A passenger on American Airlines flight 2324 from Dallas – Fort Worth to Austin on Thursday night boarded the aircraft. They scanned their boarding pass at the gate, answered the exit row questions (willing and able to assist in an emergency), sat down, and then got told they were “not checked in” after a standby passenger showed up for the same seat. They were removed from the aircraft and rebooked, eventually getting home around 1:30 a.m.
They boarded with group 1. When the whole plane had boarded, they were kicked off the aircraft:
[T]his last person gets on and I’m guessing she’s a standby, and she says I’m in her seat and I’m like no that’s my seat. I have the boarding pass to prove it. I show it to the flight attendant and they see that Boarding pass but they don’t see me on the check-in list on their iPad.
…The gate agent refuses to come on the plane and tells the flight attendant that I need to speak to her at the door. …This super rude Gate attendant comes to the door and says “YOU didn’t check in, it says you’re not checked in”. I told her to go check the security cameras, cause I spoke with her directly, looked at her in the face and told her that she asked me the exit seating questions. and then she continues to say “you didn’t check in” like she was trying to put the blame on me.
She said it doesn’t matter at this point. I said I’m Executive Plat. You’re about to give my seat up to a standby.. She said it’s too late to change anything you should’ve checked in. And I said “do you think I snuck around you while you were checking people in? “
…She tells me to go get my stuff I need de-board the plane and go talk to her at the gate. … I asked her is the flight leaving without me? She goes, talk to you at the gate. I give my car keys to my friend that I boarded with cus I already know the outcome..
[Flight attendants say] we have a couple extra seats that you could sit in and they show me on the tablet they have.
the flight attendants on board were flabbergasted too and were like, “this is wrong. How does this make any sense, you’re already on the flight and we have extra seats.
…I go up to the gate and the lady upfront says you’re not boarding that flight. ..She goes and book me on the next flight out, which is another hour and a half later. … She said “I needed to get you off the flight otherwise we would’ve been charged a $50,000 fee for leaving late and that was the decision I made.”
Their new flight was delayed twice. They eventually got in at 1:30 a.m. – and their friend traveling with them didn’t stay the three hours, so they wound up stuck with a $90 Uber.
The passenger was clearly checked in. They had a boarding pass and they were accepted for boarding. However, something in American’s system along the way changed the passengers status, and they no longer showed as boarding.
Once they were within 15 minutes of departure, and getting ready to close the flight, they appeared not to have boarded and so their seat was given away to a standby passenger. Separately, the passenger says the gate agent claimed to have paged them, but that they were sitting at the gate and were never paged. The page likely came at 15 minutes to departure, when they were already on the aircraft.
When the gate was closing the flight, his seat looked releasable, so it got given to a standby.
Once the standby was processed and the flight was closed out, the agent decided it was easier to remove the original passenger than to reopen the mess and even give them one of the empty seats on the plane.
No one was being fined $50,000 if they departed late. But the gate agent would’ve been marked down, and possibly called in to explain themselves to a manager.
The gate agent should have taken the time to fix the manifest, and correct their error. There were empty seats on the plane. All of the passengers who were boarded should have been accommodated on the flight. And there was no downline risk to a delay – the aircraft and crew would have been overnighting in Austin. (I do not know for certain that the crew did not have time out risk, but since this flight wasn’t yet delayed it’s highly unlikely.)
This was almost certainly a violation of Department of Transportation rules and a violation of American’s own Contract of Carriage.
- The post-David Dao regulation, 14 CFR 250.7, says an airline cannot deny a revenue passenger permission to board or involuntarily remove that passenger once the passenger has checked in before the deadline, and had the boarding pass collected or electronically scanned and accepted.
- The only exception is for safety, security, or health risk, or the passenger behavior (obscene, disruptive, or otherwise unlawful).
- American’s conditions of carriage say it won’t involuntarily remove a revenue passenger who has already boarded to give a seat to another passenger.
Ironically, the passenger appears to have been involuntarily denied board due to an American Airlines error – not due to overbooking – and so the requirement for cash compensation doesn’t actually apply. If they’d been removed because of oversales the airline would owe 400% of the one-way fare, up to $2,150.
In a normal case, of course, if there were more passengers than seats American Airlines gives priority to passengers with seat assignments and based on elite status. This passenger wouldn’t have been bumped in favor of someone else (let alone a standby passenger!).
How AAbsurd.
Incidents like this will keep on happening on American. Everybody should be on alert about being challenged for their seat.
Is this woke talk! Really? Gary? Really?
Americlown Airlines strikes again!
What would happen if they refused to deplane?
I once accidentally flew to MSY instead of IAD because I scanned my own middle-seat exit-row boarding pass at the gate and the “this is the wrong plane” alert is exactly the same as the “Are you ok with the exit row?” alert. While I was in the lounge they swapped gates, I went to the gate to board last-minute, when the boarding pass alerted I preemptively said yes I was ok with the exit row, boarded the plane, promptly fell asleep, and awoke on approach to see a body of water that shouldn’t have been there (Lake Pontchartrain) followed by some homes that were definitely not in one of the wealthiest counties in the US fed by piles of defense money (Loudon County, Virginia).
Was the day after the NBA All-Star game so at least got to hang out with some cool people while waiting for the MSY-IAD flight.
I’m willing to bet that the passenger’s boarding pass alerted for some reason OTHER than the exit row, everyone assumed it was an exit row alert, and they boarded without an actual scan.
@Beachfan: They deplane all the other passengers and then either drag you out or cancel the flight (or potentially swap gates/aircraft and don’t let you on the replacement.)
I am confused , what the kind of English you use tonight, mixing “the passenger “ with they/them? Is that an American thing?
So its an Involuntary Denied Boarding.
And American Airline employees wonder why their bonuses are so low compared to Delta?
I would’ve loved to have seen them physically remove him from the plane. Would make for some great YouTube video and watching executive management squirm.
Yet another reason to avoid American whenever I can…
@Prestonv — Sorry, not Aeroflop.
This is very concerning. What is the Airlines response to all of this?
1. If there were other seats, why didn’t the standby take it? 2. How do you get to platinum on AA? It seems you have to fly them a lot. Why would you if stuff like this happens?
As a gate agent, having someone get unchecked in is very common. Pretty easy fix too. You can’t fix stupid though.
Beyond belief. American CEO Robert Isom needs to be fired immediately, and American needs to get a C-Level Exec in charge of Customer Relations to immediately fire people like the arrogant gate agent who threw the Exec Platinum off the aircraft. They are way past innocent explanations for the dumpster fire that they have become, and are well into the urgent course correction phase, or they will cease to exist.
I am a very reasonable person, but I would have refused to get off the plane. My message would have been, you screwed up, you fix it. Put the standby in an empty seat or this plane is going to be delayed. Or you can give me $5,000 in cash and I will get off.
The guy will likely get nothing.
How could they have gotten thru security without being checked in?
Not shocked. I recently tried to get a checked bag receipt from American a few days after the flight, and they had lost all record of me being on the it at all. My confirmation number was an unknown and my seat was empty on the flight manifest. The flight totally disappeared from my app. Scary because I definitely was on that plane.
@Joe D you don’t need boarding passes to go through TSA anymore at most places. Just a reservation and ID.
American just lost more than $50k in bad publicity. Again.
Gary, How can you print a story like this about American Airlines and still promote credit cards that bonus American Airlines miles?
Do you really get paid enough from promoting credit cards that you have no…..ethics about what you promote?
I posted this before. I was flying AA upfront with my wife on the same locator code with a stop in Charlotte. I was and am EXP. my wife Platinum Pro. she boarded just in front of me in group one but I was asked to step aside with no explanation. after the plane was fully boarded I was boarded with a middle seat in the rear having been told “you didn’t check in DEARIE”. upon boarding I passed my wife seated up front next to another woman and she stared at me like WT4???
the next day I called customer relations an was told it was a computer glitch offered $400, 2 VIP upgrades and a profuse apology.
not bad for a one hour flight back to LGA
@Frank — I wish there was actually the karmic justice you suggest, however, in reality, they’ll still fill their planes, and new customers will come along if the price is right. We apparently have really short memories unless it happens to us personally. Finnair screwed me once, so I’ll personally never fly them again. For others, maybe that’s American, or Delta, or United, etc.
I expect at some point we’ll wake up to several dozen AA gate agents being perp walked for selling seats to other employees, or to their friends.
AA pays their gate agents only slightly better than McDonalds, so I’d expect that they’re hiring the scum of the earth.
With all due respect to Gary, this entry shows why a travel blog is not a good source for accurate news. It is possible that an AA gate agent removed a checked-in, positive space revenue passenger to put on a non-revenue standby passenger in their place, as implied by the headline and article. (“So you’re saying there’s a chance!”)
What is also equally possible is that the passenger somehow boarded without accurately getting their boarding pass scanned (despite the “exit row” question being asked), as in some sort of IT glitch occurred, or in the rush to board, some “beep” (inaccurate scan) was interpreted as the “exit row confirmation” beep, the passenger said, “I’m good with the exit row” and went onboard (not really scanned in). When it was close to departure time, the system cleared off passengers – who are checked in, but not on board – and opens those seats up last minute. They are now given to any standbys.
Every step in the process with managing reservations is logged. If an agent actively removed the passenger (as implied) it would take mere minutes for a manager to later determine this, and this agent would get fired. I doubt she would put her job on the line, and kick off a passenger (ESPECIALLY an Executive Platinum, who she knows wouldn’t stay quiet about it), and put a non-rev standby in their place.
My bet is “option #2” is what happened here – and that’s FAR different from “American Airlines Let A Passenger Board, Then Said They Weren’t Checked In — And Kicked Them Off The Plane For A Standby.” But “An AA passenger rushed the boarding process so they boarded without accurately scanning their boarding pass. So the passenger’s seat was later given away.” is not as exciting and gets fewer clicks.
The problem with any articles like this one, and others found in the usual suspects (OMMAT, PYOK, LALF, etc.), is they repeat what supposedly happened (which is mostly accurate, often just mined from the latest Twitter/X, Instagram, or TikTok posts, and only tell one side of the story). But they go on to say HOW or WHY it happened, which is often pure speculation presented as facts. We have no idea WHY this passenger got on without AA’s system showing they boarded. That’s the “bad reporting” part of these sites.
But I HIGHLY doubt it was a nefarious gate agent circumventing company policies to help out a non-rev.
“But the gate agent would’ve been marked down, and possibly called in to explain themselves to a manager.” LOL.. No… No one cares and these clowns just do whatever they want.
@Pilot Paul: +10 Exactly. This is a poor system design issue. All alerts from the boarding scanners look and sound the same. When you’re processing hundreds of passengers every flight, and 95 percent of the alerts you get are for the exit row, humans will start to just assume every alert if for the exit row.
The passenger had some other issue with their ticket. Maybe they even got upgraded! They got on the plane without a successful scan. At end of boarding, they got bumped as a no-show.
Now, PERSONALLY, I’m surprised there isn’t a very strong finders keepers policy in place that a person in the seat gets to keep the seat (fix the scan error, unwind the standby), but maybe that’s hard (more system issues) and there’s strong on time departure pressure.
@Johnny: That’s a good way to get arrested.
It’s the airline’s plane. If they ask you to leave, you have to leave, period. You have no right to be there. If they violated your contract by removing you, you can take up the contract violation afterwards.
(For the record, I am team Dao is responsible for his treatment.)
Assuming we’re getting the full story the only remedy is an email with a run down of the details. Compensation should then be due. The fact that there were open seats is mind boggling.
@Tim (“But the gate agent would’ve been marked down, and possibly called in to explain themselves to a manager.” LOL.. No… No one cares and these clowns just do whatever they want.)
Oh, yes they would have been called to account and had an uncomfortable, and possibly final, meeting with their supervisor. Gate agents ABSOLUTELY get monitored and called to account to ensure compliance with company policies. Supervision happens largely via data tracking (what time they log into the system at that gate, when boarding starts, when it ends, when the final flight info is closed out, when denied boarding occurs, etc.) Outliers in the data get reported to supervisors.
If you think that an agent could go rogue and just bump a paying passenger – especially an Executive Platinum – to get a non-rev boarded instead, and suffer no consequences, all you are doing is showing that you really don’t have any idea how employment and employee relationships work at an airline.
This is one that calls for a formal DOT report (even though nothing will happen). Wonder is someone “unchecked them in” after boarding – pulling the airline computer records for the PNR should show what happened.
If I ran an airline, I would have the following policy (before it, of course, went bankrupt). If a conflict like this occurs, the standby pax is removed. If a pax paid for F/J and needs a later flight because we got them to the connection late, they will take the seat in F/J from an upgrade or non-rev. Nobody would be bumped for a standby high status pax.
I have long said that IDB should apply to anything the airline messed up that caused the passenger to be left behind.
And it should be indexed–specify an “acceptable” IDB rate. If the rate over the year exceeds that the IDB compensation should be raised say 20%.
A single passenger becomes a “they.” Because saying it’s a “he” in the traditional generic sense has become inappropriate – an insult, if you will, to the hypersensitive language police.
This does not make sense. You cannot get your boarding pass without checking in. I would not have moved.
The gate agents at DFW are shockingly bad, which is surprising considering this is homebase for AA.
AA will never have the financials United and Delta have if this is how they treat their most loyal customers.
Hi Gary,
I saw your article on Minh (a friend of mine, I helped him reach Executive Platinum). Really appreciated you covering that.
I’m dealing with my own AA issue—14+ yr Executive Platinum, 1M+ LP last year. My account was compromised 2 weeks ago, forced into a new account. Miles moved, but no status, history, or benefits restored.
13+ calls, no resolution, and it’s impacting my business travel.
Any guidance or help bringing visibility would mean a lot.
Thanks,
Aldo