Letter to American Airlines

Ladies and gentlemen,

I am writing to you as your passenger on the flight from Frankfurt to Houston (George Bush) dated 24 August 2007. The flights' information is:

[Information ommitted]

Booking/confirmation number was KKLNZB. The flight had been booked for me by Mr N with his miles.

The initial flight departed and arrived as planned but subsequently, the immigration procedures took too long for me to catch my connection flight to Houston. Immigration itself did not take long; as a matter of fact, I was just woven through after I had provided immigrations with my finger prints and had shown my passport. But when I passed immigration and reclaimed my luggage, it was already 18:45, too late to catch my connection flight.

That alone would have just been a usual annoyance for me that I had experienced before already but when I wanted to recheck my luggage at the American Airlines counter I was told that I was not going to be able to catch either of the two remaining flights from Chicago Ohare to Houston that night. The earliest connection flight offered to me was on the next morning at 9:45, which forced me to spend a night at a hotel. As much as I appreciate American Airlines' efforts to provide distressed passengers with a lower rate at the surrounding hotels (I stayed at the Marriott Ohare Hotel for $89 instead of $229 plus tax that night), I would like you to know that I am displeased with the way I was (and the way passengers were) treated, for the following reason.

Immigration for me took over two hours, and I was by far not the last one in my plane's line. The situation that I had to go through was foreseeable both for the airport, immigration control and, frankly, you. Ms Hitchcock, the lady at the American counter who assisted me in a very polite and friendly way, told me that the reason for the distress was the weather of the previous days. Chicago had experienced storms and heavy rainfalls, which had forced a number of international and domestic flights to be relocated to surrounding airports. These planes landing in Chicago that day, along with the ones regularly coming in, had allegedly caused the holdup at immigrations.

Even if that is true, which I have no information on, it does not disburden you or anybody else involved from their responsibilities. Especially if all those delayed flights coming in were predictable, the airport should have opened more lines to speed up the immigration process. If that had for any reason been impossible to do, the least that should have been done was to have somebody call out the next connection flights and ask the respective passengers to come up front to go through immigration first.

But frankly, not only did nobody at the airport care the least about who was going to catch their connection flights. When I went up to an officer at the airport to ask her nicely "how the chances were that I would catch my connection flight", all she had to respond (in a rude tone, and as a German citizen, I know a rude tone, you can believe me that) was, "You are not going to catch your flight; it's already 6:15."
Essentially, nobody gave a hoot about who got their connection flights, and I am unhappy with having to stay at a hotel over night and having to cover for it, even if I am offered a lower rate. Without stating that it was your or anybody else's intention behind it, some people might even interpret this procedure as a convenient way to create business for the hotels.

Please understand, ladies and gentlemen, that what I am describing here, happened to lots of other passengers as well who were not able to pay for an over-night stay at a hotel. Waiting in line for immigration, for instance, I met a young girl at an age of around 17 who was on her way to spend a school year in the States. She was certainly not able to afford a hotel and had to stay at the airport that, by the way, does not even provide for a low-class hall for distressed passengers to sleep somewhere, not even in times when such a situation is as clearly predictable as in this case.

Every time I fly to the US, immigration process is an unwelcome but necessary obstacle. I understand that. Terror and all. This time though, waiting in line without anybody caring whether we caught our connection flights, I frankly felt like cattle. This, I believe, is neither the way you want your passengers to feel (and believe me, after a flight of nine hours or more, you are more likely to get this idea), nor is it a good display of hospitality for the US, which I truly love for their people.

I am not writing this letter to you to be reimbursed anything but if there is something you can do for Mr N who booked the flight for me and who had to go through the trouble of picking me up at the Houston airport on Saturday, I would greatly appreciate it.

Yours truly