Dear American Airlines...

Hello,

My name is Chelsea Charlebois. I am sending this fax with regards to the above mentioned reference numbers. My mother, MS. Misses*, had submit the first complaint to American Airlines via email which was responded to by Lisa Fields. I subsequently submitted a second complaint as I was the passenger travelling, also responded to by Lisa Fields. I was unable to express all of my concerns via email therefore  I am sending this fax to inform American Airlines of the details of my return flight home from Bogota, Colombia to Montreal/Ottawa, Canada on March 9th & 10th, 2011. I hope that we can resolve these issues as quickly as possible.

My first flight was to leave Bogota, Colombia at 8:00am on March 9th, 2011. This flight was delayed an hour for reasons that even the captain of the plane had trouble describing, as he said to all of us passengers. There was a mix-up in air traffic control with regards to the altitude in which we were supposed to fly to Miami. For this reason instead of taking off we had to taxi down the runway and clear the runway for the problems to be figured out. As I said this delayed the plane an hour, and even the captain referred to it as perhaps being a result of the language barrier, not weather related.

We arrived in Miami an hour late and by the time I rushed through customs and to get my baggage the American Airlines associate would NOT let me on my connecting flight to Montreal, which was scheduled to depart at 1:35pm. At this time it was just after 1:00pm and they directed me to the re-booking counter. The next flight available was not until 8:35pm, arriving in Montreal around midnight. This was the first in a series of problems that caused distress not only to myself, but to my husband AND 2 small children who were anxiously expecting to see their mother at 5:00pm that day, when my original flight was supposed to arrive in Montreal. Living approximately 2 hours from Montreal, this also caused problems for my family to pick me up at the airport. Bringing 2 children ages 3 & 5 to Montreal late at night and in a snow storm might I add, was not exactly the ideal situation. Our daughter has special needs and finding a last minute babysitter was not likely. At this point I had no choice but to plan to stay in a hotel upon arrival in Montreal as I had no one to pick me up at the airport in the middle of the night.

So I waited in the Miami airport from the time I got through customs (just after 1:00pm) until my next flight... over 7 hours. No American Airlines associate did anything to make that stay less of a hassle... no apology, no offer of vouchers for food... nothing. I would understand if missing my flight was my fault, but clearly it was not. And I was transferring from an AA flight to another AA flight so I wondered why the plane wasn't advised that there was a delayed passenger from an AA flight from Bogota... perhaps that is not your policy. This was NOT my fault and there was nothing done to make up for the inconvenience it was causing.

I waited in the Miami airport for over 7 hours. I boarded my 8:35pm flight to Montreal, which didn't even take off until 10:00pm because there was an issue with someone's baggage. That is ANOTHER delay of 1.5 hours. We finally took off and after only half an hour into the flight we made a complete u-turn and headed back to Miami due to a mechanical problem with the aircraft. At this point my husband was at home tracking my flight progress on various websites and was able to see the status of my flight with only a 6-minute delay. You can imagine the distress it caused him to see that my plane all of a sudden made a complete u-turn, dropped in altitude by 17000 feet and greatly reduced it's speed. It may sound ridiculous but the idea of a hostile take-over or crash most definitely crossed his mind. This was a VERY stressful moment for him. As soon as the aircraft landed again in Miami I phoned my husband and informed him that we u-turned... of course he already knew as he was tracking the flight. Although upset that I was not on my way home he was relieved to know that everything was okay. We were told that there was another aircraft ready to leave at midnight to take us to Montreal. Once we arrived in the gate we were informed that this was not the case and that we would be put up in hotels until the next flight left in the morning.... at 6:00 or 7:40am.

I was quite far back in the line and by the time I got to the re-booking counter it was close to midnight. I asked if I could please change my flight to arrive in Ottawa, which is only 1 hour from where I live, to make it easier for my family to pick me up. This was not a problem as the Ottawa airport was only 94 miles or so from Montreal, so the American Airlines associate gladly gave me a flight leaving from Miami at 10:40am on Thursday March 10th arriving in Chicago, and from Chicago to Ottawa. I was also given a hotel voucher, a dinner voucher and a breakfast voucher. Also included were 2 shuttle vouchers to get me to and from the hotel. I assumed at this point that everything was fine and I relayed that info to my husband and my mother, so that they could stop worrying and try to get some sleep. What wasn't fine however was that I did NOT get my luggage and I was not given any kind of hospitality package, such as a tooth brush or any other essentials I might have needed from my luggage, to replace the fact that my luggage was unavailable to me. Unprofessional.

I managed to finally find the shuttle service that I was to use to get to my hotel, no thanks to the directions given to me by the AA associates. The service, SuperShuttle, was not prepared to accommodate the amount of passengers that American Airlines had provided vouchers to. I must comment that it is not very professional for AA to send their clients to a service that they aren't even sure can accommodate them, as was the case. After waiting an hour for a shuttle all of the other passenger given vouchers to SuperShuttle gave up and took a $30+ taxi, paid out of their own pockets, to their destination hotels. I waited for the shuttle to arrive as I was not prepared to pay $30 for a 10 minute taxi ride. By the time the shuttle arrived and drove me to the hotel it was after 1:00am.

I arrived at the hotel, The Hotel Chateau Bleau at

1111 Ponce de Leon Boulevard, Miami FL, 33134

. The building appeared to be nice. I went into the lobby to get my room. The old man at the counter accepted my voucher and gave me a key card to room #408. He then proceeded to tell me that I was not staying in this building and pointed to a dark building across the parking lot where I would be staying. I didn't think anything of it as I was so tired and just wanted to get some sleep. I walked over to the building and inside. The building smelled horrible. I took the very dated elevator up to the 4th floor and proceeded to my room. I know looks can be deceiving so I didn't think anything of the not-so-nice conditions of the hotel and thought that perhaps the room would be nicer. I opened my door and turned on the light, which immediately sizzled out. NO electricity. The carpet was covered in white chunks of something that looked like plaster, and I couldn't turn on any light or lamp in the room. I went back to the lobby of the main building and asked for a room with electricity. The man didn't seem surprised to hear there wasn't any in room #408 and gave me a key card to room #602. I went back over, up the elevator to the 6th floor. I began looking for my room and even had to turn on lights in the hallway to find it. When I found my room, that had broken pipes above the door, and opened the door I tried to turn on the lights and there was no electricity again. I looked inside one of the lamps and the light bulb was still in the socket but it was smashed off. I didn't need to see anything else to know that these were not acceptable standards for AA to have sent me into. I went back to the lobby again and demanded for a decent room in a building that didn't smell horrible. The man at the desk told me that if I didn't like it I could go find another hotel.... once again not the level of service I would expect AA to expose their clients too. I left.

I stood on the corner of the street in Miami at 2:00am and phoned my husband in tears. I didn't know what else to do. I was in a city I have never visited before, alone, in the middle of the night. My husband was horrified. This coupled with the aircraft's sudden u-turn earlier on took "10 years off [my husband's] life" as he put it. He was afraid of what could happen to me. The street was empty, but luckily a taxi drove by and I flagged it down. In tears I described my situation and the taxi driver offered to drive me to another hotel. The taxi driver waited for me to go in to see if they had a room. They didn't have a room at the Fairfield Inn but the front desk made 2 phone calls and managed to find a room at the Best Western. The taxi diver drove me there, free of charge.

I booked a room at the Best Western at a discounted rate of $179.99 + tax for a total of $203.39USD. The man at the front desk was VERY kind and on a side note, informed me that the Chateau Bleau Hotel used to be a Best Western but 2 years ago lost the franchise because it's standard were not up to par. I found this very interesting, coupled with the fact that on the website for the Chateau Bleau there is absolutely no mention NOR photos of the building they tried to put me up in. I wouldn't be surprised if American Airlines was under the impression that their guests were staying in the main hotel, unaware of the condition of the actual building I was booked into.

The next morning I took the Best Western shuttle at 8:00am to the airport. I went to my gate and waited. I spoke with my mother and she suggested I go speak to an AA associate right away regarding my hotel fiasco. I was already at the gate so I found 2 AA associates to speak to, an operational coordinator by the name of MR. Mister and an associate, girl. I told them what had happened and they were not impressed. They were not impressed with the conditions I described in the hotel, nor with the service I received from the man at the front desk. They took the name of the hotel and assured me it would be looked into. I agreed that American Airlines has a reputation to uphold and by sending clients to this hotel they were most definitely NOT helping their company's reputation. I also asked at this point to be reimbursed for the hotel I paid for. MR. Mister assured me that this was NOT a problem at all but that he could not do it at the gate. He printed out a paper with the details on it and told me to submit it to an AA associate when I arrived in Ottawa. I would then be reimbursed in Ottawa and Ottawa would in-turn request to be reimbursed by Miami. MR. Mister also gave me the address to his Managing Director: MR. Boss, American Airlines Inc., Miami International Airport,

P.O. Box 997990

, AMF, Miami, Florida, 33299-7990. He suggested I forward him a letter describing my experience so that there would be a definite investigation into the conditions of the Chateau Bleau Hotel. Let me mention at this point that the man at the Chateau Bleau Hotel kept my voucher, so he is being paid for my stay regardless of the fact that I did NOT stay there. This too should be looked into.

My flights to Chicago and then to Ottawa were fine and when I arrived in Ottawa, MUCH to my surprise, my bags had arrived too. I was very happy about this as I was informed that there was a pretty good chance that my bags stayed on the original flight to Montreal. Someone did their job well that morning in making sure my bags got re-ticketed to my Chicago-Ottawa flights. Bravo. However, much to my dismay there were NO American Airlines associates to complete my re-imbursement. I was told by a company that represents AA that they would not reimburse me for my hotel stay, as MR. Mister had described. I was not happy about this but was tired of waiting around in the airport and wanted to see my family who were anxiously waiting for me outside the gate. I decided that I would deal with the issue of reimbursement for the hotel and compensation for the distress I and my family experienced as a result of all of this, once I got home.

My husband has described to me that he has never been more stressed about the safety of his wife in the 8 years we have been together. I too have experienced great distress over the events of the past 2 days. I was supposed to arrive in Montreal at 5:00pm on Wednesday, March 9th 2011 but instead was jerked all over the place only to arrive home over 24 hours later. My safety was compromised not only by the sub-par conditions of the hotel, but also as a result of the horrible customer service I received from that hotel. They were obviously NOT concerned about my safety when he suggested I go find another hotel at 2:00am, knowing that I was a stranded passenger and client of American Airlines. Although it is not your fault that this hotel was horrible, ultimately the responsibility lies in your company's hands for having put me, your client, in that situation, among others:

-Not offering apology or assistance in the fact that my original mis-connected flight, through no fault of my own, caused me to be delayed in the Miami airport for over 7 hours.

-Not offering any kind of essentials I might need as a result of not having access to my luggage for an overnight stay

-Not offering appropriate service in the sense that the shuttle I was given a voucher for was not able to accommodate me, nor other passengers, in a timely manner (over 1.5 hour wait)

-Not verifying the standards of the hotel or service being offered at the hotel to which you booked me into, thus risking my personal safety.

-Causing overall and undue stress to myself, my husband, my mother and my children for not understanding completely why their mother was not coming home as scheduled.

I am aware that my mother has filed a complaint, and this is my written statement and consent to begin to rectify this situation. I hope that we can figure this out in a timely manner, as I would very much like to put this experience behind me. I find it very unfortunate that a company of your stature was involved in such horrible events, and I am hopeful that we can come to an agreement with regards to some form of compensation for such events.

I kindly request a timely reply to this matter, and can easily supply the paperwork via email or fax that was printed for me by MR. Mister at the Miami airport, along with the receipt from the Best Western hotel. Please advise if this letter can be forwarded by you on my behalf to Managing Director MR. Boss, CC'd to MR. Mister, or if I should mail a letter. I do expect to receive confirmation that MR. Boss is aware of the situation and I would like to be informed of the results of any inquiries into the Chateau Bleau Hotel.

Thank you for taking the time to read my statement and I look forward to hearing from you.

Respectfully,

Chelsea Charlebois

*names have been replaced for confidentiality.

Remembering Bad News Brown

While I was in Colombia we went to an amazing Sunday flea market. As I walked through the rows and rows of artists & vendors I came across a really great harmonica player. I stopped to listen to & watch him play because anything harmonica reminds me of Paul Frappier, Bad News Brown, and with his tragic death still fresh in my heart it was even more special for me to just take a minute to listen, appreciate & remember. I took some photos and continued on my day.

This past weekend Paul's mother was visiting with my mother in Colombia and my mom shared this story with me. 

Together they went to the very same Sunday flea market and they too came upon the very same harmonica player. Of course they stopped. I never spoke to the musician but Paul's mother took out her phone and showed the harmonica player photos of her son... of course he knew exactly who it was. "Ah... Bad News Brown!" What a beautiful moment. Paul's death was news to this fellow harmonica player. He played him a tribute.

Throughout this tragedy the out-pouring of emotion, support, strength, love & memories that have come out of Montreal and the thousands of friends & fans Paul has, has been incredible to say the least. You never stop to think about the people Bad News Brown reached with his music across the globe until the chance comes along for you to be in a flea market in Colombia, South America, and have a fellow harmonica player know exactly who Bad News is. I just thought that was an incredible moment and even thought I wasn't there to be a part of it I still feel it's power.


To Bad News Brown...