Delta Desk Agent Calls Police on Customer With Damaged Luggage
Meg Butler September 20, 2018
First there was “BBQ Becky,” then Permit Patty, ID Adam and Pool Patrol Paula. Now there’s a new nickname floating around the meme-verse: Baggage Claim Becky.
That moniker was bestowed upon a Delta desk agent Teddra who, like those memed before her, is being villified on the internet for being caught on film while calling the police on an African-American.
This is how @Delta Airlines customer service handles baggage damage claims by calling the police on its customers!! pic.twitter.com/HkT2DSTpQd
— OurAppGuy (@Ourappguy) September 18, 2018
Arlene, the customer in question, later stated that, on August 24th, after traveling on a Delta flight from Kentucky to Massachusetts, she noticed that her suitcase was ripped in several places. She then went to file a baggage claim at Boston Logan International Airport.
“I was told that damage happens to suitcases, which I understand, but I wanted to report it anyway,” Arlene told Yahoo Lifestyle. “But it didn’t seem like anyone was taking me seriously.”
Arlene then says, she noticed several Delta employees “snickering” in her direction. “I was on the phone with my friend and mentioned they were talking about me,” she said. “Then one told me, ‘No one is talking about you. You’re out of your mind.’”
Arlene says that she then asked, “Can you please stop talking to me? You’re not a manager and you’re being disrespectful.” When the manager arrived, Arlene relayed the employees’ behavior to him, which he “dismissed” while filing her claim for her damaged baggage.
Later, after the manager left, Arlene says that she asked for the manager’s name from Delta employee Teddra, the filmed incident took place. Arlene can be heard asking (with pen in hand) for the name of the Delta desk agent’s manager so she can add it to her claim. The agent then tells her that it is against the airline’s policy for any desk agent to give out a name that isn’t theirs.
After more back and forth, the desk agent asks, “Are you recording me?” and then picks up the phone and asks for the state police to report to the desk saying “I have a lady who’s recording me in my face and won’t leave the office.”
Hover, according to the TSA, filming is allowed: “TSA does not prohibit photographing, videotaping or filming at security checkpoints, as long as the screening process is not interfered with or sensitive information is not revealed.”
Massport Properties, the company in charge of Logan International Airport also allows filming., says on its website. The customer later told The Root that “I do not believe I would have had the police called on me if I was not a black woman.”
Delta has since apologized in this message sent to Yahoo Lifestyle: “We apologize to this customer for her experience in the Boston baggage service office and Delta is in contact with her to better understand what transpired. We take situations like these seriously and we are working directly with this customer to use this as an opportunity to learn from her experience and improve on future customer interactions.”
To read more on this story, head to Yahoo Lifestyle.
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So your not getting that the camera is being used here for various puropses, primarily escalating things?
Typical Nth American airline out of control power trip hungry employees, cabin crew and ground crew. delusions of grandeur. Thank goodness the modern day phone camera is a great tool to remind them of the rules, law, respect and their job description.
I don't think this was a race thing. It's a dumb, rude, ignorant Delta thing. Why? I'm a white businessman in my 40's and this is pretty much exactly the same situation I faced when getting off a Virgin flight to Chicago to discover the Delta baggage crew had ripped a wheel off my brand new Samsonite Cosmolite suitcase. The Delta baggage crew wanted me to carry the broken suitcase to another terminal, not report the damage and report it after the last leg of my trip in Portland. The only reason the situation got diffused was the Virgin crew were nearby and interceded. They insisted that Delta accept my complaint. On my previous trip to the US, I had two Delta gate agents (both African-American) refuse to give their own names after being rude and unhelpful over me boarding with my CPAP (they wanted to check it - which isnt allowed). Both were wearing names badges but had draped scarves over the name tags. They also threatened to call the police and obviously attempted to delay me so I would miss the flight. Eventually, I got a written apology out of Delta but only after threatening to sue under the American Disability legislation.
White male here. I've been treated very rudely many times, especially by airline staff and threatened by TSA for arrest for objecting to agents' rudeness. It's not always race or ethnicity.
Assuming a new hire from United