Forget about those dowdy old-school Olympics. What we need is an international competition to see which airline can suck the most, since everyone is getting so good at it. In the category of Random Rudeness, this AirTran agent and her equally hostile supervisor would have a good shot at the gold—especially since they aimed their hostility at a honeymooning couple.
Completely unrelated to delays, bumpings or overbooking, we had a shockingly traumatic customer service experience with Airtran coming back from our honeymoon yesterday morning that I wanted to share with you.
We were checking three bags at Boston’s Logan airport and the woman checking us in said one of our bags was oversized and would incur a $29 oversize bag fee. We were surprised, since we weren’t charged a fee for an oversized bag on the first leg of our trip. When we asked her about this, she acted really put out and annoyed and got her supervisor. Her supervisor came over, even more annoyed, and said “If you don’t watch it, I’ll charge you for that first leg, too.” (From a conversation with a customer service person 20 minutes later on the phone, we learned that this is absolutely not authorized under Airtran policy…I’m not sure where that “retroactive extra fee” would have gone).
We protested, and asked for her name and title. She refused to give us her last name and walked away. We asked the woman checking us in for her name–she too refused, and tucked her name badge inside her sweater so we couldn’t see it. Fortunately I had already looked and wrote it down. Deciding that our conversation was over, she yelled out “Next!” We didn’t leave, and asked again for her name and title because we wanted to complain about her hostility and her threat to charge us retroactively for something that obviously wasn’t our fault.
Her response? She yelled “Get the hell out of my god damn face!” in front of about 100 people waiting in line, including many families with small children. We were absolutely shocked, and when I asked her “Did you really just say that to me?” she screamed it again, making threatening gestures and frightening both us and the people around us. Her supervisor watched from about 20 feet away, doing nothing.
When we approached her supervisor to complain, the supervisor’s response was “She didn’t say that”, and her tone insinuated that we had made it up. She added, “There aren’t any witnesses.” When we pointed to several people who could attest to the fact that a) her employee had indeed exploded in the unprovoked, threatening manner described above, and that b) there were dozens of witnesses, the supervisor responded to the effect of “Don’t worry about it. Go to your flight and I’ll handle it.” Her tone was casual, dismissive and condescending, and I’m fairly certain that no disciplinary action was taken since she had essentially watched the episode unfold before her eyes without doing or saying anything.
I’d like to note, too, that when asked again, this supervisor refused to give us her full name.
We had a plane to catch so all we could do was file a formal complaint on the phone and demand our money back for being subjected to such an emotionally traumatizing experience without cause or provocation. They said the best they could offer us was a $25 travel voucher, since “the airline doesn’t compensate for rudeness.” When we explained that this incident transcended rudeness to include being physically threatened and lied to about corporate policy, they didn’t budge.
Any ideas for what we should do next? As you can imagine, we’re furious and want some kind of appropriate resolution–no company should be permitted to treat paying customers like that without repercussions, and we feel like Airtran knows it can get away with this without any consequences.
Sincerely,
Jon
Jon, your best solution is to buy your own airplane. Ha ha, but seriously, we hope you didn’t accept that voucher just yet. Check out this soldier’s story of how he persisted with his demands until they were finally met—it may give you some idea of how to proceed. Check out our “Fighting Back” post for other tips.
However, if AirTran really doesn’t compensate for rude treatment, then the voucher may be all you’ll be able to get—in which case we suggest you cross AirTran off your list of desired carriers.
(Photo: Getty)
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@sketchy: I don’t it would have been reasonable for the victim to fear bodily harm. But then neither of us were there, were we?
She was rude. Really, really rude. That sucks. But I think it would suck more if being rude were a crime.
@jimmydeweasel:
Know your facts. AirTran and ValueJet were two separate companies at the time of the crash. ValueJet was the larger company and was later assimilated into AirTran. Therefore, AirTran is, and has always been, Airtran.
In April my wife and I flew AirTran and had a terrible experience.
We had to switch planes in Atlanta for a flight to Dallas. My wife and I were seated in the emergency aisle. As we were being seated, a stewardess came to our seats and explained that what we were doing was very serious. Fine, nothing to abnormal at this point.
Then, she proceeds to ask all of the 6 people seated in this area, very slowly one by one, if we understood what she just said. One person responded “uh-huh”, and she snapped on him and said, “it will either be a yes or a no!”
He quickly said, “yes”. all of us kind of looked at each with shock.
Then she asked me if I understood what she said, I said, “Yep.” She then very loudly said with an angry tone in her voice, “It IS a YES or NO!!” I was taken aback, and replied… “yes…”
My wife and I were so disguested by her behavior at that time we complained to the airline.
They gave us two vouchers for $30 off our next flight on Airtrans. We’re not sure if we will ever use them.
I think customer people anywhere today are ruder than ever.Someone has to remind them that they are the ones PAID to keep calm and be courtesous at all times.The ‘if you don’t watch it’ is a rather aggressive response if you ask me.Should’ve have been a little more professional/understanding but the ‘if you don’t…’ phrase can be percieved as threatening.
It sounds like an us verse them attitude.
Must side with the AirTran employee on the last name deal.Number one,if you file a complaint all that you need is the first name and time for starters.If you sue or take legal action I guarantee you a lawyer will get the last names.When you ask a stranger for their last name in today’s litigious society that’s a threatening gesture to many.
Do what everybody else here has done:emails,letters and/or exec carpet bombs.Formally state your case.If they get enough formal complaints maybe they’ll stop beating around the bush and just raise ticket prices.
And where were the likes of TSA when probably an entire terminal can here raised voices talking in an agressive tone.
@Alpine75:
It sounds like you had this stewardess:
+ Watch video
Two things to take from this story:
1) She almost certainly DID have an oversize bag. Ok, pay your fee and move on. Whether you paid the first leg makes no difference whatsoever. I can imagine this is what got the staff ruffled.
2) The ‘rudeness’ as told by our storyteller is sure to be embellished or just inaccurate. She was traumatized afterall. I would be willing to bet she had a part to play in the escalation and they were too busy to deal with her.
I worked for a major air carrier for several years as a Customer Service Agent. Never once did I ever get a single complaint filed against me and I won several customer service awards.
That being said… Even I wasn’t immune to the occassional snark. While I have no doubt that the OP’s account is accurate, as far as the rude agent goes, I also have no doubt that there’s some blame to be shared all around…
I can’t tell you how many times I heard the “But I wasn’t charged on my way here and my bag was the EXACT SAME WEIGHT!” defense. Seriously, it gets really old really fast. It’s pretty standard for the agent to turn it around on the passenger.
For instance, I would usually put on my best smile and reply with something like, “Wow, thank you so much for your honesty! It’s really refreshing. I don’t know how we missed that the first time around, but I’d be happy to bring your booking current on the charges. So, that’ll be $25.00 for the way here and then $25.00 on the way back. Would you like to pay for that with cash or credit?”
That response would usually be enough to turn the about-to-freak-out passenger into an “I see what you’re doing there… I still don’t want to pay the fee, but I will anyways” passenger or, if I pulled it off well enough, the about-to-freak-out passenger might even become a “I can’t believe I was going to freak out over something so trivial, let’s have a good laugh over it and here’s my credit card for the fee” passenger.
And you know what? If the passenger evolved into either one of those passengers (really, anything but the freaking out passenger) I’d usually waive the fees all together. Because that’s what being nice gets you. (At least in my book.) I was only a hard ass to the rude passengers.
Had the OP handled the situation with more grace, they probably would have gotten a little compassion from the agent. Instead, they pushed each other’s buttons and nobody won.
@The Dude:
So it’s the OP’s fault for “Get the hell out of my god damn face!”? There is never an instant where anyone who provides me a service yells that in my face unless I am threatening and/or brandishing a weapon. Secondly, if she did have an oversized bag, why wasn’t it noticed at the initial weigh-in? This indicates that some, if not all, of AirTran’s weigh machines are inaccurate. As a customer, that in itself is cause for concern.
Also: Don’t think I’m saying that the agent’s behavior was acceptable. It wasn’t, by any stretch of the imagination. But it wasn’t “emotionally traumatizing” and it most definitely wasn’t worth AirTran reimbursing them for their entire ticket cost. They got where they were going, didn’t they? If I was going to put a number on it, I’d say they deserve a written apology and a $50.00 credit/voucher/whatever per person. And that’s it.
By asking for their money back, and using phrases like “emotionally traumatized,” they pretty much ensured that their complaint was tossed into the circular file bin. Anyone reading their complaint is going to think that the OP is A.) not going to be a repeat customer B.) not going to accept any smaller gesture and C.) a drama queen/king.
Next time, try to write a less inflamatory letter and to ask for something that is more proportionate to the alleged wrong. You’ll probably get a more satisfactory response.
@The Dude: Posting helpful comments is allowed. Calling the victim a liar is NOT allowed and not helpfu.
@Mr_Mantastic: That’s a decent point. There are lots of reasons that the initial overweight bag fee wasn’t charged on the way out.
First, however, you’re assuming that the bag on the return trip was the exact same weight as the bag on the outbound trip– which is RARELY the case.
If the limit is 50 pounds and the bag weighed 49.5 pounds on the way out, they wouldn’t have been charged and it wouldn’t have taken much to push them over the 50 pound limit. Even a few brochures would have done it.
And even if they didn’t buy a single item, they might have moved items around– maybe they were wearing sneakers on the way out and flip flops on the way home. Now those sneakers are in the luggage, and they obviously weigh more than flip flops. Maybe they had a book in their carry-on on the way out, finished it on the vacation, and now it’s in their luggage. That weighs down a bag, too.
Also… The possibility that they didn’t buy a SINGLE item on their honeymoon is pretty slim. Really? Not a single item? Not one?
And there’s the possibility that it WAS overweight when they left and they just weren’t charged. That happens. If the agents are in a hurry, the lines are long, they’re about to leave for a break… They might have just not felt like charging them. Maybe the agent saw that their bag was over the limit but knew that they were on their honeymoon and wanted to be nice. That could have happened too.
I’m not suggesting that people just blindly pay airline imposed fees. However, instead of arguing with the agent, the OP’s could have just said, “Wow. We didn’t realize our bag was so heavy. Can I see the scale?” And then they could look at it and verify that their bag was, in fact, overweight. They could even verify that the scale was showing zero when empty. No agent should have a problem with that.
And when it showed that the bag was, in fact, overweight, they should have just paid the fee instead of making a federal case to the overworked/underpaid employee about how they shouldn’t have to pay it because they didn’t pay it on the way out. That’s not going to do anything but piss off the agent and ensure that they’re not willing to bend the rules for you.
I love the AirTran flight attendants. I flew to Vegas with five of my friends back in June and had a very cool flight attendant who hung out with us the whole time. I also asked her to set me up with the other flight attendant and she actually tried. It didn’t work out, but still.
Being a flight attendant must be one of the worst jobs out there. Not condoning what happened. But the day to day stress amounts to a powder keg about to blow.
The airlines need to increase staffing and training to take some of the pressures off the front line people.
Another interesting tidbit: I chatted with a Virgin America flight attendant to find out why their service is pretty good…they hire flight attendants for good personality, friendliness, and professional temperament over what looks good on a resume.
I think a lot of airlines can learn from that.
Remember this was a ticketing agent and not a flight attendant. My sister was a ticketing/gate agent for American for 5 years in the late 80s/early 90s and it was a stressful and frustrating job, according to the stories she told us of abusive passengers. I think Fly Girl’s and lawyergay’s advice probably holds true, or at least would have worked on my sister.
Obviously *I’m* not blaming the OP because hey, I wrote the post, but I just wanted to draw a distinction between flight attendants and ticketing agents.
@wgrune: Oversize != overweight.
I’d have called the cops on the employee for assault.
Making threatening manners is a no-no and against the law.
This feels like you can file for a discrimination suit. I don’t on what kind of discrimination, but you can.
I have been to this airport several times and it seems to be a symptom that all the workers there carry. From the ticket staff to the TSA agents. Even the janitors are not above verbal abuse on unsuspecting out-of-towners. Gotta love Boston, friendliest place on Earth!
If you don’t know what kind of discrimination then it probably isn’t discrimination. On this story I bet the truth lies somewhere in the middle. They were after all on their honeymoon and we all know that no one ever buys anything when they are on vacation. It is entirely possible that their bag may have been within weight limitations on their outbound but not on their return due to souvenier purchases. I would advise that if you aren’t happy with the airlines service or response then take your business elsewhere. Just think in the very near future we won’t even have people to argue with, just machines that refuse to check us in till we pay whatever fees they demand.
@Mr_Mantastic: Right, and this is the second time in a week here on Consumerist that someone tried to claim a current airline was actually Valuejet reincarnated. Last week it was JetBlue. I’d cite the post but apparently the search function is broken.
This is why i fly southweest. Yes you dontb get assigned seats but everything else makes up for that fact. Plus i fly out of a lesser used airport. I fly out of macarthur in islip instead of jfk or laguardia.
Doesn’t this come under putting passengers in a state of fright in an airport or some other new useless US terror law? I’m sure it applies to staff as well as passengers. They should have called airport police. Mind you, I’ve had to do that once in Canada due to overhearing a drunk guy make racist and terrorist remarks and all I can say is I may as well have called the teletubbies for all the use it did. So maybe ignore my advice on this…
I would find the closest large Christian organization and let them know that their local airline is using God’s name in vain. Then I would contact the consumer reporter at the area’s largest TV station and provide what information you have. Point out that it’s frightening enough to fly on AirTran (originally ValueJet, the airline that plunged an entire planeload of passengers into the Everglades) and being cursed doesn’t help. Then write the Secretary of Homeland Security, sending copies to local and major national newspapers, and ask if it’s ok to threaten passengers at an airport under federal jurisduction.
Rude people in Boston! That’s not new.
I lived there for many years and never found a helpful service type person who was from New England. Maybe it’s the weather or something, but New England is the rudest place that I have ever lived in/visited. Heck, New Englanders are even ruder than Parisian’s.
As far as overweight bags. I was once almost hit with the overweight bag fee. It was a slow day at the airport and I had arrived 3 hours early, so I decided to check the weight at a few counters after being told my bag was overweight. Every scale had a different weight with a spread of 10 lbs. It went something like this: scale outside the airpot for quick checkin: 50.5 lbs, scale at the USAir counter: 55 lbs, scale at the Delta counter 45 lbs, scale at the Southwest counter: 46 lbs, scale at the American counter: 48 lbs.
I asked the ticket person for some documentation that their scale had been validated/tested. Neither the agent nor the supervisor could tell me if the scale had ever been validated/tested. They eventually let me go through without paying the overweight fee.
@kretara:
US Airlines would have the scale with the highest weight…
Well I just sent them the link to this post and this is their response
” from Zack Milledge
to —-
date Wed, Aug 27, 2008 at 4:37 PM
subject Re: i can’t believe this >
hide details 4:37 PM (16 hours ago)
Reply
Dear (not disclosed),
Thank you for contacting AirTran Airways. All of our crew members are instructed to professionally perform their responsibilities while providing the highest level of caring customer service. The behavior described is not the quality of service we strive to provide, nor is it the kind our valued customers deserve.
Please understand, that if a formal complaint was filed by the passenger, then the agents station manager was notified about this situation. I can assure you that our station managers and department heads do take our passengers complaints very seriously, but any corrective action taken is confidential and no one other than the employees involved and their direct superiors would be privy to this information.
Please let me know if there is anything else I can assist you with. I hope we have an opportunity to serve you on a future AirTran Airways flight. Have a nice day!
Sincerely,
Zack Milledge
Customer Relations Department
AirTran Airways
— Original Message —
From:
Received: 8/25/2008 10:36:12 AM Eastern Standard Time (GMT – 4:00 )
To:
Subject: i can’t believe this
COMMENTS I’m a big fan of http://www.consumerist.com that site allows for consumers to share expieriences with companies. I thought you would like to be aware of this link which involves your company. [consumerist.com]
“
“… we suggest you cross AirTran off your list of desired carriers.”
Already done, thanks to the horrible experiences we had with AirTran on our last trip to Florida. Instead of just bringing over another plane, they had us wait for over three hours while they attempted to fix their flying coffin. In the end, their efforts were fruitless, and another plane had to be brought in anyway. The whole experience was a clusterfuck of non-information and non-reimbursement. We MIGHT have received meal (read: bag-of-chips) tickets for the airport, but that’s stretching the limits of their robotic service.
If I can help it, I will never fly AirTran again, even if I’m not paying.