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United Mileage Plus
P.O. Box 6120
Rapid City, SD 57709-6120
USA
Premier #xxxxxxxxxxxx
Dear Sir or Madam,
As an examination of this year's records will show, I have done very little traveling with you — to the point where I will no longer be a premier customer next year. I have always felt that a regular customer should let a company know why they have reduced or stopped doing business.
In this case the cause can be traced to a simple acronym:
TSA
The TSA has managed to finish changing something I used to look forward to with joy-filled anticipation — travel — and turn it into not only something of a drudgery (the industry changes in the past 10 years did that, though premier status helped mitigate that a bit) but now something to be actively avoided. At this point I look forward to travel with about the same level of joy and anticipation I would a protracted visit to the dentist. With the deployment of the backscatter scanner and seriously invasive pat-downs my desire to go to other places via air has reached an all-time low.
If the supposed security represented by these activities were real I would probably be more willing to tolerate them but it is quite clear from the analysis that not only is it not helping to keep us safe but is instead actually achieving the terrorists’ aims of spreading fear, uncertainty, and doubt.
In conversations with friends who likewise were heavy travelers it has become clear to me that many of us are avoiding airline travel whenever possible. I have been doing most of my long-distance domestic travel by Amtrak. The one flight I took this year would have been booked on the train but time constraints prevented it.
It is my hope that the carriers, realizing the lost revenue unwilling travelers like me represent, will begin pushing back against the TSA and their security theater. You can get me back in the air by making it pleasant (or at least not actively unpleasant) to travel again.
Sincerely yours,
Lee Damon
P.O. Box 6120
Rapid City, SD 57709-6120
USA
Premier #xxxxxxxxxxxx
Dear Sir or Madam,
As an examination of this year's records will show, I have done very little traveling with you — to the point where I will no longer be a premier customer next year. I have always felt that a regular customer should let a company know why they have reduced or stopped doing business.
In this case the cause can be traced to a simple acronym:
TSA
The TSA has managed to finish changing something I used to look forward to with joy-filled anticipation — travel — and turn it into not only something of a drudgery (the industry changes in the past 10 years did that, though premier status helped mitigate that a bit) but now something to be actively avoided. At this point I look forward to travel with about the same level of joy and anticipation I would a protracted visit to the dentist. With the deployment of the backscatter scanner and seriously invasive pat-downs my desire to go to other places via air has reached an all-time low.
If the supposed security represented by these activities were real I would probably be more willing to tolerate them but it is quite clear from the analysis that not only is it not helping to keep us safe but is instead actually achieving the terrorists’ aims of spreading fear, uncertainty, and doubt.
In conversations with friends who likewise were heavy travelers it has become clear to me that many of us are avoiding airline travel whenever possible. I have been doing most of my long-distance domestic travel by Amtrak. The one flight I took this year would have been booked on the train but time constraints prevented it.
It is my hope that the carriers, realizing the lost revenue unwilling travelers like me represent, will begin pushing back against the TSA and their security theater. You can get me back in the air by making it pleasant (or at least not actively unpleasant) to travel again.
Sincerely yours,
Lee Damon
angry