Originally Posted by NYCommuter
Reverse question: how does a GA or other airline employee feel after not doing his or her best to help a customer? Four examples:
1. In Montreal, as a CP, I was #1 on the upgrade list, according to the ticket counter; the (guy) GA cleared other passengers first and then another GA came over and said (in French, which I understand), that I should have been cleared first, the first GA responded (in French), "Those chicks were hot; I had to help them!" and laughed. I was thus stuck in a middle seat coach between two other large guys for what turned out to be a five hour trip on the runway and in flight. I didn't say anything to the GAs.
2. In LGA, I asked if my upgrade had cleared; the GA said, "First class has checked in full!" and so I boarded, in coach; another passenger and I had the same seat so another GA came on to help us get re-seated and fussed at me for having boarded after I had already been upgraded; it was difficult to get from row 18 to row 2 with all of the boarding passengers. I didn't say anything to the GAs.
3. At EWR, I had UA connecting flights (through IAD) on different itineraries since for some reason the website wouldn't let me book the multi-segment trip; I asked the ticket agent if I could check in for both flights (which had just an hour layover), knowing well that I could since I had done it the day before on the outbound trip; she looked at me and said, "No, the computer system will not allow you to check in from a flight from IAD from here." I just thanked the ticket agent.
4. At CLT, a ticket agent was confrontational from the moment I walked up to the ticket counter; I wanted to fly standby to a co-terminal but she kept insisting on me having to pay $XXXX to buy a new ticket, although I had done standby to the same co-terminal before; when I handed her the fare rules showing that it was allowed, she ripped up the fare rules and my boarding pass and said something along the lines of "I don't care; I make the rules here!" This time I responded, very aggressively, but certainly didn't feel badly about it.
Do any gate agents or other employees feel badly after treating customers like that?
The only time I felt bad about how I treated a pax was on this one day that turned out to be my worse day of work at any job ever. It was myself and one other agent down at the gate handling 3 PHL flights that were each late over 2 hours 1 DCA flt and 1 CLT and all full some oversold. I was trying to re-accomadate paxs along with work flts and EVERYONE kept coming up with questions, yelling, complaining, etc... I made an annoucement that I was working on connections and to please give me time to look up the connections and to refrain from asking any questions for the time being. It was impossible to get anything done with the constant interruption. I was not rude about it in any way. However I had a pax come up while I was boarding our DCA flt who was a speech professor or something of the sort and tried to give me constructive criticism about my announcement. At that moment I just couldn't hear it and sort of went off on the guy.
I felt pretty bad for going off on the guy but I just didn't have time to listen to a lecture about my announcement. That so far is the only time I felt bad about what I said/did to a pax. Other than that day I always make sure I treat pax with the upmost respect and consideration. I have definently learned that when I pax gets to the point where I am about to fly off the handle then I will just call the police, twice I refrained from calling the cops in situations where I should have.
I once had a lpax (a US2) miss her flight and proceed to throw her boarding passes at me. I politely handed them back to her and told her I will definently not help her if she is going to do that. And after she insisted it was an accident I re-booked her on the next flt and 10mins before departure on that one she was the last pax we were missing. And I found her at the bar and politely told her that she has 3 mins to be on board the aircraft. And you know what? I didn't even get a thank-you.