We’ve brought you plenty of airline horror stories recently, but Marine officer Christopher’s experience is positively heartwarming in comparison. After the East coast snowpocalypse canceled his original flight and he was forced to wait on the tarmac for three hours due to a baggage handler shortage, United Airlines contacted him to offer a $250 travel voucher. No EECB needed.

Just wanted to let you guys know that United actually did not follow the typical MO for an airline of screwing over the little guy this holiday season. I am a Marine Corps Officer who was going home to Denver for the first time in a year to see my family for the holidays. I was supposed to fly out of DCA Reagan to DIA Denver on Dec 19 at 0600. As everyone knows the Heavens opened up and poured the worst snow storm to be seen in the last decade on the east coast. I knew my flight would probably get canceled and it was.

I was pretty angry at first since United did not contact me and it took around two hours to get through to them on the phone, but it really was quite a shock to the system, so understandable. United Customer Care is all outsourced to another country, I assume India from the accent but never asked, and it was not easy dealing with them. Regardless, after much stress I was able to finally get home just one day late. I was not really satisfied with their service but figured that everyone was in the same boat.

Yesterday a nice lady from one of their main offices called and not only apologized for all the problems with travel but also gave me $250 off of my next ticket. I was very happy and felt they really did not have to do that since they cannot control the weather. This certainly did make up for the pain of rescheduling and then having to sit on the tarmac for three hours since they did not have enough baggage handlers to move bags. I feel like there is hope for all the much maligned airlines and maybe we can return to the “Golden Age” of travel if they keep treating people like they treated me.

As far as I’m concerned, there will be no golden age of travel until there is onboard wi-fi, espresso, and cookies, but this is certainly a good start.

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