Happiness flight 556 (pax upset full bin in First, GA berating FA)
 

Waiting to push from phx. I’m in 1D. 1 C boards at the end and of course all bins are full. He begins to yell at the flight attendant as to why she didn’t reserve bin space. She says sorry it’s all F passengers luggage. He then yells “and I’m not a first class passenger??”

Not wanting to hear any more of this TOOL I look at him and tell him to calm down. He sits down and pouts while his bag is gate checked.

MEANWHILE the gate agent starts yelling at the same poor flight attendant saying “you need to tell passengers to put their backpacks under the seat in front of them”. F/A then says back that’s not your job and I’m at this point done listening to anything else you have to say.

Fun times!

I wouldn't have said anything to him, especially if I had to sit in the same row as him for the next couple of hours. Confrontation is such a confined space often doesn't turn out well.

OP seems to have lots of issues when flying AA. :confused: Hopefully the rest of the flight goes more smoothly. :cool:

I couldn’t take him berating this lady anymore.

He wants to say something to me after we deplane have at it pal.

Though I haven't been flying AA a ton, I seem to have been noticing a lot more "Reserved for Flagship Business" or such (the weird language sticks out to me because these are 2-class domestic flights) stickers in overheads in F. Did this aircraft have those? Is anyone generally aware of the logic / scheme behind rolling them out?

Berating or verbally abusing an employee is never justified, but that being said...

1) I'm strongly in the camp that if you're in F, you're there for a reason - either buying the ticket or earning the upgrade through loyalty - and you need to be able to depend on what comes with it, including the ability to stow luggage.
2) If the FA's response did in fact presuppose that 1C was not an F pax, as the language the OP quoted indicates, then that could certainly be taken as an insult - especially if he was a very loyal customer or paid many $$$ for the ticket.
3) The guy could have been late due to a delayed inbound or worse - given the way AA ops have been lately, who knows what he had been through before getting to your plane!!!

Again, the guy should have kept his calm, but this isn't the ideal service experience.

I figured the guy was late inbound connecting flight but didn’t feel sorry anymore when he went off on a flight attendant.

We've all been in this situation when the bins are full when we arrive late, for whatever reason (from a late inbound, security delays, losing track of time in the AC, etc.). It happens. It's not a reason to start acting nasty to the FAs. I likely would have said something, too.

Or, he could have been on a "normal" 25 minute connection in PHX for that matter. ;)

The poster above will be happy to know the flight was non eventful and we not only arrived early but A23 was open (!!).

Mr Happiness bolted out of the plane and asked where do I get my bag. GA says you need to go outside to the carousel.

He was a sort of big guy, mid 50's and well dressed. FWIW he stared down every large chested woman who walked by him on the plane.

And another FWIW the flight attendant he went off on was probably in her early to mid 70's. She seemed upset after she thanked M.H. at upon disembarking and he said nothing back however I was quick to say "thank you for an excellent service".

Sounds like a really professional image for front line employees to be portraying in front of customers.

Personally I think each F seat itself should have a dedicated slot for a standard size roll aboard overhead. Whatever leftover space there is can be a communal dumping ground for backpacks, briefcases, suit bags, purses, pets, small children, etc. The only exception should be the bulkhead which should have enough overhead space for a roll aboard and a personal item.

Whatever is right and wrong, it is past fixing at the point the guy boarded. It is also unprofessional for the GA to discuss anything with the FA within the hearing of passengers, right or wrong.

On the flip side of this, I've been on flights where a FA has gone through the F bins and pulled items which belong under the seat and handed them to the relevant passenger, to make room for a late-boarding passenger. The 2-2 seating on standard mainline F should provide for some relief, but not much.

I have seen this happen before numerous times on both DL and AA, and the flight attendant's usually make room in the closet or find some other way to accommodate the first class passenger. I've also seen them pull other small items from the overheads and have the people that owned those items put them underneath the seat in front of them. I've never seen them make a first class passenger have to gate check their bag. This is a fail on the part of the crew IMO.