Arrogant goof
 

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to see the other side of the coin -- why some FAs get absolutely frustrated with passengers who lack civility and courtesy.

We were on a morning YOW-YYZ flight. I held a D award ticket (but only had a Y seat confirmed expecting no problem in obtaining a gate 'upgrade'). Turns out one of my employees was on the same flight and I did something that would be unthinkable any other time of the year -- burning a SSWU for the shorthaul.

We take our seats in row 5, the employee suitably impressed since I would never allow anyone in mycompany to actually pay for a J seat (for myself or anyone else!).

I didn't eat breakfast beforehand, expecting the unique "fast food" service on this flight -- with less than 40 minutes in the air, there is absolutely no time to waste but J passengers are served a hot breakfast.

When the FA reached my row, she said "we won't be able to serve you breakfast because they didn't load enough meals and as an upgrade passenger, meal service is not guaranteed." I said, "Fine, could I have some muffins from economy," then noted that technically I was not travelling on an upgrade certificate -- I actually was a ticketed passenger on a D award ticket. The communication was with civility and respect that a breakfast, while nice, is not the main purpose of flying to Toronto! The FA took this news very seriously, saying she would check what she could do.

I found out after the plane landed why this matter was so serious to the flight crew. It seems there was another passenger, with exactly the same "problem", and he insisted on making it a problem, berating the flight crew and customer support service staff to whom we were referred groundside. As my befuddled employee watched, this passenger lashed out with venom about the fact that not only was he denied a meal, someone on a regular upgrade got full service, and in fact he didn't even receive an offer of something to drink. (I suspect that he was so obnoxious the FAs decided to 'ignore' him -- certainly the FAs offered us coffee and juice, like everyone else.)

The ground supervisor offered us meal vouchers and said further measures would be up go customer relations. This was fine with me, especially since my employee also received a voucher, and, anyways, we are only talking about a breakfast on a one hour flight! But not this other passenger. As I left with my employee to do our business in Toronto, this other passenger was lashing out asking where he could file a report, and how unjust and unfair everything is, and how discourteous the flight crew was to him.

Shucks. A few clients like this would drive ME to drink, and well before 10 a.m. If passengers expect service and courtesy from flight crews, surely flight crews have the same right. I was embarassed to be in the same "class" as this guy.

I ran into a real doozy the other day at ORD. Apparently this guy had been FIM'ed over from an American flight that had cancelled, and had upgraded into an F seat on his AA flight using miles or status or whatever they do over at AA. In any event, it was clear he wasn't flying revenue F or J class and AA had authorized only a Y seat on AC.

This guy was going on and on about how he was supposed to be in "first class", started pestering the J pax about whether there was anyone sitting in the empty seat next to them, and holding up the boarding process all the while. He demanded to be put in one and wouldn't move until he was. His argument, in a nutshell, was that he should be put in the seat because it was empty.

I was embarrassed for the guy, as was everyone else... strangely, he was totally unrepentant about the spectacle.

Uh, did he get the seat?

Oops... no, the FA stayed firm and eventually the guy just walked back to economy, exasperated at AC's lack of recognition of his AA status.

Hahaha... What a fool. :rolleyes:

It's amazing the attitude some people use to try and get to sit up front. The reverse actually happened to me recently. I was flying on a UA ticket on AC metal and asked if I could upgrade. I had specifically asked my corporate TA to get me a UA fare upgradable with a SWU but hadn't bothered to check it (my fault). When I got to the gate I checked with the GA. He looked at some chart and asked for a SSWU. I was out of them and just asked him what UA fares qualified for my future information so I would know what to tell my corporate TA for the next time. I then asked him for an exit row seat in Y and he kinda looked stunned for a moment and gave me a new boarding pass with an exit row seat. 5 minutes later he came over and gave me a new 'J' boarding pass and told me that because he was so used to people yelling at him in cases like this that he wanted to thank me for being "decent and level headed about it" and gave me the upgrade anyways. ^ ^

Geez, and I thought the incident of the obese pax who demanded an upgrade to J on a 1-class Tango flight I was on was bad.

FA's offered to de-board him and sell him a full-fare J ticket on a mainline flight leaving 10 minutes later on the same route. I think they eventually did find him a seat at the back of the 737 where he could move the armrest down, but I am amazed they didn't kick him off altogether for his belligerence.

Only other inflight incident I've ever come across, drunken pillow fights on CUN runs aside, was with a prisoner under transport on a YYZ-YWG flight, and the FA's handled it very well by merely moving the other passengers away.

A nice move by the GA. I've seen them break down and give these "arrogant goofs" the UG just because of their mindnumbing persistence. One of the reasons I will not play aerolotto waitlist anymore. I have personally lost out in 2 circumstances where these type of people with no status or certs have got the UG when the people who were waitlisted lost out. Both times me and others waiting were sitting right by the gate counter and listened to the endless BS. Both cases I really didn't want to make a big deal out of it because no GA is paid enough to be browbeaten by these truly professional whiners.