I was on the receiving end of a broken promise a couple of weeks ago: a cancelled flight. The airline gave me a refund, but nothing for out of pocket expenses or lost time.
They won’t reimburse me me because I didn’t accept their offer of a recovery flight, despite the proposed flight getting to my destination several hours after my return flight would have left.
I don’t mind the cancelled flight as much as I mind the ridiculous reasoning that we would all somehow have been better off if I’d arrived in another country after midnight with no onward flight, no accommodation, and no chance of doing what I went there to do.
This is their chance to make good their promise as a good company – to do the right thing, apologise, and fix something broken.
So far, policy is trumping that promise. It’s depressing, and it’s a reminder to me in my own work that care, doing the right thing, and taking responsibility for my actions, should win out over policy every time.