Following yesterday’s blog about our nightmare journey on Jet2 from Toulouse to Edinburgh via Nice, I made an amazing discovery… Jet2, it seems, employ internet spies. People who trawl the net looking for critical comments about their precious company and then striking back with self-righteous indignation – as well as slagging off the competition.

I linked to my blog from my Facebook fan page, which automatically posts it to Twitter.

And all afternoon, while trying to catch up on lost sleep, my iPad get chiming alerts from incoming tweets.

This was the tirade that awaited me when I finally gave up on trying to sleep and looked to see who was making so much noise (broken up, of course into tweet-sized chunks). It was from someone called “Cabinflyer30”. No giveaway there, then…

“Your blog made me chuckle (oh yeah?). Jet2 always push to get their passengers to their destinations. Whatever obstacles are put in their way. Even a strike out of their control. Many airlines would simply cancel and strand you until the next available flight becomes available. They don’t have the facility for free drinks on board. There isn’t enough to go round everyone on the plane. Also, if you take no hold bags, let them choose your seat and pay by electron, the first price you see is the price you pay. All the other add ons are variable depending on what you select. One day you will experience a real ordeal when your flight gets cancelled by the likes of Ryanair.”

Wow! This company doesn’t like criticism, and comes chasing you down if you dare to take their name in vain. I replied, as follows, in more tweet-sized chunks:

“Who the hell has electron? And when I fly with my partner I want to sit beside her. They didn’t even carry their advertised refreshments, or make any allowance for the extra hours. Information was non-existent. Yesterday I did experience a real ordeal at the hands of an airline that doesn’t give a damn about customer care. Let them give me an honest price and if I don’t want a bag in the hold deduct it from the total. Just a little honesty, please. And I wonder who pays your wages!”

Back came Cabinflyer30:

“I wonder. LOL! I really care about my job. And believe me, they really do care about the customer. The easy option if they didn’t care would be to cancel the flight. What products didn’t they have available? Sandwiches? If so, these can sell out. There is only so much space in the chiller for these. With bags… all the competitors charge for bags. If they were included the base price would be higher than the competition. When you choose free online check-in, system gives you adjacent seats free of charge.”

I was getting tired of the vacuous stream of PR tat by then and replied, simply: “Give me a break!”

But Cabinflyer30 wouldn’t let it go:

“Give me a break, too. LOL. (Note the use of the light-hearted LOL to create the false impression of friendly banter.) The amount of planning just to get you to Nice requires an outrageous amount of extra planning and effort as well as money. Airlines are very complex businesses and sometime things don’t go to plan.”

Well, you know, despite the fact that the airline gave no warning or information (although knowing of the situation days in advance); despite the fact that they failed to stock up on food for passengers who were going to miss meals and be stuck on an aircraft for hours; despite failing to even offer water to thirsty and irritable customers; and even despite their deliberately misleading pricing system and confusing website, I wanted to give them due credit, even although it seems to me that the business of an airline is to carry passengers from A to B. So I conceded…

“Credit where it’s due. They did get us to our destination. But a little thoughtfulness might have taken the pain out of it. And I won’t fly with you again for reasons aforementioned.”

But, of course, I knew that Cabinflyer30 would want the last word, and I wasn’t wrong. Back came Jet2’s defender:

“Ok, fair enough. Maybe cancelling may have been better for you? Such a shame.”

So who, I wondered, was Cabinflyer30, exactly. No information given on the profile. However, here are some telling stats. Cabinflyer30 follows 31 people and has 12 followers. He/she/it has made a total of 222 tweets – most of them to me, it seems!

Honestly, how pathetic is that?