United Airlines: We treat you like a king! Rodney King.

I recently wrote about my experience with United Airlines. Without going into detail, I bought and paid for a roundtrip ticket, had a boarding pass with a seat assignment, but then United changed equipment and I lost my seat. I wrote the article as a cautionary tale to those who think having a boarding pass means you are entitled to that seat. It doesn't.

A lot of people responded positively my article. I also got a response from someone at United, a Rudy Horn, A Senior Country Manager. Rather than address the issue, he chose to call me a stalker - even though I never reached out to anyone at United. No one. Here's what Rudy said:

Stalking? Well, Rudy, we have this thing called the 1st Amendment. What I did is called freedom of speech.

As for unprofessional, what's interesting is that everything that happened to me was unprofessional: I was denied a seat on a flight I paid for, I was told I would get a refund and then my refund was denied (after putting up a stink I got it), and all along the way, I never lost my cool.

Then he ends with the woe is me, "it seems we cannot do anything right can we?" No Rudy, not if you don't do anything. You actually have to do something. That's how it works. Doing nothing is nothing. And you're a Senior Manager of something? All you seem to manage to do is throw it back on the customer.

But this is what United does. Rather than you talking about what happened to me, offering an explanation, any explanation, trying to address the problem that the airlines created, you make me out to be the bad guy. I'm stalking, I'm unprofessional...NICE DEFLECTION.

Coincidently, today I got an email about my "complaint," even though I never complained formally (I had my office manager call and demand the refund the ticket agent promised me). Here's that email:

I never received a call from United. You'll also note no specifics, nothing addressing the situation; an obvious form reply.

Customer Care. Wow, talk about an oxymoron.

The only thing united about United Airlines seems to be that no one there takes any level of responsibility, no one actually addresses problems, no one cares about the customer.

Those "friendly skies." Right.

PS. I'd say "Fly the friendly skies," but you need to get that seat you paid for first.