Greyhound Posts Open Letter To Alec Baldwin Asking Him To Ride With Them Before Criticizing

That silly Alec Baldwin, alienating transportation companies left and right! First he got kicked off an American Airlines flight for refusing to turn off his phone; now he’s brought Greyhound into the mess. In a column for HuffPo this week, he complained about the “post-9/11 paramilitary bearing” of plane travel and power-tripping flight attendants: But there are many now who walk the aisles of an airplane with a whistle around their neck and a clipboard in their hands and they have made flying a Greyhound bus experience.

Now Greyhound’s President and CEO Dave Leach has issued an open letter to the 30 Rock actor, taking exception at the “shitty travel” stereotype the bus company has been lumped under:

I’m the first to admit that Greyhound has had some challenges in the past, so I understand that you probably were basing your comments on that alone. But we’ve made so many changes in recent years to significantly improve the travel experience. My guess is you’ve never traveled with us, but I ask you to give us a try for a number of reasons and see for yourself that we’re really a great way to travel.

[Re: the new buses' free wifi:] I think you especially would find the latter two amenities exciting, because we don’t require our customers to turn off their electronic devices… ever. You could therefore play “Words With Friends” during your entire trip and nobody would give you any grief over it.

I almost didn’t write up this post until I saw that Leach had included the Words with Friends dig, and then I knew I had to. He also invites Baldwin to meet him in New York City (probably at Port Authority) and take a fun, four-hour ride to Boston. Personally, I’d suggest Baldwin take the Greyhound off-shoot Bolt Bus; though Greyhound has definitely improved since I started taking it to Boston in 2008, Bolt is still the best the company has to offer.

So hopefully this’ll teach Alec Baldwin to lay off on criticizing big brands for a little while, til this all blows over.

P.S. He hasn’t come back to Twitter yet.

You can reach this post's author, Natalie Zutter, on twitter or via e-mail at natalie@crushable.com.