birddogmax

Over the years I've read a number of stories here on FT about gate agents behaving badly. As a lifelong AA flyer, I've also seen quite a few cringeworthy incidents. As a Dallas resident, I also talk to a lot of FA's and other employees in social settings who also share their stories. And I know plenty of GA's who have their own horror stories to tell about passengers (and have witnessed a lot of bad pax behavior in person). But today I had a terrible experience the likes of which I've never seen before, followed by an equally great experience, all within the space of an hour.

It started with my wife an I traveling on an AA domestic flight ex-DFW to make a connection to a TATL BA flight. We both had carry ons and initially everything was going normally until we were halfway down the jet bridge and the gate agent starts yelling after us. They were being rather aggressive about checking bag size, so she wanted to put my wife's bag in the sizer, but was apparently thought we were ignoring her. In reality, neither of us ever heard her ask my wife to size the bag and I was paying close attention as I saw how other passengers were being checked. Ok, no big deal, maybe yelling at us wasn't the best approach but just put the bag in the sizer, take a few items out if it doesn't quite fit, move on. No big deal.

Boy, was I wrong. When the bag at first didn't fit, the GA became very agitated, telling my wife she couldn't "stuff it in there". As I attempted to intervene, telling her it wasn't a big deal, we could remove some items while boardingest continued, she became very irate. My wife, who doesn't fly often, was becoming distressed - when she pulled the bag out, she set it down forcefully as it was a bit on the heavy side and she was being harangued by the GA. A couple of seconds after she set the bag down, and while I was trying to intervene and calm things down, the GA suddenly declared "you just struck me, you're not going on this plane" and confiscated our boarding passes. She was nearly in hysterics at this point, waving her arms about telling us to get out of the way of the rest of the pax. I was right there and involved the whole time, despite her trying to shoo me away - my wife's bag never touched her. Never even came close.

I then asked for a supervisor and she angrily replied "I am the supervisor", at which point she informed the other agents not to rebook us, and kept saying "you're not going anywhere today". When it became obvious that the GA would not listen to reason or deal with us in a calm or professional manner, we stepped aside and I called the Platinum desk to rebook as I knew this wasn't going anywhere. As soon as the GA saw me on the phone, she gave the other agents another instruction not to rebook us and stomped away. They refused to help us even after the supervisor left. I want to stress that at no point did either myself or my wife raise our voices, insult anyone, use profane language, or become angry. I stayed calm and tried to be reasonable but the GA was acting in the most unprofessional manner I have ever witnessed from any airline employee, ever.

I'm still flabbergasted at how the GA behaved. I don't know if she violated any policies or procedures but she certainly wasn't very professional. And, at that moment in time, she was not representing the company in a positive light. Quite the opposite. And how she can unilaterally deny rebooking and instruct others to do the same is beyond me. Furthermore, if she actually believed she was struck or physically assaulted in any way, why didn't she call security? I've seen that happen before and it doesn't take long for airport police to arrive. In this case it would have taken mere seconds, as we were right across from an entry point. She never did so, never asked her co-workers for assistance, never acted as if she were physically threatened. We were at the gate for a good 15 minutes after the supervisor left, no security ever approached us and the GA never returned.

Fortunately, there is a silver lining to all this. As we were just a few yards away from an Admirals Club, and the Platinum desk couldn't put us on any standby lists for flights already under control, we went back and asked the agent for help. This turned out to be a good move. It took about an hour, a lead agent and a supervisor, but they sorted it out and got us rebooked on a direct flight that actually put us in to our destination earlier than we otherwise would have arrived. As my wife was very visible shaken (and shaking), they were the epitome of kindness to her - giving us free drink vouchers, offering to come find us after they sorted things out, and so on. They kept communicating with us and even went into the back room to work on the issue so they wouldn't keep getting interrupted by other passenger requests. A complete reversal of our experience with the angry GA. In the end, we made it to our destination and it all worked out but what a difference in service all in the space of an hour.