Uh, We're kind of Sorry

This past week has been themed around the incompetence of American Airlines for disallowing  my bag to travel with me when I returned from Dallas, Texas last weekend.  At that time, I held American responsible for the troubles and adopted them as an involuntary affiliate member here at FTI due to their ineptness, stupidity , and lack of common sense in dealing with a minor situation. Due to the dogged determination and investigative skills of the FTI Research team, an added co-conspirator has also been identified.   And of course, I want them to get their due recognition as well. 

It has been uncovered that the  co-party responsible for this screw-up is, in fact, the Transportation Security Administration, a division of the US Department of Homeland Security.  These are the people who man the metal detectors and then paw over you like a 16 year old on a second date should you trip it; so pleasantly practice their customer service skills by barking "shoes off!, shoes off!"while standing in line to go through the above mentioned metal detector; and so animatedly stare into an x-ray machine hoping they run across a set of fingernail clippers that they can confiscate as a threat to airline security. 

For their part, American Airlines, sent me a computer generated email response that cited phrases in my original complaint.  In it, I was instructed that I could access the AA website, drill down  3 times deep into the bowels of the AA website to find out,  in fact, I was a screw-up for not checking the baggage in earlier.  I have never denied, ultimately, I was at fault.  My complaint is that the simple lack of common sense and flexibility would have made it easier for all of us involved; both AA and me.   I would have had my bag; their customer service people would have been able to speak with a potential paying customer for a future flight rather than arguing with one irate for 30 minutes after  a completed flight.  As I see it, that formula doesn't seem to be one that generates new revenue. 

In conclusion, I am over my snit.  I am prepared to release American Airlines from FTI affiliation after Friday of this week.  ( I still have one more  whack I want to give them, yet.)  We wouldn't even think about adding the TSA as an official affiliate:  We have plenty of incompetence practiced by the staff.  They certainly don't need to learn any new techniques.