M iriam Thomas is thankful for an employee of Alaska Airlines identified only as Judy, who reportedly paid for her airfare out of her own pocket after the ticket for the return flight operated by Delta Air Lines on which Thomas was to be a passenger was supposedly cancelled and would have resulted in her being stranded overnight — and you will not believe the reason why the return portion of the ticket was cancelled.
According to this article written by Hayley Cooper of News1130 in Vancouver — which describes what happened on the outbound portion of the itinerary from Vancouver to Ontario in California via Seattle and an unexpected stop in Portland — “She says after an hour of standing at the desk, she found out what happened. ‘When they had the mechanical maintenance and we ended up in Seattle and had to spend the night in a hotel there, they used the rest of the value of my entire ticket on that rescheduled flight that morning so there was no more money for me to fly home. They didn’t tell me that.’”
I have never heard of that policy before — but I suppose anything is possible once. Airlines typically compensate passengers with free lodging when irregular operations results from mechanical issues and the passengers are stranded overnight.
When a representative from Delta Air Lines allegedly informed Thomas that she will not be able to leave until the next day — without any arrangements of where to stay overnight — Judy offered her a travel voucher and paid for it with her own credit card so that Thomas was ensured travel back to Vancouver from Seattle that day. Thomas was even offered money for coffee.
If the above story is indeed true, Judy deserves to be recognized for going beyond the call of duty for assisting a passenger of a competing airline — which is why I am posting this article…
…and the world would be a far better place if there were more people like Judy. Representatives of corporate entities should do what they can to make things easier for people — not more difficult…
Photograph ©2013 by Brian Cohen.
