On the Spot: Does a family deserve a ticket refund when a child dies?
On the Spot by L.A. Times Travel Editor Catharine Hamm
[Read On the Spot in 2008: A year of your travel questions answered]
Question: In the spring I booked two sets of flights: One on United Airlines to Europe for my husband, 11-year-old daughter and me and a second trip on AirTran from LAX to Atlanta for the three of us and for my 27-year-old daughter (who was traveling from Denver on the same dates and times to meet us in Atlanta). Both sets of tickets were nonrefundable.
My older daughter became ill in May and died eight weeks later. Obviously, losing a child is devastating, and we had and have no desire to travel anywhere.
When I contacted United, even though my deceased daughter was not on our itinerary, within two weeks, I received a complete refund. AirTran, on the other hand, refunded my deceased daughter’s airfare but not ours. I was told I had one year to use the tickets and they would not, under any circumstances, give me a refund. Can you help?
–Maggie Jacobs, West Hills
Answer: Let’s cut to the chase: Jacobs is getting a refund, said Judy Graham-Weaver, manager of public relations for AirTran Airways. And she apologized for “any inconvenience” (a phrase, incidentally, that needs to be banned from the book of customer service blather for all occasions.)
That leaves only one question: Should Jacobs really have received a refund?
Customer service experts I heard from were of two minds.
Chris Ramey, chairman of the Luxury Marketing Council Florida, wrote in an e-mail, “Businesses must have rules and standards for difficult situations. There have to be limitations.. . . . In this case, in my opinion, it was fair and compassionate for the airline to refund one ticket and credit three tickets. ‘Not feeling like it’ isn’t enough reason to refund all three tickets.”
Alan Weiss, president of Summit Consulting Group, which lists among its clients Hewlett-Packard, GE and Mercedes-Benz, said in an e-mail, “Of course the airline should have bent the rules. There are going to be a lot of companies that will suffer when the economy inevitably rebounds because they are treating everyone so poorly at the moment. People don’t forget.”
So who’s right?
Both, depending on the airline’s core value.
“Is it operational efficiency or is it customer intimacy?” asked Anirudh Kulkarni, founder and head of Customer Value Partners, a customer relationship consulting firm.
“You can do one or the other really, really well, but you can’t do both really, really well.”
In the end, he thinks the solution is a no-brainer: Do what it takes to maintain the customer relationship, either by giving a refund or by extending the time period in which the credit for the ticket can be used.
Organizations, he noted, need to be mindful these days of how quickly bad word of mouth can spread. Today, stories go viral faster than a cold in a kindergarten class.
If your organization won’t bend, he said, “you have just guaranteed you are going to be on the dust heap — it’s only a matter of when.”
So being compassionate is not only the right thing but it’s also the smart thing.
I think we knew that. I think United knew that. The only question now: Why didn’t AirTran?
[Graphic: Mark Shaver / For The Times]
7 Comments on “On the Spot: Does a family deserve a ticket refund when a child dies?”
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December 26th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
Or, another option could have been for AirTran to give them an open ended ticket, with no expiration or at least a generous extension on the already purchased tickets (other than their daughter’s which of course deserved a refund).
December 26th, 2008 at 4:47 pm
1. A businesses core values don’t mean much if they are not aligned with their customer’s values.
2. Simply “maintaining” the customer’s relationship isn’t enough. This was an opportunity to build on it and they failed.
3. “Operational efficiency” also has to include customer intimacy. How do you have an operation to begin with, if you don’t have customers?
4. In situations like these you do what the customer wants - not what you think is best for both. This was also a chance to go beyond the expected and do the unexpected by doing something to show concern at such a devastating time. Missed it again.
December 26th, 2008 at 5:58 pm
Judy Graham-Weaver of AirTrans needs to go back to public relations school. The Jacobs’ weren’t inconvenienced by AirTrans, they were treated with a total lack of compassion or consideration and the least Ms Graham-Weaver could do is be honest about it.
December 26th, 2008 at 10:43 pm
“Alan Weiss, president of Summit Consulting Group, said in an e-mail, “Of course the airline should have bent the rules”, in this case Mr Weiss is wrong just as AirTrans is. Staff should follow the rules but in doing so understand that the rules cannot be expected to cover every situation, this is where “common sense” comes into it. The Jacobs’ were not customers who had changed their minds but customers who had just had a death in the family, the AirTrans staff should have looked at the rules and then let common sense take over and issue an instant refund without causing the family any more grief.
It also would have been very cheap word-of-mouth advertising as I’m sure the Jacobs would have been quick to tell friends how helpful the staff at AirTrans were. Happy New Year to all in the US from down under.
December 27th, 2008 at 2:41 pm
Interesting thing is… This occured in May Thru June and it now hits the press in the LA Times. There must not be any Fires, Mudslides, Earthquakes, Roadrage or Paris and her buddies Lohan & Brittney making the news. The Airline abided with it’s ‘Contract of Carriage’. That is what it is supposed to do. For the few of you that can’t get it right, it is ‘AirTran’, not
‘AirTrans’. If you think this Airline has no compassion, just read about what they did for the Families of those lost in the Atlanta Bus crash of a College sports team. Their work with Chris’ Kids in the Atlanta area is worthy as well as many other charities. I feel for the Jacob’s Family in their loss of a Daughter, but IMO, they did what was correct. Not everyone is perfect in this World, although, after reading some of these comments, it would appear some are above and beyond!
December 28th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
People die, planes still fly. Two words for you, “Travel insurance”. Don’t hike up my fair because you were too cheap to buy a regular fare or insurance.
December 30th, 2008 at 3:52 pm
That is similar to the reason I will never use Delta again. The day before we were set to go, my partner got hit by a car, the result being 5 fractures to the pelvis. Delta would not refund either ticket.
A death, however, is quite different.
In either of the above cases, if I were the agent and had the power, there would be no doubt that I would have refunded the tickets.
That’s just me.