Vineyard Gazette
August 13, 2002

STINKO

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

The following letter was sent to Pan Am, Boston-Maine Airways:

You folks started with great public relations here, but your performance was really stinko.

I was glad to read a glowing article in our Vineyard Gazette this spring about the swell, new service to Martha's Vineyard. I persuaded relatives to use this non-stop service from Baltimore and they booked at least one month prior to their scheduled departure, Thursday, July 25.

On Wednesday, you told them that the flight was canceled -- an "operational decision." They arrived at Baltimore Washington International Airport around noon Friday for the rescheduled 1 p.m. flight to the Vineyard, and after numerous delays with no explanations, the flight finally departed, arriving here at 9:30 p.m., or seven hours delayed.

They were good sports and we crammed in a nice visit together in one day, returning to the Martha's Vineyard Airport Sunday, July 28, for the 10:30 a.m. to BWI. We sat around for four hours without explanation before they finally took off.

I mean, that kind of service is unbelievably lousy, and particularly upsetting for folks in their eighties, and I feel terrible because I read the newspaper and urged them to use this new service. Worse is that other friends have now booked with you and we can only keep our fingers crossed.

I can only hope that our fine local newspaper, the Vineyard Gazette, thinks twice before giving major story space to unproven services. I won't even call Pan Am a "fly-by-night operation," because you'd never take off until dawn.

Ross C. Cowan
Vineyard Haven

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