AA Agent and PHL Passenger Get Into Major Tussle
 

Allegedly, the passenger's cell phone was thrown to the ground and original tickets were cancelled:

https://thepointsguy.com/news/passen...ncellation-aa/

"I tried to take a picture of his name tag"

This is when everything went south. Too bad one can't do this without fear of retaliation and that's exactly what happened.

I'd like to see the video too bad it's not posted.

Hopefully soon to be "had" a job.

IMO, everything "went south" when the pax failed to review his travel documents at time of booking. Had he verified the name was correct at that time, this situation would never have happened.

Of course, that is still no excuse for the AA employee to behave the way they did!!

"That's strange, the agents in PHL are always cooperative and friendly"

- said no one who has ever flown through PHL

It wasn’t a spelling error, it was an entirely different name, which the guy was well aware of. Was the guy trying to scam and let someone else travel on a different person’s ticket? Probably why he doesn’t want his name used. Regardless, even if he was trying to scam, there’s no excuse for out of control behaviour.

TPG issued a clarification:
This story originally stated that the passenger’s name was spelled incorrectly on the ticket, while in fact it was a different name entirely. We have amended the sentence that referred to that aspect.

"But, but, PHL gate agents are so friendly and helpful" -Nobody ever

So, in the rush to get the matter to the "presses", TPG omitted a dispositive fact... Like loutish PHL GAs, hard to contain my surprise that the credit card shills over there pumped out click bait before verifying this crucial fact... :rolleyes:

Even despite this - it is unacceptable for the check in agent to unilaterally cancel the tickets, especially after the $275 was paid.

The check in agent should be made to pay IDB to the 2 pax out of his own pocket.

Again, I think there is a lot more to this and TPG is trying to paint the situation in a better light than it possibly deserves. First, not initially reporting the attempted scam. Second, were the tickets cancelled because they arrived at the gate after the flight was closed? The timeline makes me wonder.

Right at T-45:
So, another agent assisted in making the name change, charging the fee and checking the passengers’ bags, just before the 45-minute cutoff.
The passenger described in an email to TPG, which we reprint here unedited, what happened next:
Upon trying to leave, I expressed my unhappiness with the initial agent’s attitude. I tried to take a picture of his name tag. The agent gets irate, lunges across the counter, punches my hand, snatches my phone and throws it into the floor.

Then after all that happens:
After the recording stops, the agent threatened, in the passenger’s telling, to cancel their tickets. Again, a manager was called, who apologized for the situation and handed the passengers their boarding passes. The passengers rushed to security and got to their gate only to be stopped at the boarding door saying that the tickets were cancelled.

So at T-45, they start arguing again with the agent, trying to photograph him and the altercation occurs, which they start recording. They again call a manager, wait for him to arrive, tell the story, probably show the video, presumably the agent tells his side etc, etc. How long does all that take? Remember, they only had 35 minutes left. Only then do they head through security to the gate. Did they make it to the gate by T-10? Or did the altercation, filming, argument, manager intervention, more argument, security, and run to the gate all take longer than 35 minutes and they missed the boarding cut off? If so, then I am not surprised they stuck to the letter of the boarding time law and the agent cancelled the ticket once they missed it and he saw they werent boarded by T-10.

That is my suspicion based on the pax own account of the timeline. And if TPG originally omitted the fact that it was entirely different name on the ticket (which is what caused the inital delay to reissue the ticket at check in), then I can also see him omitting this part of the story as well. As I said, just my suspicion but the timing seems awfully tight for all that to happen.

Not unique to Philly. I had a ticket cancelled on me at DFW in May when I was told to "fly another airline" by an agent. I told him i was taking a pic of his ID and writing a letter to customer service. He came at me, ripped my tags off of my bag (I was transferring from a TPAC to domestic flight, trying to get an earlier connection) and told me he was canceling my ticket. He did. Station agent wouldn't tell me why it was canceled but said I could buy a new ticket on the same flight. $600 later I got home. Twitter was no help. No there isn't anything sordid to the story. I'm still in shock two months later.

TPG author here glad to explain this situation. When I turned in the piece, that sentence noted that the "last name was wrong on the ticket". My editor misunderstood this and changed it to "last name was spelled incorrectly on the ticket." Unfortunately he didn't check with me before publishing the story, so it wasn't caught until after publishing.

Can you clarify what time the pax actually arrived at the boarding door?

Whatever is right or wrong, photographing people in the middle of disputes is guaranteed escalation. Sometimes it is exactly what is needed but other times it is exactly what is not needed.

Would a customer that wanted to file a complaint about something need to do this? With place and time/date the airline pretty well knows who was there. If necessary one can add a physical description to the complaint. I think photographing an employee of a business in response to a dispute can only be interpreted as a personal threat. What do others think? Do people think that doing this is going to suddenly persuade the TA, GA, or FA to back down and change their approach? The normal process to get that to happen is supposed to be calling a supervisor (who will also know exactly who on his side is causing a problem if anyone is.)

Also, if it is really true that the change was to the name of a different person rather than to correct an error, do they do that for a change fee? I thought you couldn't do that.

If I knew for sure, I would say. That's one of the facts that I was unable to get from either party.

What is your suspicion based on the info you have? If the passenger is not willing to give up that fact, that is also telling.

Seems the "taking of a picture" is causing the agent to go insane. Maybe just get the name off the name tag, or snap the picture without them knowing. Don't announce it.

You can take photos of the agent or of his/her name tag - you cannot take photos of an agent's SIDA badge or airline ID. This is considered a TSA security violation due to fears of counterfeiting. The agent can get their badge revoked and lose their job if they just let it go so such behaviour will rarely end well for the passenger as you found out.

You nailed it.

Probably a last-ditch effort to try and just get the thing over with-- a waste of effort as it turns out.

So true. When they know it's on record and their a-- could be on the line, anyone in the same position will usually get their adrenaline going..

I assumed that it was indeed tight, but I just checked in with the reader about this. He said T-15 and passengers were still boarding. So, the flight wasn't closed yet.

Did you ask for the Station Manager? If I hadn't done anything wrong I certainly would politely but firmly escalate the unilateral cancellation of my ticket without cause.

Starting point here was that the passenger was participating in a scam, a key fact which the commercial blogger who is paid for product placements, omitted. This was not a missing letter or somesuch, nor was it an error. Rather, it was a ticket issued for some other person and passive agressive Photo Guy thought he could pull a fast one. He could not.

That alone was good reason to cancel the tickets and let the AA anti-fraud people deal with this. However, the better practice here would have been to allow AA security folks (PHL is staffed) deal with the crook.

No need to take pictures of peoples' name tags. Just write it down and leave it at that. Same thing after the second agent made the change and collected the $275. Leave it alone and file a complaint if you want.

Hopefully AA will figure this out when it gets to the bottom of the fraud. Perhaps Photo Guy has done this before.

In the legal profession, we call that the "blame the secretary" excuse... and far be it from me to defend PHL GAs; grabbing the phone was not acceptable under any almost circumstances. But the title of the piece suggests that the pax is without fault here when the pax 1. failed to notice that the name was wrong on the ticket (it was apparently an entire different name); 2. whipped out a phone, which is always the wrong way to deal with these types of encounters; and 3. contacted TPG to report the "encounter". Would pax have done no. 2 to no. 3 if the agent waived the change fee? Doubt it.

This is passenger error made worse by PHL GA hostility. The rest, especially, the title, is sensationalist clickbait. But hey, it worked.

Two wrongs don't make a right. At least that's what I was taught. Once AA agreed to process a change fee, and the passenger agreed to pay it, the scam incident was over. AA chose not to pursue action against what some have called (probably correctly) a scam. At that point, the passenger was a regular customer who deserved to be treated as such. Breaking the phone is bad enough, but waiting until the customer leaves then canceling the tickets? Woo-boy. That's serious power-tripping.

But I'm not surprised. PHL is a miserable airport staffed by miserable workers who have to deal with miserable flyers every day. PHL exists to make EWR look good.

THIS. Once the fee was paid, the name issue -- whether it's a letter different or completely different -- is a non-issue. Yes, the passenger did something that triggers a $275 fee and argued over the fee. But with the payment of the fee that issue ended, the only issue that remained was the check-in agent's attitude.

This stroy is confusing. Did the gate agent cancel this guy's ticket? Or was it cancelled by someone else prior to his arriving at the gate? I also don't understand the agents at the check-in counter allowing him to pay the change fee in order ot change the name on the ticket. It should be the person who it was originally ticketed for to be the one to change the ticket, not someone else.

I did ask to speak to a manager. I assumed it was the station manager. I just disembarked a 14 hour flight. Wanted to get home an hour earlier. Did the exact same thing on the exact same flight the week prior. Priority hotline also said wait until you land in DFW to do it and it would be no problem. When arriving after customs, was told I couldn't do it as my bags wouldn't make it. I said no problem, I'd pick my bags top the next day. Then told it was under 45 minutes . However, there was a lady at the baggage claim was on the same earlier flight home. Finally was told that it's not possible to do so since I was coming from an international flight. Turns out that that is the actual policy. I was confused and told them that I had been allowed to do it the week before and that another agent(phone) had told me possible. When I said I said I didn't think the inconsistency was the right way to treat their priority costumers, an agent 5 kiosks down yelled to me to "go fly another airline then". I approached him and said I was reporting his comment and was taking a picture of his ID. He said if I did he would cancel my flight. When I started to do so, he lunged across the scale, knocked my bags down and removed my tags. When I went to get new ones, they said my flight was canceled. Asked to speak to the manager. Did so and asked under what grounds my ticket was canceled. Said he couldn't tell me. Manager obviously stuck by his colleague. The Twitter team said they stand by their decision. They should only be able to cancel my ticket if I'm a threat to myself or someone else. If I was a threat why would they openly and willingly tell me I was welcome to buy a ticket on the same flight they just canceled?

If readers didn't already know that foisting a phone to film airline employees is generally never a good idea, the comments by some posters might prove helpful in avoiding similar situations. That seems to accomplish something...

Genuinely curious because it's been quite some time since flying through PHL, why is it getting such a bad rap?

Unless you are on-board their aircraft or at their HQ, airline photography policies do not apply to public areas of the airport.

Because grabbing a customer's phone and smashing it/throwing it at them doesn't come as a surprise to PHL regulars, given the observed/experienced behavior of US/AA PHL employees over many years.

I.e It gets a bad rap because it's very bad.

1.) The first manager you request at any airport is never the Station Manager. Ever. They are usually difficult to get a hold of, and require at least 2 levels of managerial escalation. The handful of managers I've interacted with, and had to request the SM, always replied to my question of "Are you the Station Manager?" with "I am a Manager." Not the same thing. The SM will be the ultimate managerial authority present at the airport for that carrier.

2.) The lady at baggage claim may have been originally ticketed on the earlier flight, thus she was already checked in all the way through and the 45 minute rule didn't apply to her.

3.) I've never witnessed or personally experienced a situation where a check in counter agent 5 counters down could hear me/the passenger. Someone's voice in the original AAgent interaction was likely raised if they could hear either of you 5 counters down.

4.) There was no reason to engage the yelling agent. Maybe take note of their name, and ask for a Manager (I would have asked specifically for the SM on an unexplained, cancelled ticket, as well as the actions of the violent AAgent you mentioned; taking your property via bag tags would have made me immediately disengage the agent and engage Airport Police). The SM of a mega hub for AA like DFW isn't always available, but a direct report at least will be, and will have much greater authority than the first two levels of agents/supervisors at the ticket counter.

Online complaints are pointless for issues like this; bad actors need to be addressed on the spot, by local management. The best way to do this is to calmly and professionally escalate and report to those supervisors on duty at the airport. This likely would have also prevented cancellation of your ticket [by the way, how did an AAgent who didn't have your reservation pulled up find your ticket to cancel it?]; engaging with an unprofessional employee directly without requesting immediate management intervention is unnecessary.

Whether or not the photography policy applies to "public areas of the airport" is obviously not the issue here; rather the issue is what how to avoid these types of situations either when pax or GAs behave badly. Personally, I would have just paid the fee and walked away to seek resolution elsewhere and not pulled out a cell phone.

But, I was curious to see how others have dealt with this because as someone who unfortunately connects through PHL rather often, the level of customer service is abysmal, and I would prefer to avoid outcomes perhaps from insight on these types of threads.

Well I can agree with you in that sense. While I don't mainly connect through PHL, I do find myself going through there from time to time. When dealing with CS agents/gate agents at PHL, I either don't try to interact with them at all or if I have to, I make it short and all business, and if I don't get a satisfactory result I end the conversation and either wait until I'm at the next airport (for me CLT) or on the phone.

Bag tags have your PNR.

Another reason not to give away one's personal property to a random stranger, employee or otherwise.