AirTran

AirTran is by far the worst airline I've ever had to deal with. Here's a copy of the letter I sent them, for your viewing pleasure. It tells the story of what I had to deal with a couple days ago, so I don't have to explain on here.

I am writing to file a complain about my recent experience with AirTran. Being a college student, I am a frequent user of the AirTran U standby program. On January 4th, I went to the Pittsburgh airport at about 8:00 am to fly standby on a flight at 10:38am from Pittsburgh to Atlanta. Being a frequent flyer, I checked just before I left for the airport and saw that the flight had eight available seats. The check-in agent was very friendly and attempted to check us in for the standby program. When he realized it was not working, he got in touch with his manager, who informed him that the AirTran U program does not exist anymore. We politely told the employee that the website had not changed recently, and I could still link to the separate AirTran U website from the main AirTran.com page. Afterwards, I attempted to call 1-800-AirTran about four or five times; each time, the automated call system hung up on me. 

I informed the agent about my difficulties and asked if I could speak to his manager. However, he could not get in touch with the manager and asked us to wait for a little while. After about 45 minutes of waiting, the manager, Bryan Sharky, finally showed up. Mr. Sharky treated us with utter disrespect and contempt. His only words were "The AirTran U program is over," and he turned away dismissively. While it says on the website that the last day to fly is December 15 2008, it says nothing about the state of the program in 2009 and beyond. Also, from the AirTran U website, one can click on a link that says "Destinations" for a map of cities that AirTran services. Directly under the map, it says "Effective March 7, 2009. Routes and schedules are subject to change without notice." This makes it seem like the Air Tran U program will still be available in 2009.

I showed the website to Mr. Sharky and told him about the ambiguity of it, but he told us that there was nothing he could do. He could not even give us a discounted fare to make up for our troubles. Also, he blatantly lied to our faces by saying all of AirTran's flights to Atlanta were overbooked for the day. Apparently, we had no chance of getting on a flight that day, even though the employee told us just a short time before that there were plenty of seats on the 10:38 flight. Either Mr. Sharky was completely misinformed, which is inexcusable for the general manager, or he lied to our faces. Shortly afterwards, Mr. Sharky tried to sell us tickets on a later flight to Atlanta for an exorbitant amount of money, although just seconds before, he claimed that every flight was overbooked. Needless to say, I booked a flight with another airline that offered a much more reasonable price than AirTran.

I have dealt with AirTran many times before and had decent experiences. Mr. Sharky showed us that your company has some extremely rude and contemptuous employees. I was extremely frustrated with the whole experience, and the terrible customer service deeply disturbed me and caused a great deal of unnecessary stress. If the AirTran U program really no longer exists, please make it more clear to your customers on the website. I would recommend some large print across the front page that says "AirTran U Program is no longer available." Also, please remove it from the list of programs which is accessible from the main AirTran site. It would have saved me a great deal of time and money if you had done this a long time ago, since my entire trip was planned on the basis of AirTran U. Thank you for your time, and I really hope that this type of experience never happens again to me or any other traveler.

Food

It amazes me how much my outlook on food has changed throughout the years. Years ago, I would consume meat (except pork) at every opportunity. I loved getting a huge steak and baked potato at Outback and devouring all of it. Nowadays, I can honestly say that I don't even crave beef or steak anymore. It's funny how I used to tease my sister for being a vegetarian and an environmentalist, and while I would definitely consider myself the latter now, I can see myself getting closer and closer to the former. Maybe the two go hand in hand--while my first instinct is to admit that environmentalism and vegetarianism (even veganism) are directly related, I realize that it is debatable and can depend on a variety of scenarios.

Nowadays I find myself eating vegetarian whenever possible. I realize that my days as a consumer of the products from an unsustainable factory farm system are numbered, but I find it very difficult to stop immediately. A gradual decline seems like a much better option for me. Why have my views on meat and vegetarianism changed so much? Perhaps the answer can be found in the modern factory farm system. The deplorable conditions for animals in these factory farms, along with their enormous usage of almost all natural resources, plus the overall inefficiency of eating meat (think of all the water, grains, corn, grazing land etc. required to feed millions of cows), in addition to the harsh environmental impact, generally turn me off from basic supermarket or restaurant-found meat.

All that aside, would I not be turned away from the meat industry so much if it were more ethical and earth-friendly? I guess the industry can only be ethical to a certain extent, then your own judgment comes into play. After all, they are in the business of killing animals. Lets say the world totally did away with the whole factory farm system. All farm animals are sustainably farm-raised, fed organic and natural vegetarian food, killed "humanely", and only sold locally to minimize transportation. This type of meat exists to a certain extent, but is much more expensive than your average Tyson chicken or Bubba burgers found at a grocery store. Also, if all meat was sold this way, Americans would have to drastically cut down on their meat consumption, because the supply would be nowhere near the current demand for meat. In a country with meat so deeply rooted in the culture, and expectations for cheap meat in the local supermarket, would the average American be willing to pay extra for sustainably raised meat?


There's no easy way for such a utopian meat industry to be created, especially with so many big businesses being almost completely reliant on cheap meat (McDonalds anyone? Even one of my favorites, Taco Bell). Something so huge would have to start not with businesses, but with people. This is why I think twice nowadays before eating meat. This is why I support vegetarians, vegans, and environmentalists so much. Since looking at the negative effects of the industialized factory farm system had such a huge impact on my views of food, I believe it may have a similar effect on lots of other people. However, one of the most difficult subjects to talk to people about is their food choices.

I've noticed that when people ask a lot of vegetarians exactly why they decided to become a vegetarian, they tend to brush the question aside and give kind of a general answer. I have experienced the same trouble when some people ask me why I decided to stop eating beef. No one wants to be in an argument about their food choices; personally, I tend to get uncomfortable when someone else criticizes my choice of what I will or will not eat. Sometimes it's difficult to explain your motives, whether they are environmental or moral, to another person without sounding preachy or snobby. The last thing that I want is for someone to feel like I am telling him what he can or cannot eat, and his food choices directly lead to him being an ethical/unethical person. This is probably the main reason that when someone asks me a question like that, I'm somewhat hesitant to tell him or her the real reason behind my choice.

My lack of willingness to explain myself is something that I need to work on as long as I believe that industrialized factory farming is unethical and unsustainable for the world that we live in. One day I hope to wean myself off of it completely, but when that day comes, I will probably cut my losses and pay more for sustainably raised, locally farmed poultry. Maybe in the long run it actually won't be as expensive because of my newfound appreciation for vegetarian meals.

On a different note, happy birthday Dad! And happy one year to Lisa :)

First Post

Hello everyone, and welcome to my Blog.

This is an experiment, and depending on how successful it is, we'll see if I continue posting on this thing. First things first, I'm going to lay out some basic rules.

1. I will not update you on the boring and mundane aspects of my life. It's not going to be play-by-play commentary of the life of Sinan, such as "today i woke up and then i brushed my teeth and then i put on my favorite jeans and then i walked to class and then i fell asleep.." etc. You may be wondering what exactly I'm going to write about, because if you know me decently well, you know that my life isn't the most exciting and eventful thing ever. Read on...

2. A lot of random and interesting things pop into my head during the day. Some people say I live in my own little world, and I sometimes feel very disconnected from outside occurrences. Most of the time I'm just aimlessly spacing out, but sometimes--believe it or not--my brain is actually functioning and I'm thinking about all kinds of bizarre things.

3. I'm not going to consistently post articles that I found from some random news source and talk about it. A few days ago, someone begrudgingly asked me if that was the intent of my future blog. No. I may post an article if I think it is exceptionally interesting and that the majority of people need to know about it, but for the most part, it's not going to happen.

4. I will express my strong and earnest opinion about a variety of subjects. You may disagree with me, and I always love hearing other people's opinions. As a reader, your duty is to post a comment (it doesn't always have to be meaningful) to let me know what you think. I get very worked up about some topics that I feel strongly about. However, I am always willing to discuss things and respect everyone's point of view.

4. If you don't like this blog, don't read it.

6. I can number my rules however I want.

7. If I travel anywhere out of the ordinary, like Europe, India, Turkey, or Alabama, I will be sure to talk about it and put some pictures on here.