[dtran]

IMHO, any employee not on the customer service team that reaches out to customers should be awarded not punished, given that it's done somewhat reasonably. In most cases filing a complaint with the customer service people would get you nothing - you need to talk to the ux designer.

[pyre]

Maybe AA's customer service or PR team is unionized, and this was just a CYA maneuver? (I realize that this is a huge stretch, just saying...)