Alexander walked away from the people speaking in his office and closed the door of a smaller conference room. He had built his first company by finding flaws in systems that everyone else accepted as inevitable. Hearing his mother describe a flaw within an airline he owned, using the same language he used about defective software, made him feel both foolish and responsible. He realized he had spent months reviewing profitability, route expansion, and customer satisfaction scores without asking how those numbers were gathered or who vanished inside the averages.
"What do you want me to do?" he asked.
"Find out exactly what happened. Not only to me. Find out how many people have complained about being treated as if they were in the wrong place when their tickets were valid. Look at who complained, what happened afterward, and who decided the complaint wasn't worth pursuing." Olivia paused to watch a family embrace near the carousel. "Then bring the people who run your company into a room and make them listen."
"Will you be there?"
"Yes. But we are not starting with the announcement that I'm your mother. We are starting with what happened to an ordinary passenger. If that story doesn't trouble them until they hear my name, you'll know exactly how much work is waiting."
Alexander closed his eyes. "All right. I can do that."
"And Alex?"
"Yes, Mom."
"Don't promise me nobody will ever be treated badly again. You cannot promise that. Promise me you won't make it easy for somebody to mistreat a person and then hide behind paperwork."
He spoke more quietly now. "That I can promise."
Olivia gave him the name of her hotel, accepted his offer to send a car rather than argue about transportation, and ended the call. She stood still for another moment before moving toward the exit. The cold Boston air beyond the terminal doors reminded her unexpectedly of the winters she and Samuel had spent walking to work when they could not afford a second vehicle. Those years had not been comfortable, but she remembered them as years in which somebody always made sure the other person arrived home.
At his office downtown, Alexander asked his chief operating officer, Denise Mercer, to gather the flight crew's written reports, the boarding system records, and whatever statements passengers had voluntarily offered. He also requested the airline's policies on seat verification, reassignment, discriminatory conduct, and customer complaints. His first instinct was to demand answers in an hour. Denise, who had worked in airline operations long before Alexander purchased a controlling stake, told him the flight records could be preserved immediately but that a complete investigation would require interviews and a fair opportunity for everyone involved to respond.
"I'm not asking you to convict anyone without hearing them," Alexander said. "I'm asking why a paid reservation was treated like a crime scene."