Richard Branson Loves This Hilarious Complaint Letter

Sir Richard Branson loves when flyers pen amusing complaints about airlines. I imagine he likes to snicker at the plight of the coach-class flyer from the comfort of his private submarine. There was, a couple of years ago, the letter about a flyer’s “culinary journey of hell” that had Branson “laughing his head off.” And a few days ago, the billionaire blogged about another tragic (yet entertaining!) tale of economy travel.

Branson titled his post “How to Write a Complaint Letter,” and said that he was “tickled to see another brilliant note to a different airline.”

The lesson here is that if you want anyone in charge to pay attention to you, try to be as clever as possible when composing airline complaint letters. You might want to think about taking a few classes in humorous writing or even hiring a ghostwriter. Schedule trial performances of your comedic monologue at local venues before you submit it to the airline. Sir Richard would appreciate that.

The complaint that got the attention of the founder of Virgin Group is a very sarcastic open letter to LIAT, a small Caribbean airline that has an alliance with Virgin. Here it is, in full:

Dear LIAT,

May I say how considerate it is of you to enable your passengers such an in-depth and thorough tour of the Caribbean.

Most other airlines I have travelled on would simply wish to take me from point A to B in rather a hurry. I was intrigued that we were allowed to stop at not a lowly one or two but a magnificent six airports yesterday. And who wants to fly on the same airplane the entire time? We got to change and refuel every step of the way!

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I particularly enjoyed sampling the security scanners at each and every airport. I find it preposterous that people imagine them all to be the same. And as for being patted down by a variety of islanders, well, I feel as if I’ve been hugged by most of the Caribbean already.

I also found it unique that this was all done on “island time,” because I do like to have time to absorb the atmosphere of the various departure lounges. As for our arrival, well, who wants to have to take a ferry at the end of all that flying anyway? I’m glad the boat was long gone by the time we arrived into Tortola last night—and that all those noisy bars and restaurants were closed.

So thank you, LIAT. I now truly understand why you are “The Caribbean Airline.”

P.S. Keep the bag. I never liked it anyway.

Have you ever written a complaint letter to an airline? Did anyone respond?

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(Photo: Richard Branson via Shutterstock)