Originally Posted by
jamesinclair
I was taking AA 5885 Operated by Mesa Airlines on a CR9 departing at 7:06pm. This is the last AA flight from Fresno for the day....
I arrived at 5:50pm to the line, which is 1 hour and 16 minutes before departure. I had one full sized bag to check (49lbs). I was the 3rd person in line. ...
Even though there were only two folks in front of me, it took until 6:25 for me to see an agent. Why the delay:
- First agent for the priority line had spent the entire time helping two customers while on the phone. When I left, this was still the case. Apparently, they were from the earlier AA 2363 to Dallas that was cancelled.
- Second agent had spent the entire time helping a family who appeared to be walk-up customers looking to buy plane tickets. They were talking about itineraries, prices, layovers, fare bucket, etc, very baffling way to spend 45 minutes.
- Third agent left at 6pm, never to be seen again.
- Fourth agent was in-and out. Helped one customer, disappeared for a bit, came back, and eventually helped me....
...At this point, Agent 2 had finished their sales odyssey with the walk-up ticket sales family and was giving the same news to another gentleman. After giving the gentleman his boarding passes, and instructing him to try his luck at the gate, she disappeared. My agent said her shift was supposed to have ended a few hours ago and she was probably going home.
The problem is clearly agent training. With only three (or perhaps two-and-one-half) agents on duty, they need to prioritize check-in over rebookings and sales.
Many airlines don't even offer sales at ticket counters during busy periods anymore, because it can consume a lot of agent face time.
Did anyone interrupt to call for a manager or phone the airport police to intervene? I had to do that at PWM once. Broken kiosks and no agents at my airline counter at all. (Last flight of the night with a delayed aircraft arrival, after the ticket agent shift end -- most of the other pax had arrived at the scheduled departure time, hours earlier, but several of us were monitoring the inbound equipment and arrived around T-60.)
Airlines are schedule driven and that includes ticket agent shifts, so you need to think outside the box sometimes. The TSA can also page an airline gate agent to the ticket counter if needed.