Why You Should Think Before Hitting "Send"

In a blog entry I wrote a few weeks back, I was discussing the airlines and their desperation to pay their bills due to bankruptcy, 9/11, etc. (using our money). But here's to another (and in my opinion, much worse) airline blunder -- this time involving senior leadership and Spirit Airlines' customer service.

So here's the scoop...

Disgruntled Spirit Airlines customers Christy and James from Orlando, FL sent CEO Ben Baldanza (along with other Spirit leadership) an e-mail complaint about their experiences flying the airline. Whether they were right or wrong, most companies live by the "customer is always right" motto (even if it is annoying...).

So fine. Baldanza should have just let it go, pleased the customers and moved on with his day. And maybe he intended for that to happen in the long run, but that's not what happened, unfortunately, because of bad e-mail etiquette (and arrogance).

Here's where the situation goes south... quick... all with the click of a mouse.... When Baldanza typed his arrogant message asking one of his colleagues to respond to Christy and James, he accidentally hit "reply all". Unfortunately, he included Christy and James in his response! Oops!
View customer's original e-mail with Baldanza's response here...

If you don't feel like clicking through, here is Baldanza's snarly response:

From: Ben Baldanza [mailto:Ben.Baldanza@SpiritAir.com]
Sent: Monday, August 20, 2007 1:02 PMTo: (removed by alex), Christy; Martin (removed by alex); Tony (removed by alex); John (removed by alex); Pasquale (removed by alex)
Subject: Re: Complaint
----------------------------------------------------
Please respond, Pasquale, but we owe him nothing as far as I'm concerned. Let him tell the world how bad we are. He's never flown us before anyway and will be back when we save him a penny.

Just another arrogant CEO in my book. However, an arrogant CEO who made a BAD mistake, causing damage to his credibility and company image. Throw into the mix the fact that e-mail spreads faster than the California wildfires.... and Spirit Airlines has some explaining to do.

Doh!