The Wrong Person to Call “Mr. Human”

We all know airlines have form letters they send out to their customers when they write it with praises, complaints and questions. To have to individually reply to every inquiry, though it seems impossible, is probably not feasible for most large airlines. That said, I’d always be open to a personal reply. 🙂

Well, the form letter has take a new height (no pun intended for you airline geeks out there). United Airlines recently wrote to a customer, and mistakenly did not plug in his name into the form letter; instead, they did worse. They left it as the generic “Mr. Human,” the field the customer service representative is supposed to change. Oh, boy.

“Mr. Human, your e-mail clearly expresses your disappointment and I would like to extend a sincere apology for any negative impression that may have been created.”

Here’s where the story gets even funnier. The “Mr. Human” the airline referred to is a consumer reporter for Fox 13 news in Tampa. Ha. Probably the wrong person to make a mistake on.

From the news article on My Fox Philly, “He said he showed up for a 7:32 p.m. flight at 7:12 p.m., and the flight was gone. He was flying home from Houston and arrived at the gate 20 minutes before the plane was supposed to take off. United’s records show that the flight left the gate at 7:32 p.m. In his complaint, Chmura said he asked the company to investigate the gate worker. Then he received the letter. It’s not the first case of customer-service gaffes, though sending it to a TV reporter certainly makes it more noticeable. By the way, Chmura has since changed his Twitter name to “Mr. Human FoxTV.”

You can read the full story here.