Customers’ Complaints Ballooning
Roger Stadtmueller makes a living taking people up, up and away in his beautiful balloons.
Some furious ex-customers, who never got their rides or money back, accuse the Spokane man of peddling hot air.
“I think the guy’s a shyster,” says Lauri Edwards, a nurse who paid Stadtmueller about $180 for a 1994 birthday balloon ride for her then-boyfriend, attorney Mike Kinkley.
After showing up only to have their flight canceled four times in a two-month period, the couple gave up in disgust and demanded a refund. Stadtmueller stubbornly refused, sticking by the “non-refundable” printed on every American Hot Airlines gift certificate.
“More than anything I was embarrassed,” adds Lauri, a nurse. “I wanted this to be something special.”
The Kinkleys, now married, filed a lawsuit on Oct. 24, seeking their money back plus fees and damages. Mike says the last time he pressed Stadtmueller for a refund, the balloonist responded, “Sue me.”
A dangerous dare to toss a lawyer. Delving into American Hot Airlines, Kinkley discovered his experience was no fluke.
The Better Business Bureau and the state attorney general’s office have received numerous complaints from people who likewise feel stiffed by Stadtmueller.
People like Jack Baldwin and Lesley Miller.
Baldwin, a Spokane resident, bought his wife a 1995 balloon ride to celebrate their wedding anniversary.
He says he showed up 20 minutes prior to his 7 p.m. appointment and Stadtmueller told him he should have come at 6:15 p.m. Fed up, Baldwin left and later was denied a refund.
“It was a rotten deal,” Baldwin says. “The guy’s attitude wasn’t customer-oriented, that’s for sure.”
Miller’s story is positively sad.
She’s a quadriplegic on a limited budget. A single mother, she paid cash for a balloon ride for her daughter’s 10th birthday in 1995.
“We put a blindfold over her eyes,” says Miller. “She was so excited. I wanted her first double-digit birthday to be memorable.”
It was. Miller says the flight was canceled five minutes before liftoff. She rescheduled three more times only to be canceled each time. “It was horrible. My daughter didn’t get a birthday party.”
She asked for a refund and “he basically told me to kiss off.”
Similar complaints are on file in Phoenix, where Stadtmueller has operated his ballooning business during past winter seasons.
Stadtmueller claims his unusual business is no fly-by-night outfit and there are scores of happy customers to prove it. He says he owns five hot air balloons, valued at about $30,000 each.
According to the pilot, cancellations because of bad weather and wind conditions are a regrettable, though unavoidable, part of ballooning.
He stands firm on his no-refunds rule, adding that his customers will get their rides if they are patient.
Stadtmueller was much more cordial to me than when we last spoke.
“I’ll come down there and pound your face in if I don’t like what you write about me,” he growled over the telephone during the summer of 1987.
He was on the hot seat back then for a different problem: a low-flying ballooning incident that caused the death of a quarter horse, and injured another horse and a show dog.
Although never admitting he was the errant pilot who buzzed the South Hill homes and a pasture, Stadtmueller’s insurance paid $5,000 to one horse owner and made a similar payment to another.
“If it was me,” he now says, “it was an accident.”
Here’s an interesting postscript to all this. After I contacted Stadtmueller about this story, he quickly gave the Kinkleys $300 to drop their lawsuit.
I guess you could call that a balloon payment.
Anyone who has had an experience - good or bad - with American Hot Airlines can call me at 459-5432. Leave a message, a name and number or e-mail me at dougc@spokesman.com.
, DataTimes