Airports and planes seem to bring out the worst in people. A small percentage of passengers lose their cool. Police wind up getting involved.
It’s rare to see police being called on an airline’s gate agents, but that’s just what happened over the weekend in Baltimore when journalist Seth Kaplan and his family were set to fly Air Canada to Toronto.
A woman on board American Airlines flight 2962 from Charlotte to Des Moines says she was told she had to cover up while breastfeeding her 5 month old daughter as ‘common courtesy’ when men or children are around.
Here the passenger is shown confronting a crewmember, saying he’s a frequent traveler on United and that he’s standing up for his rights – while the flight attendant “is a douche.”
Chicago O’Hare was the number one airport in the world for cancellations on Wednesday, with 172 flights dumped, while 550 flights (or 48% of the total) faced delays. Chicago Mdiway, with fewer total flights, was in the top five for cancellations and 51% of flights were delayed.
Aircraft lavatories have been getting smaller and smaller, as airlines try to squeeze in more seats. They can get a half an inch per row with less padding in the seats. They’ve been removing closets and making the galleys where flight attendants work smaller. That’s ok, they’re serving less food too, so there’s less to store there. And they’ve been making the bathrooms smaller too.
The Biden administration plans to do something about that, in the name of accessibility.
A woman is being roasted online after sharing that she was forced to gate check her carry on bag on an Aeromexico flight from Mexico to California – so she made her boyfriend “give up his shirt” so she could use it as a wrapping for the bag.
To her, the $200 Shay Michell’s BEIS carry on was worth preserving at the expense of his wardrobe.
A guest checking in at Caesars Palace Las Vegas gave up when faced at a 3 to 4 hour long line at the desk. They left, with their luggage, and enjoyed Vegas returning shortly before 2 a.m.
Still faced with impossible check-in queues, they report giving up – and managing to get into a different hotel at 4:30 in the morning.
Caesars had been overbooked, and there were no more rooms left by the time they got to the front of the line. Altogether, venture capitalist Benjamin Lee notes, “it took..9.5 hours” to get a bed.
This is a major undertaking. In 2019, before the JetBlue partnership and when American was squatting on slots and had partially abandoned the New York market, sales in the terminal were $107.4 million across 21 food and beverage, 3 duty free, 12 specialty retail, 4 currency exchange and 8 travel essential outlets.
American has a special phone number for use by passengers during weather events and similar breakdowns. This is part of the Reservations Irregular Ops Customer Assistance Program and gates have “RICAP cards.”
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Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
