Understanding the consequences

Last Monday at lunch, the proprietor of one of the busiest restaurants in McCook came out to where I was sitting to congratulate me on my even-handed approach to understanding the airline service we have in McCook and the consequences of such. He told me that I did a masterful job of explaining the dilemmas we sometimes face when dealing with a small airline without putting the blame on anyone except maybe Boutique personnel in Denver. In other words, to paraphrase Jack Webb in the old Dragnet television show, I just presented the facts.

So when I read Dick Trail’s rebuttal to my column in his Tuesday column, I wasn’t surprised because he’s on the Airport Advisory Board and I’m sure he felt like he had to defend their decisions. I was surprised at the personal attack on me since we have always identified ourselves as good friends and fellow columnists when writing about each other in the past. Evidently, that period of détente is over.

I’m going to take the words he used to describe me and rebut them here simply because he attacked me without cause. He started out his diatribe on me by saying that I “printed up a long screed of how bad my experiences have been in riding Boutique.” I differ with his use of the term screed because it wasn’t written with that intention and I’m sure most of the people who read that column didn’t interpret my words as being a “screed” either. I was just stating facts. When you tell someone the truth without editorial comment, that’s a presentation of fact, not opinion. Spending three nights in the Denver airport was not a pleasant experience and I said that. Having your flight canceled at either end is not a pleasant experience and I said that too. Not a screed, just a presentation of fact. Of course, when you can’t do that, you make things up and Dick is an old hand at doing that.

He then went on to say how I “wrote (sic) in great detail” about rejecting Boutique by driving to North Platte. I choose an airline the same way I choose anything else that I pay for and that is value and dependability. When I’m flying someplace, I’m obligated to get there when I said I would be there and United Airlines out of North Platte gives me a better chance of doing that than Boutique out of McCook. Again, that’s not an opinion, it’s a fact. No United flights I’ve been booked on have been canceled, either in Denver or in North Platte.

He also stated that I made “no mention of how happy a vast majority of passengers that have ridden on Boutique are.” I have no way of knowing how happy a “vast majority” are but evidently, Mr. Trail does because he said it and I didn’t.

He also cites that the United flight to Denver is “about three times the fare of what Boutique charges.” That is also wrong, Their flights are close to twice as much as Boutiques are but flying time is 35 minutes rather than an hour and their planes make the flights without cancellation and Boutique sometimes doesn’t.

The thing in his column that grated me the most however was his statement that I “like to travel First Class and drink prodigious amounts of booze” and because of that, I spend the night in North Platte before driving home to McCook, not because of the deer on the highway I mentioned in my column but because I “may feel a bit alcohol-impaired” so choose to drive home the next day.

Dick Trail has never had a drink with me and from his own personal experience, has no idea if I even drink alcoholic beverages or not.

He may have heard it from someone or may have read it but it’s something he has no first-hand knowledge of at all. So to imply that I drink “prodigious” amounts of booze in my travels is nothing more than a made-up sense of what he THINKS I do.

Then close to the end of his column, he writes that Boutique has had a “few” troubles these past few months. When 25% of their flights have been canceled, I would say that’s more than a few troubles. Plus I don’t know how an airport that officially claims that many cancellations can possible by recognized as anyone’s Airport of the Year” unless it’s a case of people with a hand in the airline business who are figuratively sleeping together calling each other complaining that they need a little help from this “troublemaker” in McCook. How else could it be explained?

If my comments about Boutique Airlines prompt the good suits to improve service and significantly decrease cancellations, then I’ve done my job.

When you live in a small town as we do, the temptation is to never criticize anything about it for fear of losing business or giving certain segments a bad name but I learned a long time ago that the way to improve a community is to make positive changes to problem areas rather than sweeping them under the carpet and pretending that they don’t exist.

I hope that’s what we do in the case of our airline. And it’s regretful that Mr. Trail had to take the low road in attacking me rather than admitting that the airline has more than a “few” troubles.

Perhaps the most important thing I got out of his most recent column was to be more careful in the future about calling certain people my friend!