Right now one of the worst parts of travel is renting cars. Between long lines, and in some cases prices up to $600 a day, People are renting cars from dealerships, renting U-Hauls, and skipping rentals altogether in favor of Uber and Lyft – which themselves are seeing a driver shortage and raising prices.
Things got bad even by today’s standards, though, at the Atlanta airport on Monday. A reader shares that the Dollar Rent A Car line was out of control, stretching far enough back that it was going to take well over an hour to get a car. And things were deteriorating because a woman tried to rent a car with a debit card (which is allowed) but was being refused.
The woman became irate, not just at the clerk behind the counter but at everyone around. She reportedly hit the plexiglass Covid partition on the counter and smashed it into the Dollar clerk’s head. He started to bleed, possibly from a broken nose.
And that’s where things really begin to get nuts, because the clerk fought back picking up the barrier and hitting the customer over the head with it.
@11AliveNews come cover the chaos at the ATL airport at the Dollar rental car. This is unconscionable. People waiting 4 hrs in line then being told it will be 2-4 hours before they can get a car to them. People upset, taking video, getting ugly
— deeandfrank (@deeandfrank) May 29, 2021
Place: rental car facility at atl aport. A disgruntled karen pushes the covid partition aggressively at the employee breaking his nose.. he proceeds to run around counter an start chocking said Karen.
— Willy Wilcox (@willwilcoxgolf) June 28, 2021
I imagine we’ll be hearing more about this incident in the coming days.
Without seeing the city one coukd easily guess it was ATL or MIA.
@ Matthew — Racist often? Without knowing you, I bet your wife’s name is Karen.
These damn Norwegians coming here and causing trouble in our airports….
@Gene. Both the ATL and MIA airports serve all ethnicities. But Matthew is right that these incidents disproportionately occur in “Bubbstan”…especially in Floriduh. A Spirit flight to or from Floriduh is a powder keg as one example.
Whenever you post an article like you did earlier this morning analyzing United’s new aircraft purchase I think this is the best blog out there. Then a few hours later you post crap like this and I wonder why I keep reading
Also noticed long lines (2 hour wait) only at Dollar at DFW.
@ Tom K — The powder kegs are caused by the racist Trump morons, not by black people, so save you racist remarks for them.
TomK – how’s that heat index over 100 degrees working for you up in Seattle? Your air conditioners working overtime? Got any more riots, looting, building destruction and district takeovers in the works? Used to live up there when Seattle was the Emerald City, but your Emerald turned out to be a fake long ago. Portland and Seattle are now in the no fly zone.
Air conditioners? We don’t need no steenking air conditioners…
Only 44% of Seattle homes have primary air conditioners. If you want to make a quick buck, haul a load of AC units up to the Northwest and sell them on the street corner.
I saw this line the other Day at Atlanta (Saturday). It did look miserable. Meanwhile I passed by and picked up from Executive Aisle. Makes me feel bad the whole situation of those who know how to travel and those who don’t.
would still goto PDX and SEA over anywhere in TX, FL, and other gulf states.
@Gene you haven’t been playing close enough attention. While there certainly are a fair share of Karens most of the recent airport incidents have involved Shaquannas.
@Gene. Amazing how you assume I am being racist. Umm…nope. My anger is toward Bubbastan and the widespread dipshittedness of the region. Throw in the poor white trash element of Spirit Airlines and its ilk and voila…the powder keg.
You undercut the importance of racial fairness by immediately assuming that comments are racist when other explanations are equally valid. I’m from Seattle…that might have given you a clue.
@AlohaDaveKennedy…hey keep watching Fox. They are nothing but objective about what’s happening in the Emerald City. It really is the hellhole that you’ve heard. After all, we only have the best educated population of a major city and one of the highest rates of GDP increase but what’s worse, my 3750 square foot home with a view of downtown is only worth a measly $2.1M according to Zillow.
Obviously a third world city which is collapsing economically.
My observation from four car rental lines since the pandemic is long waits + understaffed counters+not enough managers to fix problems+sky high rates can easily drive someone to madness. A large part of the problem is lack of staff at the counters and too much time taken up with trying to upsell customers who don’t want to pay even more. Rental companies should take responsibility for poor customer service especially when they are charging these rates.
To the Moderator (if there is one). Stop the opinion negative attacks from one reader to the next. Your comments section is becoming garbage reducing the value of your entire Blog.
If you don’t have a credit card with a measly $200 limit, you shouldn’t be trusted with a rental car worth $20K. That would solve a lot of issues.
Dollar and Spirit, PhD candidates, future rocket scientists, and the low IQ all comingling.
What Valinda said… The comments on most of the posts here devolve into political diatribes and attacks on others. It diminishes the entire blog.
I was there and witnessed the whole incident. The woman repeatedly asked for a manager. She had been waiting hours and the worker was very disrespectful to her.