MiamiAirport Formerly NY George

Yesterday I went standby on an earlier flight from BOS to JFK. The agent at check in told me the earlier flight is oversold by two but there are always no shows on this flight, your number one on the list so you will likely clear. However, he said make sure you make yourself know to the GA and that you will take Y (its a short 45 minute flight).

So I get to the gate around T-50 and no GA. She finally shows up at T-40 and immediately begins boarding. I go up to let her know I'll take Y and she snaps at me to go away. Around T-30 my name goes to the Cleared List so I move closer to the podium and she starts shouting at me. I tell her I'm on the cleared list and just waiting my seat assignment. The GA then tells me the "Cleared List means nothing, I and I alone decide who clears onto the flight." So I walk away and although boarding has completed she spends the next 15 minutes gossiping with some FAs. Finally at T-15 she calls me up and starts to lecture me about how her job is so stressful and difficult and passengers like me make it even more so.

To top it off she tells me as "punishment" that she is giving me a seat assignment in the next to last row. By the way, all standbys cleared and there were still two empty seats (overheard the FAs.) Also, there was a pilot commuting to JFK and he also got yelled at for approaching the GA. His "punishment" was that he got a seat in the last row of the a/c.

So my question is can GAs simply ignore the Cleared List?

Upgraded!

I'd have gone and found a supervisor the first time she snapped at you. She was out of line and has no business in a customer-facing role. She should be collecting an unemployment check (or maybe TSA paycheck, there's no real difference...) instead of money from AA every month.

brp

Easier said, sitting behind a computer, than done. At an airport, finding a supervisor can be a challenge. And, when things are going the way the OP's situation was, hanging around and being as nice as possible is often the best bet. Yeah, it should not be necessary to be overly nice to a confrontational employee just to get them to do their job but, do ya wanna get on the plane?

Definitely document as much of this as possible and send to AA. The behavior exhibited by the GA is clearly unacceptable. If she truly did say "punishment," that just floors me. Bad service, lack of rule knowledge is one thing...but that takes the cake.

Cheers.

Upgraded!

To be clear, I wouldn't advocate doing this at the 15 minute mark, but at 50min, when the GA first started being rude, that would be the time to walk through the terminal looking for a grey jacket, or even to the AC. I've had experiences where I was trying to essentially jump the standby queue because of irr-ops and the GA didn't want to have his fingerprints on it (though in that case he told me to talk to a supervisor, probably a CYA move).

I'd have been worried at that point that the GA may have attempted something retaliatory and wanted to make sure that didn't happen, and with at least 20min until I'd be boarding it would have been a good use of time to try and find the super, IMO.

JDiver

Please! Do this.

Duffman

+1

have dealt with unnecessarily rude GA's a few times and have just had to suck it up and move on :/.

I try to empathize and think maybe they just had a bad day, but some of the crap they pull off is inexcusable. "punishment?!?!

JY1024

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jcm9000

If a GA goes off at one person, they will do it again a few mins later. I don't care if they are having a bad day or if the pax is clueless, go and scream down the bogpan, not at your customers, customer facing service staff should be professional at all times or get the boot. I will say in general all the AA GAs i have encountered have been very polite, and I like AA because of it, but have certainly seen a few giving fellow pax a hard time. I live in the stone age and do not have a new-fangled eye-phone, but it seems many do and i wonder how many people are out there filming staff when someone is clearly having a bad day. I haven't heard of internal 'mystery shoppers' checking quality of customer facing service staff on AA, so who does it come down to when quality needs policed?

JDiver

IMO, use the aa.com page and send in a complaint - one never knows: the subject may have been disciplined previously, may even have a return to work agreement or the like, that might make this last straw the one that breaks the camel's back and causes firing. If not maybe it could trigger some retraining or an EAP referral if the subject is having tough times, and it would document the incident for the future.

MiamiAirport Formerly NY George

I've thought about it and still might. However, I'm not sure what good it would do. Moreover, this GA is the exception of AA customer contact staff certainly not the norm. I'm sure that most GAs would have been horrified at the way she interacted with me, even more so an EXP. Now the AA Captain that she also barked at and end up giving a BP for 30D. He did not have a particularly happy look on his face. He might have a thing or two to say about the GA to Operations.

Most employees that are not cut out for customer service work eventually self destruct anyway. I smile when thinking about her going through that process.

A little side note I fly B6 on the way up because of a later evening departure out of EWR. The flight was three hours late due to horrible weather in New York and Boston that night. I was not and would not expect any airline to compensate for weather delays. But lo and behold the next day I received an email with an apology from B6 along with a $25 voucher, which I promptly put to use.

dickinson

PLEASE write up this GA. There is absolutely no reason the traveling public should have to put up with this type of behavior. IMO the write up will net you significant compensation.

All American Flyer

This whole concept of "punishment" for customers who break a GA's own personal policy is simply ludicrous! It sounds like a soup nazi situation.

All of this would be fixed, however, if AA had a more uniform policy on when to clear upgrades/standby/non-rev/etc that was less subjective

Upgraded!

This is precisely why this is someone who needs to be made an example of.

JDiver

I'd be prone to give her a little help - whether it results in being referred to the EAP to get whatever it is fixed, or to get her moved out of the way for the vast majority of employees who do a decent job. (I've seen too many burnouts who stayed entirely too long in a service job left to linger or even genuinely self-destruct, e.g. through suicide or substance abuse, because various people - often managers, supervisors and colleagues - preferred to watch a train wreck than take action.)

negs

Have we found Helen in a new role at AA??