On 30 January 2003 I was stranded at Stansted airport when my easyJet flight to Munich failed to take off because of a raging blizzard. What happened next was farcical - the easyJet representatives disappeared from the departure lounge and shut the desks, it took from 8 at night to nearly 4 in the morning to get my baggage back.

• 5 February 2003 I wrote a letter of complaint to easyJet's CEO Ray Webster. I also applied online for a refund.
• 25 March, having heard nothing, I wrote a second letter...
• 4 April, because of my online application, I received email notification of a refund.
• Out of the blue, in June, a letter of apology from easyJet customer support. Much non-specific humble-pie-eating, no evidence of any real attempt to get to the bottom of what happened, and certainly no spontaneous gestures of goodwill in the form of compensation. And hey, it only took 4 months, 2 letters and 1 website to squeeze it out of easyJet. A real no-frills apology from a no-frills airline.

Mr Webster... tell your customers what happens if their flight is cancelled, and train your staff in how to deal with customers when things go wrong!

4. Finally, a reply!

Well finally, I got a response to my easyJet complaint letter.

easyJet plc easyLand London Luton Airport LU2 9LS Tel: +44 (0)870 6 000 000 Fax: +44 (0)1582 443355 08 June 2003 C/EJ/393/401/JM Dear Mr Liebreich, Thank you for your letter regarding the poor service you received at Stansted Airport on 30 January 2003. Please accept our apologies for the delay in responding to you. This is due to the high volumes of work we are receiving. In the name pf the all team [sic], we would like to offer our sincere apologies for the inconvenience caused by the lack of service provided by members of our staffs [sic]. We were very concerned to hear about your experience since it does not represent the standards of service you rightly expect from our agents. easyJet takes all of its feedback very seriously, especially when it relates to the quality of our services. We strive for the best possible service at all times. I have sent a copy of your letter to the Passenger Service Manager who is responsible for the training and monitoring of agents. Who [sic] then will identify what needs to be done to avoid a similar situation occurring in the future and implement retraining and disciplinary procedures. Our agents should give their name on request and make their name badge visible to everyone. Therefore, such behaviour is inadmissible from our point of view. We appreciate you bringing the matter to our attention. Your comments are important to us and have been entered into our incident review database to help us achieve our goal of providing easyJet customers with the best possible service for the lowest possible fare. We hope that this incident will not deter you from flying easyJet on another occasion. Yours sincerely, Jeanne Mputu Customer support

Back to my original complaint letter.