Many years ago I granted the F/D jumpseat of a full F27 to a passenger who was desperate to get out of Aberdeen (!) and down to Teesside. The weather was fairly grim so he had a ringside seat at a radar-vectored, hand flown ILS down to minimums. He was quite effusive in his gratitude as he disembarked; we loaded the next lot of pax and departed to NWI thinking no more about it.
Some weeks later I received via Head Office, a very nice letter from said gentleman addressed to me personally and thanking me for the privilege of the jumpseat and what was, for him, an amazing experience. The letter went to offer me and a companion, as a 'thank you', a weekend stay at one of the hotels in the chain of which he was MD and invited me to contact his secretary to arrange. The idea of a weekend away appealed so rang the secretary as suggested. Whilst speaking to her she mentioned that the Company 'was very protective of your privacy, it was very difficult for me to get your name out of them. They were most reluctant to tell me!' In the end it seems they did give up my name but insisted she write to me c/o the company. *
An opposite experience was the copy letter forwarded to me by the Company from an irate passenger who was very displeased with the completely full flight he took from GCI to STN one hot summer afternoon. As I recall the aircraft this day was the only -100 series F27 in the fleet and which had load vs fuel problems, a consequence of which was the need to leave many bags behind to be conveyed to STN later. The lack of his bags on arrival probably prompted him to write to the company but he was already in a bad mood as he, as a self-declared 'expert' had berated me after deplaning (I was already out speaking with an engineer) for what he considered to be a very bumpy landing! I was having none of this (it had been the F/O's sector) and it had been a perfectly acceptable landing for an F27, and I didn't mince my words in telling him so.
I spelled all this out in my response to the Co department which dealt with these matters so I assume the complaining gentleman got a soothing reply from them together with the hope that he would fly with us again.
* Spent a pleasant w/e in a very grand Lake District hotel.
Last edited by olympus; 20th Jan 2019 at 13:38.
Reason: Added coda