks found he had missed the last ferry service, the local bars and restaurants were shut, and to top it all off, the airline had lost his luggage along the way. Branson joked that LIAT stands for "Languishing In Airport Terminals." Here is the letter: Dear LIAT, May I say how considerate it is of you to enable your passengers such an in-depth and thorough tour of the Caribbean. Most other airlines I have travelled on would simply wish to take me from point A to B in rather a hurry. I was intrigued that we were allowed to stop at not a lowly one or two but a magnificent six airports yesterday. And who wants to fly on the same airplane the entire time? We got to change and refuel every step of the way! I particularly enjoyed sampling the security scanners at each and every airport. I find it preposterous that people imagine them all to be the same. And as for being patted down by a variety of islanders, well, I feel as if I've been hugged by most of the Caribbean already. I also found it unique that this was all done on "island time," because I do like to have time to absorb the atmosphere of the various departure lounges. As for our arrival, well, who wants to have to take a ferry at the end of all that flying anyway? I'm glad the boat was long gone by the time we arrived into Tortola last night -- and that all those noisy bars and restaurants were closed. So thank you, LIAT. I now truly understand why you are "The Caribbean Airline." P.S. Keep the bag. I never liked it anyway. Now that one was a good one but this one, written to Richard Branson is even better (imo). Dear Mr. Branson REF: Mumbai to Heathrow 7th December 2008 I love the Virgin brand, I really do which is why I continue to use it despite a series of unfortunate incidents over the last few years. This latest incident takes the biscuit. Ironically, by the end of the flight I would have gladly paid over a thousand rupees for a single biscuit following the culinary journey of hell I was subjected to at the hands of your corporation. Look at this Richard. Just look at it: I imagine the same questions are racing through your brilliant mind as were racing through mine on that fateful day. What is this? Why have I been given it? What have I done to deserve this? And, which one is the starter, which one is the desert? You don’t get to a position like yours Richard with anything less than a generous sprinkling of observational power so I KNOW you will have spotted the tomato next to the two yellow shafts of sponge on the left. Yes, it’s next to the sponge shaft without the green paste. That’s got to be the clue hasn’t it. No sane person would serve a desert with a tomato would they. Well answer me this Richard, what sort of animal would serve a desert with peas in: I know it looks like a baaji but it’s in custard Richard, custard. It must be the pudding. Well you’ll be fascinated to hear that it wasn’t custard. It was a sour gel with a clear oil on top. It’s only redeeming feature was that it managed to be so alien to my palette that it took away the taste of the curry emanating from our miscellaneous central cuboids of beige matter. Perhaps the meal on the left might be the desert after all. Anyway, this is all irrelevant at the moment. I was raised strictly but neatly by my parents and if they knew I had started desert before the main course, a sponge shaft would be the least of my worries. So let’s peel back the tin-foil on the main dish and see what’s on offer. I’ll try and explain how this felt. Imagine being a twelve year old boy Richard. Now imagine it’s Christmas morning and you’re sat there with your final present to open. It’s a big one, and you know what it is. It’s that Goodmans stereo you picked out the catalogue and wrote to Santa about. Only you open the present and it’s not in there. It’s your hamster Richard. It’s your hamster in the box and it’s not breathing. That’s how I felt when I peeled back the foil and saw this: Now I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking it’s more of that Baaji custard. I admit I thought the same too, but no. It’s mustard Richard. MUSTARD. More mustard than any man could consume in a month. On the left we have a piece of broccoli and some peppers in a brown glue-like oil and on the right the chef had prepared some mashed potato. The potato masher had obviously broken and so it was decided the next best thing would be to pass the potatoes through the digestive tract of a bird. Once it was regurgitated it was clearly then blended and mixed with a bit of mustard. Everybody likes a bit of mustard Richard. By now I was actually starting to feel a little hypoglycemic. I needed a sugar hit. Luckily there was a small cookie provided. It had caught my eye earlier due to its baffling presentation: It appears to be in an evidence bag from the scene of a crime. A CRIME AGAINST BLOODY COOKING. Either that or some sort of back-street underground cookie, purchased off a gun-toting maniac high on his own supply of yeast. You certainly wouldn’t want to be caught carrying one of these through customs. Imagine biting into a piece of brass Richard. That would be softer on the teeth than the specimen above. I was exhausted. All I wanted to do was relax but obviously I had to sit with that mess in front of me for half an hour. I swear the sponge shafts moved at one point. Once cleared, I decided to relax with a bit of your world-famous onboard entertainment. I switched it on: I apologise for the quality of the photo, it’s just it was incredibly hard to capture Boris Johnson’s face through the flickering white lines running up and down the screen. Perhaps it would be better on another channel: Is that Ray Liotta? A question I found myself asking over and over again throughout the grueling half-hour I attempted to watch the film like this. After that I switched off. I’d had enough. I was the hungriest I’d been in my adult life and I had a splitting headache from squinting at a crackling screen. My only option was to simply stare at the seat in front and wait for either food, or sleep. Neither came for an incredibly long time. But when it did it surpassed my wildest expectations: Yes! It’s another crime-scene cookie. Only this time you dunk it in the white stuff. Richard…. What is that white stuff? It looked like it was going to be yoghurt. It finally dawned on me what it was after staring at it. It was a mixture between the Baaji custard and the Mustard sauce. It reminded me of my first week at university. I had overheard that you could make a drink by mixing vodka and refreshers. I lied to my new friends and told them I’d done it loads of times. When I attempted to make the drink in a big bowl it formed a cheese Richard, a cheese. That cheese looked a lot like your baaji-mustard. So that was that Richard. I didn’t eat a bloody thing. My only question is: How can you live like this? I can’t imagine what dinner round your house is like, it must be like something out of a nature documentary. As I said at the start I love your brand, I really do. It’s just a shame such a simple thing could bring it crashing to its knees and begging for sustenance. Yours Sincererly xxxxx
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#1. To: James Deffenbach (#0)
The fare does appear beyond brutal: xxxxx did a perfectly masterful job of describing the mess.
The man does have a way with words, that's for sure.
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#2. To: Lod (#1)
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