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I'm a very frequent flyer. I say this with no particular point or boasting, but to give context to what I'm about to share with you. I'm guessing I'm in the top 3 percent of frequent flyers in the country.

While customer service has declined across the board in recent years, one airline in particular has totally lost its way. I don't want to call it out, but this airline used to market itself as "The Friendly Skies." The skies may be friendly, but their service on the ground more resembles Nurse Ratched in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest."

My family had a particularly upsetting experience during the holiday travel season one year ago, which I documented in a letter to the president and CEO of the airline. To this day, I've yet to hear back from said president.

Allow me to share a condensed version of the letter. Welcome to my world.

In early November 2007, I purchased four tickets to get my family to the annual Watts Christmas party, a tradition since 1981. We made it to the airport two hours early on travel day and proceeded to have the worst travel experience of our lives.

I guess red flags should have gone up when I could not get a boarding pass online. The airline Web site directed me to the ticket counter at Dulles International Airport. At the counter, we were told we would get assigned seats at the gate.

We got to the gate well before departure. Within minutes of departure an announcement was made that our flight was oversold, and they requested volunteers to give up their seats. We had no interest in volunteering. We were paid customers. Our tickets were reserved, paid for and secured weeks in advance. Not a problem, right? Wrong!

We were singled out, as we did not have assigned seats, and told nothing could be done other than give us free travel vouchers because the flight was oversold. (Forget the fact we had booked our flights weeks in advance.)

We went home on that evening terribly disappointed, hoping no one else would ever have that kind of experience. It's difficult to put in words my family's hurt upon learning we would not be in attendance at the annual family Christmas party.

The airline asked us to come back the next day and offered four seats on the same flight. I refused to leave until we had seat assignments in hand. I could only conclude someone else was getting shafted, and would repeat my unhappy experience the next day. I believe and feel what the airline did to my family was arbitrary, discretionary and prejudiced.

We made it to Oklahoma the next day. On the return trip, the same scenario started, at which point red flags did go up. I shared my previous nightmare with the agent. This sweet lady assured me it would not happen again on her watch.

She then told us the airline's dirty little secret. It seems when booking flights online, the traveler is given an option of a $40 upgrade. "Usually, if you don't take the upgrade," she said, "you get put on a list and can get bumped."

This is brutally wrong. My family was treated like third-class citizens because we hadn't paid an additional $160.00. Considering we reserved and paid for our seats weeks in advance, why should we have to pay a fee once we get to the airport to board the plane? I will never again book a flight with the same confidence and innocence I did prior to this experience.

What my family experienced was not about security, waiting in long lines or having to take my boots off.

No, my family got cut short at the boarding point because we didn't pay additional, capricious fees and lost our weeks-old reservations.

I suspect there were other people on the plane who had made reservations the week of the flight. But they paid a higher ticket price than I did or they paid the upgrade fee and moved to the front of the line. I would love to have someone at the airline explain to me why my family -- and thousands of others, I'm sure -- had to experience what we did.

By the way, the same thing happened to my wife this year. This time, I paid the $40 fee just so she would not miss the family gathering two years in a row. However, I guarantee people in authority will hear from me on how this airline has put many, many travelers through this drama by giving seats to the highest bidder.

Buyer beware: The next time you purchase a ticket online to travel the "friendly skies," don't assume you will get the seat you purchased on the flight you selected.

Happy New Year, everyone.

J.C. Watts is chairman of J.C. Watts Companies, a business consulting group. He is former chairman of the Republican Conference of the U.S. House, where he served as an Oklahoma representative from 1995 to 2002. His e-mail address is JCWatts01@jcwatts.co