An Open Letter to Continental & Express Jet

Dear Continental Airlines and Express Jet:

I read the stories about your stranding of 47 passengers on the tarmac for 6 hours with utter and complete astonishment.

("Nightmare as 47 Stuck on Tarmac for 6 Hours" and "47 spend 'nightmare' 9 hours in ground plane".)

I wasn't on the flight and I don't think I know anyone who was. I have no self-interest in this story other than being committed to helping companies create customer experiences that build loyalty and increased long-term value.

The stories indicate that someone at your airlines made the decision to keep people on a commuter jet for 6 hours with full toilets, little to eat or drink, and no room to move.

Here's how this gets fixed (and we don't need a passenger bill of rights to do it - although I'm not opposed to the concept):

You must decide that you want to treat customers the way you would like to be treated.

You must create corporate cultures where employees are empowered to care for fellow human beings.

Simplistic? Naive? Uninformed? Spare me.

This is a matter of will and focus. This nonsense keeps happening because airline executives don't care to prevent it. If executive compensation was tied to customer experience, this would have been taken care of a long time ago.

For those of you reading this that care to express your concern about this issue, here are the people who seemingly don't have the will or focus to fix the issue for Continental and Express Jet.

You can call Continental at (713) 324-5000 or Express Jet at (832) 353-3333.