Originally Posted by
justhere
I've been on Flyertalk for a number of years now but I still am baffled how you can dig up a thread like this after 2.5 years and reply to a post.
Oh, and sign up for Flyertalk just to reply. I'm genuinely curious how that happens.
Originally Posted by
jb3t
For the record... I am the OP and my buddy assumed that the people at curbside were Southwest employees, just like the people inside at the Southwest counter. In his defense, it is not evidently clear. There is no sign saying “we work for tips”. I’d also be curious to know if these guys make an hourly wage, by whom, and if it’s above minimum.
I rarely chedk bags but if I do at curbside, I give $5 but I don’t think it’s 100% clear that tipping in mandatory. Tracking him down in the security line is a little much. Also curious how this arose after 2.5 years.
I happen to be at one the airports that I usually fly to for business, 2 weeks ago, and returned to find out one of my usual skycaps was fired for asking for a tip. This really pissed me off, as I was there when the situation originally unfolded. The skycap spent 10min checking in a family with a large amount of stuff and they were walking off from him when I arrived, and he explained that they don't work for the airline, but work off tips. The guy proceded to give him a dollar and went to complain at the counter. The passenger returned with a ticket agent and said he was embarassed by the skycap cause he only had one dollar on him and didn't like being told to tip, and said that tipping was optional. I remember telling the passenger that curbside check-in is optional and he lost that option once you made the skycap pick up your bags, you are supposed to go into the tiket counter if you want to exercise your right not to tip!
The other skycap that informed me about hs co-worker's firing, said that I could google "skycap ask for tip" and i would see how people feel that they don't need to tip, I did and 2.5 years later I landed here