Nelson

The story of my day, besides travel and the great time I spent with my family back here in River City was "customer service". It all started at 7 a.m. at Burbank Airport. Let's just say that in my opinion United Airlines doesn't have the best customer service in the world. In fact, it's just not very good at all. BUT they did have by far the best fare for this trip, considering we made the reservations three days in advance of the trip.

Anyway, my flight from Burbank to San Francisco was pretty uneventful. Yep . . . San Francisco. We all thought, because of the screwy way United set up today's flight 344 from Burbank to Portland that it was a non-stop flight. Well it was the same flight number, but it had a stop in SFO that wasn't published anywhere, except the United website. When I checked in at Burbank, I assumed that the self check-in machine (never mind the FOUR ticket agents who did nothing but tell people to use the machine) would give me boarding passes for the entire trip. It didn't. In San Francisco, I had to not only change planes (really no big deal), but also wait for a gate agent to show up at gate 76 so I could get another boarding pass. Despite being first in line, the gal told me that there were only middle seats available. This was a serious bummer, since when Brooke made my flight reservations for me, she told the airline my seating preference was window (by the way...thanks again Brooke, I'm very appreciative of your help!!). By the way, the lady at the counter (for the second time today) was a witch (replace the "w" with a "b"). But after she adjusted her attitude a little bit and adjusted the folks who upgraded to first class, I asked if there was a chance to move into a window or aisle seat instead of the middle seat. Fortunately I got a window.

Good thing for United Airlines that the pilot on the flight from SFO to PDX was cool because I was ready to say that after the customer service I'd received so far that I would never again purchase a ticket on United. As our flight approached the California-Oregon border, the pilot started talking about Crater Lake and how he hoped he could share it with us passengers because his view of it was stunning. Being the geek that I am (well, WAS, before I met Dawn), I always love listening to "Channel 9" on United flights. That's the one with the air traffic controllers on it. Today, I heard our pilot ask controllers for permission to lower the plane's altitude and circle around Crater Lake. After getting permission, he dipped the left wing so everyone on the left side of the plane, whether they had a window or aisle seat, could see the lake. Then he looped the plane around and did the same thing so the folks on the right side could see it. Man it was a stunning view!

For those who were interested in listening to him talk on "Channel 9", the captain also shared with us a brief bio about himself, and about the first officer, their combined 58 years of experience flying airplanes, Air Force stints, etc. He also told us quite a bit about the 737 we were flying on and all of the training the pilots and flight attendants do in simulators in Denver every year. Believe it or not, all that seemingly boring stuff was pretty interesting. He even told us that Jet A fuel is very similar to kerosene, but that it has ice inhibitors in it so that the fuel doesn't freeze and become useless to an airplane flying at 39,000 feet in an air temperature of 75 degrees BELOW zero.

Anyway, the pilot did a great job of not only getting us to Portland about 15 minutes early (even with the tour of Crater Lake), but he shared some useless information in a relatively entertaining manner, and kept over 100 people safe on an airplane again. But he also just may have sold me another ticket on United Airlines because he went the extra mile for his customers.

My day was capped with another example of great customer service. Went to dinner with my mom and our friends Mick and Ligaya (Mick is the cool guy who called me from the Husky Stadium stands after the Cougars beat U-Duh in the Apple Cup for the second straight year) at Who Song and Larry's Cantina (mine and Dawn's favorite Mexican place in Vancouver). This really cool server named Stephanie (yep . . . you know which Stephanie I'm talking about) took great care of us. She even sang the guacamole song and made fresh quac for my mom and Ligaya (Mick and I are smart and won't eat that icky stuff), right there at our table. Steph did a GREAT job, and it was just her third (or maybe fourth . . . I've lost track) shift flying solo as a server, not to mention that she was really busy with more tables than she'd ever done alone, including one party of 10.

Anyway . . . I'm rambling and it's getting late, but the moral to my little (OK, long) story is how far good customer service goes. Even when that good customer service is provided by someone who is close to you. We're proud of you Stephanie!! :)