NEW YORK, US: When Jonathan Miles wrote Dear American Airlines, a novel modelled on a complaint letter, he never imagined his promotional tour would resemble a series of support-group meetings for disgruntled travellers.

The novel, published by Houghton Mifflin, is the story of middle-aged translator Bennie Ford, who was forced to examine his life while stranded at Chicago's O'Hare Airport.

Miles says that the idea for the story came in 1999, during a trip from Memphis to New York, when a 45- minute stopover turned into a night spent amid "a sea of consumer refugees" on an airport floor.

The book's premise was intended simply as a literary device, Miles said in an interview with Reuters.

"But it certainly seems to have hit a very, very raw nerve," he said.

"At readings, I'll take questions and people will just want to unload these stories that are all different in their complexities and all the same in their emotion.

"It always ends in this defeated sigh and grumble."

As the airline industry grapples with unprecedented oil prices that have almost doubled in the past year, carriers are now eking out profits any way they can, including adding fuel surcharges, cutting back services and eliminating flights.

Miles says he has some sympathy for the airlines.

"Ultimately, it's still sort of a miracle that we can fly across the country in a few hours. And the safety record is just astonishing. So they're doing some things right," he said. --REUTERS