STUDENT WRITING: EVALUATION by MAYUMI KOBAYASHI

Will American Airlines Ever Be Able to Provide a Pleasant Flight?

What is your favorite airline to fly with? I like traveling and have used more than fifteen airlines in my travel experience. My favorite airlines are mostly Asian based, such as Japan Airlines, All Nippon Airways, Singapore Airlines, and Malaysian Airlines. They have a decent quality of service and reliable flight operations. In fact, most Asian airlines rank high in passengers’ reviews. Among the top five World Best Airlines of 2011 presented by SKYTRAX, the world’s largest and reliable airline review site, four were Asian based companies: Singapore Airlines, Asiana Airlines, Cathay Pacific Airways, and Thai Airways International (SKYTRAX). None of the North American based airlines were listed in the ranking. If we evaluate three major criteria: on-board service, flight operation service, and safety, American Airlines is the worst airline among those that I have flown with.

The first impression of the airlines one gets will always come from their on-board service, i.e. quality of service and products served during the flight. Unlike some airlines with highly qualified cabin crews, the quality of the flight attendants on American Airlines is well below average. In my travel experience using American Airlines from Dallas, USA, to Narita, Japan, and Japan Airlines from Los Angeles to Narita, Japan, it was obvious that the staff on Japan Airlines were much more pleasant; enough to provide great comfort on board. While the staff on Japan Airlines kept cleaning bathrooms and picking up trash constantly in order to keep the cabin clean during the flight, American Airlines staff were relaxed and enjoyed talking to each other between the required services, so the cabin was always dirty.

The food on planes is another major factor for passengers. But it was the worst nightmare for me on American Airlines. Besides the inferior quality of the meals, some of them were served frozen, such as frozen sandwiches. Whenever I took this airline, I ended up feeling sick due to my empty stomach during a flight. Additionally, some of the family friendly airlines, such as Cathay Pacific Airways and Emirates Airlines, serve kids’ meals and even provide toys, but not American Airlines. Also, providing little cups with lids and straws for kids’ refreshments on Japan Airlines gave great satisfaction to parents traveling with little kids like I do.

Most passengers complain about the seats. For some people from Asia including me, the seat comfort is not a big concern since we are small compared with western people. Yet since most of the passengers on American Airlines are big Americans with long legs, there is no doubt that American Airlines must receive many complaints about their seats which are relatively small and narrow for western people, especially the leg space. The passengers’ comments from SKYTRAX show poor reviews (“Long haul economy product standards poor” and “Angled-flat long haul Business [C]lass seat offers poor comfort”) (SKYTRAX). Moreover, in the ranking of 2011 on the feeling of comfort and security before and during a flight from the site called Air Valid, American Airlines ranked 76th out of 80 airline companies (Air Valid). It can be assumed from these results that American Airlines has poor evaluations not only in the service on board but also in customer service on flight operations.

Another important factor for passengers is the reliability of flight operations. American Airlines passengers complain about their operational services related to flight cancellation, delay, and mishandling of luggage. One time when my flight arrived late due to bad weather and I missed my connecting flight, I was very disappointed with the ground staff of American Airlines at the Dallas-FortWorth international airport. Although a lot of passengers still waited in the huge lines to change flight tickets late at night, the counter staff kept closing their windows until there was only one person to deal with them. Around one o’clock am, this last employee was also trying to close the window and asked us to move to the end of the line at another counter after waiting for more than four hours. That was only one of the awful experiences that I have had in my traveling. The Wall Street Journal’s Travel Editor, Scott McCartney wrote, “it’s probably predictable that the worst airline for customer service last year [2011] among major carriers was the one that filed for bankruptcy: American Airlines”(McCartney). He also wrote: “Last year, American was worst among major carriers at baggage handling and had the highest percentage of canceled flights”(McCartney). The website of FlightStats, which tracks the number of daily flight cancellations and delays, shows that American Airlines was ranked in third position with 717 in cancellations and 9,062 in delays from March 1st to 30th in 2012. Compared with Alaskan Airlines and Delta Air Lines, which were ranked 1st and 2nd place in the best-performing carriers of 2011, American Airlines have not made any efforts to improve their quality of service. McCartney praised Delta Air Lines: “For Delta, the high ranking represents a remarkable turnaround from last year’s [2010] poor showing. Credit the airline for investing in technology, new baggage systems, retraining for employees and lots other changes to fix its operation”(McCartney). American Airlines, however, does not seem to improve customer services nor safety.

The recent frequent operational incidents that airlines involved in North America have had remind us of the importance of considering the safety of flight operations. Whereas most American carriers place low in the ranking on customer services, they rank high on safety. According to Air Transport Rating Agency (ATRA), American Airlines was one of their top ten safest airlines 2011 (statistic based on data in 2009 since it takes time to evaluate data and release the result to the public) (ATRA). According to an article in The Economist, “These [the ten safest airlines in the world by ATRA] are mainly American and European carriers, which makes the ranking quite different from those focusing on customer service and usually dominated by Asian and Middle Eastern airlines”(A.B.). However, the statistics of the Airlines Safety Table show that American Airlines’ recent one year average of accidents from January 1st, 2010 to January 1st, 2011 is higher than the past five year average from January 1st, 2006 to January 1st, 2011 (AirlineSafetyRecords.com). The statistics categorize three points: accidents per 1,000,000 takeoffs, fatal accidents, and incidents per 1,000,000 takeoffs, which are based on the date from the Federal Aviation Administration, the NTSB, and the U.S. Department of Transportation. They indicate that American Airlines had 5 accidents and 7 incidents in the recent one year average compared with 4 accidents and 4 incidents in the past five year average. From this we can infer that there has been no improvement in safety issues and a lack of sense of crisis within American Airlines.

From the overall evaluations from the passengers’ and my personal reviews as well as several statistics considering customer service before, during, and after flights and safety, American Airlines is not a well qualified airline to fly with. Today, airline companies are struggling to survive in the industry. I believe that the winning companies, like Delta Air Lines, are the ones which accept their deficient customer service and flight operations and constantly make efforts to improve them to benefit their passengers. Hopefully, American Airlines’ bankruptcy will lead this company to improve its quality of customer service and safety so that it can succeed in this severe business competition.


Works Cited
A.B. “Airline Safety: Safe havens”. 31 Aug.2011. The Economist. 30 Mar. 2012.
.
AirlineSafetyRecords.com. “One Year Average from January 1, 2010 to January 1. 2011”. and
“Five Year Average from January 1, 2006 to January 1 2011”. Aug. 2011.
AirlineSafetyRecords.com. 30 Mar. 2012
.
.
Air Valid. “American Airlines Reviews and opinions”. 28 Mar. 2012. Air Valid. 30 Mar. 2012.
.
FlightStats. “FlightStats Global Cancellation and Delay Tracker.” FlightStats. 30 Mar. 2012.
.
McCartney, Scott. “Airline Rankings: Best and Worst for Customer Service in 2011”. 5 Jan.
2012. The Wall Street Journal. 30 Mar. 2012.
.
McCartney, Scott. “The Airline That Loses Bags, Cancels Flights: In Latest Rankings, American
Places Last in Customer Service; Alaska Tops List, Delta Makes a Turnaround”. 5 Jan. 2012. The Wall Street Journal. 30 Mar. 2012.
.
SKYTRAX. “World Airline awards: the most prestigious and coveted awards for the airline
industry”. SKYTRAX. 30 Mar. 2012. < http://www.worldairlineawards.com/>.
SKYTRAX. “American Airlines official 3-Star Ranking of Product and Service Quality”.
SKYTRAX. 30 Mar. 2012. .

STUDENT EVALUATION WRITING by GILBERTO PEREZ

The Mexican White Male Elephant

According to an Asian legend, white elephants are considered sacred because one of them appeared to Buddha’s mother before his birth. For that reason, kings used to have one for good luck. On the other hand, white elephants were so costly to maintain and so difficult to get rid of that the person who owned one frequently went broke. Mexico does not have one white elephant, indeed Mexico has two. The first one was born when the Mexican government decided to privatize TELMEX, the national communication and telephone company. “Fortunately” for Mexicans, it turned out to be a female elephant, because it happened that within a decade she gave birth to a magnificent fat healthy white male elephant, TELCEL, the first cellular telephone company in Mexico. Making Mexicans pay astonishing monthly telephone and cell phone bills, these two monopolies of the communication sector have caused extensive damage to the domestic economy of all Mexicans. The weakness of the Mexican antimonopoly laws allowed annual sales of TELCEL to be higher than the annual IRS collected taxes. The two enterprises have made of its owner the richest man of the world. The outrageous prices, the atrocious customer service, and the bad connectivity are other misfortunes that Mexicans have to deal with.

In my own experience, after several years of religiously paying a two hundred and fifty dollar per month bill for my “unlimited” cell phone plan, I believed that I had access to all services that my cell phone company could offer, even more so because I had the latest Blackberry version. Not so! Destiny had in store for me a very big surprise. When I had to travel out of my country for business, I carried with me my new fancy cell phone. Once there, I didn’t have any trouble keeping in touch with my office and my Mexican customers. After five days, I went back to Mexico, content because thanks to my cell phone, I had kept up with all my tasks such as checking email, chatting with friends, making and answering business calls from Mexico and so on while I was abroad. A week later, I almost fainted when I received my cell phone bill. The amount was exactly five hundred fifty four dollars and seventy four cents! But I almost died when I received another bill for three thousand four hundred and sixty three dollar for mobile internet services. Of course, I would fight tooth and nail to avoid paying such abuse, but I could not imagine yet the magnitude of the battle that I was going to fight.

My first reaction was to call the company immediately. I wanted to take advantage of my rage to beat whoever tried to oppose me. However, after almost twenty minutes of waiting on line, being transferred from one operator to another, and having given my personal data more than five times, I was fresher than a turkey two days before Thanksgiving. When I finally reached the right person to talk to, I had lost my touch, so in frustration I bore the long specifications and explanations that he recited to me about my contract. I felt a cold sweat run down my spine when he nonchalantly told me that if I did not pay those bills quickly, the company would block all the lines linked to my plan. I was helpless and lost before such power. Nobody in the customer service office could help me, so I began a pilgrimage through uncountable offices, locations, and people full of indifference and mistreatment. Finally, after all those struggles, I managed to get a miserable ten percent discount only on the internet services part, and they reluctantly agreed to spread the total amount over twelve monthly payments with no interest. I had to pay, like all my Mexican fellow countrymen always do, if I wanted to be “connected”. And that is a whole other subject.

Even though TELCEL’s connectivity inside Mexico has improved a little bit, every cell phone call that I make, and every cell phone conversation that I receive, is interrupted in the midst of its catharsis due to a failure in TELCEL’s connectivity. Additionally, trying to use a Mexican cell phone service overseas is a nightmare because it is almost impossible to find a TELCEL connection. When I travel abroad, I look with bitterness at the endless list of all those international cell phone company icons scrolling on my cellular device’s display, but never do I see passing on it the icon of my singular “lovely” Mexican cell phone company.

In conclusion, there are millions, if not tens of millions of stories among Mexican cellular users similar to mine. However, all TELCEL clients day by day suffer the burden of paying super expensive rates, receiving pathetical customer service, and dealing with appallingly erratic connectivity. The worst part in this economic ordeal is that there are no signs in sight of any change in this status quo. The laws against monopolies in Mexico are too soft to beat such giants. Consequently, for the moment, I will just continue dreaming of fifty dollar monthly bills for unlimited calls and mobile internet service included.

STUDENT WRITING: AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL by GILBERTO PEREZ

1 Jan 2012
A Piece of Heaven on Earth

“Wake up, you lazy bum!” shouted my friend Julio, a fit six-foot-tall guy with a splendid smile, lover of outdoor sports. I opened my eyes and saw him sitting on his bed, ready to leave. The room felt extremely hot even though it was early morning. The humble hostel we were staying at was a far cry from what its advertisement had claimed. Unbelievably, the beds’ legs rested on little plates filled with water to prevent insects from climbing up. There was no private bathroom, no running water, and no glass in the windows! “Hurry up man!” Julio cried, “Panchito is already waiting outside and you haven’t even prepared your stuff! Come on!” Don Panchito, our guide, was a thin short guy, a classic Mayan type, aged around sixty, but still strong and agile. He was outside loading Julio’s stuff into his old yellow Chevy van. I did not know yet, but I was going to go through the closest encounter with nature of my life.

Our adventure was to consist of some snorkeling and rowing at a cenote, named “Ik-Kil”, close to Chichen-Itza, in the midst of the Mayan jungle of Yucatan. I was in good shape and felt very confident. How hard could this be with a sixty plus-year-old guide?

After 20 minutes of driving on a dirt road, Panchito stopped the van and said, “Well, my friends, the road is done! Let’s walk and stretch our legs a little bit!” When we descended from the vehicle, it was eight am. Without clouds, the sun beat down unmercifully. The humidity was very high, so each movement made me sweat profusely. We were carrying photographic equipment, life savers, fins, visors, snorkels, kayaks, food, and personal items, all inside by no means small back packs. More or less sixty pounds each. The exuberant vegetation appeared close-packed before us, and I had no clue where the walking path started. It seemed as if Tarzan and his apes would jump out at any time.

After enjoying the view, we started our walking. At the beginning, it was nice and easy. The richness of the jungle‘s sounds and the beautiful environment were fantastic. However, our load soon felt heavier and heat overwhelmed us. Without any sign of warning, a swarm of mosquitoes surrounded us and attacked us relentlessly. The suffocating dense vegetation let us see only just a few feet ahead. Little by little our journey turned into an almost insurmountable challenge. Soaking my body utterly, the sweat ran down my legs. A frantic need to scratch my whole body plagued me, made even worse by my inability to do so because my hands were busy carrying equipment and dropping it was not an option. Thus, I stoically bore the burden. Panchito smiled knowingly and whistled, fresh and tireless, so neither of us dared to complain. After two hours of pain, Julio swallowed his pride and asked him with a reedy voice, “Hey Panchito!! Is the cenote still far away?” to which Panchito just answered, “No” and he carried on his annoying whistling. It turned out that we still had to walk for another twenty ever lasting minutes. Nobody talked; there was only the sound of two exhausted middle-aged men’s heavy breathing and our gigantic small friend Panchito´s monotonous whistling.

Suddenly, Panchito pulled apart a mangrove branch, a common jungle bush, and an extraordinary and paradisiacal landscape appeared. In front of us there was a rocky wall covered by deep green climbing plants. Vines hanging from above alternated with many trickles of water dropping onto the cenote’s surface while the sunrays struggled to pass through them in a colorful dance of lights and shadows. It was a completely surrealistic scene. A fresh breeze hit my face giving me some welcome relief from the crushing heat. The cenote’s crystal clear water drew me like a magnet. Without hesitation, I dropped the equipment, got rid of my back pack, and pulled off my shirt. I ran to the edge and jumped into the water with a sonorous big splash.

As my body sank into the water, freshness engulfed me completely. Feeling the water against my skin like fine Chinese silk, I opened my eyes looking deep down through the water. Its hyper transparency revealed a mute symphony of multicolored fish, and a kaleidoscopic variety of aquatic plants and corals. The sensation of no gravity and the three dimensional freedom released me from my own weight. For a moment I viewed myself as a pure spirit, slowly floating in heaven. I was immersed in a silent world, but filled with color and light. I was protected and cherished by nature and I learned that I belonged there. I tried to extend the moment as long as possible, but my lungs yearned for oxygen. I emerged to catch my breath.

Once on the surface, I realized that Julio was also having such a good time that his huge smile couldn’t fit in his face. Panchito looked at us with satisfaction as if he previously had known of the effects that this amazing place had on people. Enjoying the moment and laughing like kids we created uncountable splashes jumping into the water in different ways and from different points. We swam and enjoyed ourselves for more than two hours, losing all sense of time until Panchito, looking at his watch, said it was time to row down river to the camping area. We prepared our kayaks and reluctantly started rowing. As we paddled, a melancholic feeling flooded me. I really did not want to leave. Now I know that I left a part of myself in that enchanted place, but I have also taken it with me. Ever since that day, I have had a piece of heaven in my heart.