Airline Agents with Attitudes

October 23, 2015

in Airport Stories

It’s not just the airplanes that have all the fun. I was at a ticket counter attempting to reason with a foreign-born person (I assume) at the Chicago airport about my ticket. There was a serious mistake that had been made during the connecting flight and I was trying to get the agent to understand it; he did not seem well versed in English.

The agent became irritated, then mad, then irrational, and finally he grabbed my schedule where I was trying to show him the error and tore it up and threw it in his wastebasket. I remained calm and asked him to get his supervisor. His attitude suddenly changed directions; he fixed the problem and retrieved my original schedule upon my request.

Another time I arrived at a USA airport for a domestic flight an hour ahead as suggested and there was a very long line for the counter. When I finally reached the counter it was time for my flight to be boarded. The agent was rude and said I should have arrived in line an hour ahead of time. I told her that I had done that, but due to the length of the line I was running late. She had no response except to give me a nasty look.

I ran to security en route to my gate, where sympathetic passengers allowed me to jump ahead in another big line. I made my flight with seconds to spare. I thank those passengers, but the airline’s ticket agent needs to find another job. Instead of blaming passengers for being late, they should have called in another agent to help.

{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }

prp October 25, 2015 at 9:08 pm

Think your just an angry person, who reaps what he sows.

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Lucy October 26, 2015 at 11:15 am

Standing in line at the counter = you needed to check bags. Leaving only an hour to check bags/go thru security/make your flight is NOT enough time.

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RedHead0186 October 26, 2015 at 11:57 am

Agreed. Most domestic airports recommend at least an hour and a half ahead of time, and 2 hours for the larger airports.

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Chris October 26, 2015 at 8:28 pm

Have to agree with the other comments, an hour usually isn't enough time to check in bags, get boarding passes, go through security and find your gate. If anything goes wrong, you have little time to correct it before missing your flight all together.

Err on the side of caution and always try and be at airports 2 hours prior to takeoff. That means be physically inside the airport 2 hours prior to takeoff, not at home getting ready to make the 45 minute drive to the airport 2 hours before your flight departs. You read so many stories on here about people missing flights and encountering issues all because they gave themselves no runway (no pun intended) to deal with unexpected problems. If you can make it to the airport early, all the better.

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James November 1, 2015 at 11:12 am

It's also not the airline's fault when a ton of passengers arrive at the ticket counter last-minute. And you may think an hour ahead of your departure is adequate, but when half the passengers do the same thing, someone is going to miss.

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Sarah November 21, 2015 at 7:32 pm

This site baffles me every time I come here! I can't understand why you people accept rude behavior regardless of the travelers perceived mistake. Do you all forget that this individual is a paying customer and should be treated as such. Why would you all accept such crappy behavior from a ticket agent? This is why traveling is such a nightmare — customer service sucks!

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RedHead0186 November 23, 2015 at 1:04 pm

I have a feeling we're only hearing one side of the story. I agree that paying customers should be given good treatment, but that doesn't mean that the airline/ticket agents should be treated poorly. I have a feeling there might be more to the story, since we're only getting one perspective.

But no, a ticket agent shouldn't be tearing up your schedule. It's not the (second) ticket agent's fault that there was a long line, either. You need to be prepared for long lines and plan extra time.

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Brad Zark November 25, 2015 at 5:49 am

I’ve come to find about 2/3rds of all the stories on here to be utter crap these days. I’m guessing there is no longer a vetting process.

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joel March 6, 2016 at 2:32 am

You would make a great Greyhound passenger.

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Krista Kadimi April 8, 2016 at 1:22 am

Isn't it a recommendation to arrive to the airport 1 hour before boarding begins, not an hour before takeoff? Not that they ever tell you when boarding begins, but is usually 30 minutes prior for domestic and 1 hour for international.

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James May 2, 2016 at 7:50 am

I read today that due to TSA personnel cutbacks, it is now 2 hours for a domestic flight and 3 hours for an international flight, to allow time to pass through security.

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Andrew Beagle January 8, 2017 at 1:49 pm

Vague complaints and generalizations

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