June 02, 2014
Monday PM

I wrote this comment into a review online after having tried civilly to deal with Ketchikan-based airline people via telephone. The situation began on May 16th, after our having had a beautiful flower bouquet of roses and sunflowers (the yellows being part of the school colors) hand-delivered to a Ketchikan-based airline company's freight department and told that they would be on the 3:00 p.m. flight to Metlakatla for our high school graduate to have for her walk of promotion. You could imagine our excitement in anticipation of handing my daughter (and granddaughter to the other two ladies involved in this transaction) this floral arrangement, unexpectedly, for her special night.

We called their Metlakatla-based airline office at 3:45 p.m., to be told the plane from Ketchikan was just landing. Having received no call back after this, we tried to call again at 4:05 p.m., only to hear a recording that the location closed at 4:00 p.m. We thought (and prayed) maybe the deliverer might be bogged with orders and waited to give them a chance, but we never heard a word from either office regarding these flowers. "They will bring them", I told my mother. They never came.

The following day, May 17th, I received a call from the deliverer in Metlakatla and I immediately called the Ketchikan company's office. Our graduate's bouquet was not shipped from Ketchikan until the morning of May 16th.

The lady I spoke with had taken my complaint and said she would pass it along and yes, she saw my complaint on their company's page on Facebook. I then received a second call from the same, nice Metlakatla deliverer who said the Ketchikan airline office told him absolutely not to deliver the flowers until the freight of $12 was paid.
I called the Ketchikan company's freight office a second time, only to receive excuses, was told they do not guarantee their deliveries, and demanded the $12 for delivery of "day late" graduation flowers. I said I was going to have to write more on their page and their reply was, "but you already wrote a review." There is a handy little feature called "edit" and "comment" that some people must not be familiar with?

I know the Metlakatla employees were innocent and told them as much.
The following comment was what I posted in reply to my Facebook review, after realizing that one cannot argue with people who don't have business sense or public relation skills, so make it positive to open their eyes to the real people behind what is coming and going through their hands:

I have a better, more positive idea for a comment... I am going to tell you about this young lady who graduated: This 17 year old not only accomplished graduating from high school in only three years (having went straight from a Sophomore to a Senior in high school), she graduated with honors. She got to walk in the special white gown reserved for the Valedictorian and Salutatarian, but was considered first chair (because her grades were so immaculate, but lacked one year to gain the actual seats). I recall her excitedly calling me to announce her 4.0 g.p.a.. So this year, the Metlakatla High School displayed three white gowns of young people who worked hard to wear them.

This young lady has also already enlisted and has been sworn into the United States Army National Guard and ships out to basic training at Fort Sill in Oklahoma three days after graduation. She has already completed several of her weekend drills amid her busy high school academics and extra curricular activities, including a delayed departure of flying to Anchorage for State, straight from a weekend drill in Ketchikan. Her military job is Aeronautical Operations (may have been a good thing for a future possiblility of a company like yours, yeah?).

She is enrolled in the Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, AZ where she will go to attend, only a week after she gets out of boot camp (3 months in basic training).

She received many scholarships the night of May 16, including Embry-Riddle awarding her the "Women in Excellence" award. This University sent her an awesome picture of a plane and their fine university name to put on the top of her graduation, squared cap.

You could imagine the many remarks made by all the speakers during the ceremony, regarding these impressive accomplishments of a young lady who is already a leader and a great representative to other youth in her community.

That being said, there is absolutely no way you could ever ruin what a wonderful and emotionally proud night we all shared with her. And with that, also, maybe you might understand better why we wanted so desperately to put flowers in the arms of this amazing individual. Why it was disappointing not to hand that one thing that could only increase that beautiful smile on her face.

We didn't tell her about the flowers until my mother and I sat with her, after all the guests went home from her reception and gift opening. My mother, mother-in-law, and I bought, hand-delivered into the Ketchikan-based airline freight's hands, and arranged for a plan without fail (we thought) to have her flowers flown in by plane, in light of what she was looking to pursue in her education and in the military.

Instead, this young lady, who also received the Music Festival award of "Outstanding Musician", proudly played her hand trumpet as she exited the stage from her graduation ceremony, loudly playing, "When the Saints Go Marching In"!

And with that! If this company wants their money so desperately, I will pay for this young lady to receive her flowers, but I am sharing this incredible story with the media of how a small Alaskan airlines finds $12 worth of failure to deliver graduation flowers to a future Aeronautical Engineering Student and current United States Soldier, worth their integrity.

I guess I would say I am thankful for the opportunity to bring something beautiful out of an awful situation. The above comment brought tears of pride to this mother's eyes, while writing it and a smile to my heart. My young soldier will succeed with or without the flowers.

Hopefully, a business will learn that $12 is not the cost of integrity.

Received May 21, 2014 - Published June 02, 2014

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