Lufthansa, a German airline, is offering a free round trip on them to Gray Powell, the Apple software engineer that lost the iPhone 4.0 Prototype.
The airline’s director of marketing and customer relations has written an open letter to Powell, dated April 21 and posted on the Internet.
“I recently read in the news that you lost a very special phone at a German beer bar in California. We all know how frustrating it can be to lose personal belongings … at Lufthansa we also noted with great interest your passion for German beer and culture. We would like to offer you complimentary Business Class transportation to Munich where you can literally pick up where you left off.”
The letter was attached to a tweet posted on the airline’s Twitter page Thursday. It said, “If you can help us get in touch with Gray Powell, we’d like to fly him to Munich.”
There is no word on if Powell has accepted the offer or not.
I have seen a lot of posts and comments praising Lufthansa for doing this. I disagree. The only reason they are doing this is for publicity. This is a great marketing stunt, but that is all it is, a marketing stunt. Giving away a free round trip airline ticket is nothing for an airline. Using this guy’s misfortune, they now have their name in articles on major news sites as well as tech news sites.
If this airline really felt sorry for the guy and wanted to do something nice, they would have sent Powell the ticket anonymously. Next, will we see German Beer companies sending Powell kegs of their product? I hope Powell takes the trip, he needs to get away. Let’s just hope he doesn’t take any prototype devices drinking with him this time.
