I'm really enjoying all these complainy emails I've been writing lately.

Hi,

The movie "The Ultimate Gift" was screened on a flight that I recently took with United. It was one of the worst movies I've ever seen. Now, I know that this isn't a HUGE problem; but the film was just so awful that it actually left me feeling unhappy and exasperated by the end of the flight. And obviously, leaving customers feeling unhappy and exasperated is a bad thing.

I know it's not your fault that the movie was saccharine and meandering and senseless. But for the sake of my fellow travelers -- and for my own sanity, in the event that I can bring myself to fly United again -- I hope I can persuade you to drop "The Ultimate Gift" from your list of in-flight movies.

Aside from that, the flight was great.

Thanks,

Matt

Irritatingly, if I'd been on a different flight, I could have watched Ratatouille or Stardust.

Update! I wrote the same email to American Airlines (with whom I also flew), and they tried to respond. Sadly, the copy-pasted form-email that they sent me doesn't actually address my complaint. It seems as though they don't have a pre-written response for "sorry that movie sucked," so they decided to go with the closest thing, "sorry that movie had a lot of swears."

Thank you for taking the time to share your comments with us regarding the movie shown on your flight from San Francisco to Chicago O'Hare on December 22.

We take the issue of inflight movie content very seriously. We require the movie studios to edit movies to remove inappropriate scenes and language to make them acceptable for general viewing before we will agree to show them. In fact, our edit standards are more stringent than those used by the television networks when they edit movies for television audiences.

Nevertheless, there may be an occasional movie that is objectionable to some customers and I have shared your perspective with our Managing Director of Inflight Products.

Mr. Baume, we hope to have the chance to welcome you aboard again soon. It is a privilege to have you as our customer.

Sincerely,

Elizabeth Guajardo
Customer Relations
American Airlines