To the editor:
I once had a friend who traveled to a remote location for work and had such a horrible travel experience he said he would never return to that area again. This explains my recent experience with our Presque Isle Airport and United Airlines.
Although I do live in The County, I will gladly drive, walk, or take a bus to Bangor before using Presque Isle Airport with its current choice of airlines again.
On the day of departure I was pleased to see we were able to board at our scheduled departure time. Unfortunately, we then had to sit on the tarmac for an hour in an unheated plane while they de-iced it. The plane was so cold that you could actually see your breath. Needless to say, every individual was freezing. I might add that the outside temperatures that morning was -6 Fahrenheit.
On our return flight, we were delayed for several hours for reasons I am still unsure of in Newark, New Jersey (the only place our airline provider flies to from Presque Isle). We were shuffled around Newark’s airport to 4 different gates before boarding almost 3 hours after our scheduled departure time. What a horrible experience United Airlines provided for their patrons.
So here is my concern, the City of Presque Isle chose to use United Airlines to offer airfare service out of and into Presque Isle. I have heard story after story of similar or worse experiences and I am very concerned that, like my friend who travelled to India and never wanted to return, we are promoting similar opportunities to anyone who visits our location by allowing this type of unacceptable airline service to continue.
Northern Maine has a hard enough time trying to convince people to visit or move to our towns. Unfortunately, I am sure that the many people who have travelled to northern Maine are now back at their homes or places of business promoting or explaining how horrible their experience to northern Maine was. Not because of our people, not because of our location, not because of our opportunities, but because of the experience of their travel.
Presque Isle made a bad decision of airlines and they need to fix it.
Loren Gordon
Caribou
