Philadelphia rapper Gillie Da King, formerly Gillie Da Kid, was denied check-in by American Airlines in Madrid. His party of four passengers, flying business class, missed the check-in time and they get into an argument – they were at the airport before the cutoff, but weren’t checked in.
As a result, they’re told the best they can do is go standby for the same flight the following day. American’s Dallas flight and New York JFK flights are earlier, and the airline has nothing else later in the day.
The staffer tells the rapper, an AAdvantage Executive Platinum member, “I don’t want to talk to you” and threatens to call the police.
Mr. Da Kid shares with 3.3 million followers on Instagram,
@americanair i don’t have to say anything because this says enough we paid 4 first class flights they oversold the plane and tried to give us buddy passes 🤦🏾♂️ and they threatened to call the cops cause he said something to us that wasn’t True 💯 This is a perfect example of what being black will get u @americanair lets not forget I’m a Executive Platinum Member
This has nothing to do with “being black,” the group clearly came off frustrated and heated, but the situation was clearly handled with poor service.
Gillie Da Kid’s son, known as YNG Cheese, was shot in the back and killed July 20th. Gillie hosts the top music podcast on Apple Podcasts, “Million Dollaz Worth of Game,” which averages a million listeners per weekly episode. Not only is he grieving, but it’s understandable that he’d interpret the situation through the frame of race considering less than a year ago he was stopped while boarding an American Airlines flight and asked to search his bag for drugs (“Plane full of white folks leaving Dallas and the only black man is ask does he have illegal narcotics in his bag”).
Gillie Da Kid blasts American Airlines for racial profiling after Airport drug searchhttps://t.co/FoC4kyecyo pic.twitter.com/TZbDIiBX2U
— HipHopDX (@HipHopDX) November 8, 2022
American’s published rule requires you to be checked in 60 minutes prior to an international flight. However Madrid is an exception where the rule is 75 minutes. They’re arguing over whether the passengers were there at 11:30 a.m., 75 minutes prior to the flight’s 12:45 p.m. departure time.
Not published publicly, but there’s generally a 3 minute grace period. It’s also possible for a supervisor with a 7 sine in QIK to override minimum check-in times.
Flight 431 from Madrid to Philadelphia departed 2 minutes early on Tuesday.
I dont understand why you mention anything about this person’s son? What does that have to do with this?
Who is this person? I’ve never heard of him?
What time did he get to the check in counter? This seems to be an important piece of information, but I dont see it here.
Gillie must be feeling some kind of way about that.
Checking all of the facts in the article that were traceable and considering that gate agents lie (which I know personally), I consider this rapper’s story to be more credible than the alternate story.
From my perspective I get the feeling this rapper whom I have never heard of is lying and just playing the race card.
how do you know race didnt play a factor? typical white american with a chip on their shoulder and ready to defend racist actions…smh!
you were not at the scene, nor do you work for American Airlines…you credit card hawkers now think you are investigative journalists…LOL! at least undo your bias next time.
How do airlines generally handle it if you were standing in line waiting to check in, but due to the line moving slowly, you are now past the check in deadline?
Also, what is a 7 sine?
American does not do a good job of getting people back to the US from Europe. For a flight from Lisbon, my wife and I arrived at the airport three hours before departure and barely made our plane largely because of American (rather than security or immigration exit). We were third in line for check in and that process took an hour. I recall standing there watching multiple layers of American personnel scowling at a screen and watching the line get longer and longer.
By FAA Rule
On line
On Time
Since when did flying business class become flying first class?
A rapper with a history of anger mismanagement can easily escalate the problem with the staff and eventually try to amplify the world how he was wronged.
For a creative artist, he’s really not thinking creatively out of the box. The party could have tried a Heathrow connection or took a codeshare with Iberia.
Wow. AA ag again.
And as always some playing the reberse race cars- if ypur are not white you are not right
So basically this “rapper” gets angry with everyone he encounters on his travels. He makes himself look stupid in his airport videos. How about getting to the airport a bit earlier to avoid these issues Mr. Executive Platinum?
A “Sine” is one of the original security setups in the airline (TPF) mainframe environment. Staff would “sine in” using a string of characters assigned to them. I guess a 7 sine was a sine in category for a supervisor and software would check the users sine before allowing certain restricted actions to be done on the mainframe system.
I am sooooooo tired of RACE issues in this Country. If he was late, he was late; however, considering it was an International flight AND the last flight going to the US, AND they were flying First Class – American could have made exceptions.
This Race thing in America has got to end. It’s gotten to the point that Black people will blame THAT before anything else BECAUSE of the Negative Racial Climate here – which, by the way didn’t exist before 2017 (read between the lines).
Why didn’t he check in online, especially as EXP? I’ve learned the hard way that with an oversold flight checkin time matters even in business.
From my perspective I get the feeling this gate agent whom I have never heard of is lying and just playing the race card
@Steve: I don’t think Gillie is playing the race card at all. Why do you feel some kind of way?
Why do you post this dreck?
He missed the check in cutoff. End of story. Not a story.
Doesn’t matter if he’s a black rapper social media influencer EXP. All of that is irrelevant.
The AA desk at MAD is a pop up with a staff of 2 part time agents. Better get there 4 hours early if you want to fly AA from MAD.
MAD is not the most user friendly airport. They wanted that clean Euro look and eliminated most of the signage. It looks pretty but if you don’t connect through MAD regularly it’s worthless as an airport.
It is required procedure to be asked if you have any narcotics in your bag on any international flight. I have been asked this numerous times and I’m white. How can he be sure that no whites were asked the question?
@Lori: No, it isn’t required to be asked if you have narcotics in your bag, and I’ve never been asked. “Did you pack these bags yourself and have they been in your possession since?” is the standard question, which is asked if you’re checking bags, not at boarding. Also note that when the rapper in this article was asked that question was another time when he was flying domestically.
I gave Gary the heads up about the story and probable flight numbers, times.
What’s odd is the passenger brings up the ‘oversold’ part and that the seats were ‘given away.’
Did an agent give them that reasoning vs the ‘youre too late for us to check you in, get through security, etc’?
Seems more complex than a straight ‘not here in time’ situation.
Hard to tell if it was a ‘standing in line and not helped in time’ vs a ‘showed up to an empty check in area after they decided to stop accepting pax’
Why are we assuming being black had nothing to do with it?
If I have a business class ticket, and I’m in line at the airport in time to check in, and I’m especially in line to check in more than 75 minutes prior to departure at a weird exception airport, I expect that I will be allowed to check in for my flight, and any other outcome is a failure on the part of the airline. (Whether that’s staffing, poor systems, etc.)
And as a white person, I would expect the airline to be bending over backwards to make that situation as correct as possible.
If the passenger had been white, would he have been allowed to check in? I think so.
But I suppose AA would rather have this situation be about treating ALL their elite business class customers poorly than just black ones.
Do love the “AA wasn’t being racist, they’re just this bad to everyone!” comments “defending” the airline though!
@Chris Raehl “If the passenger had been white, would he have been allowed to check in? I think so.”
You don’t know very much about this or most Western-style airlines then do you?
We know that the passenger was not checked in by the check-in cutoff time. We have no information whatsoever to go on that suggests the reason the standard policy was enforced was race. In fact, it takes a 7 sine supervisor to override the policy, which likely was not even on site.
@Greg – for what it’s worth this story was sent to me yesterday afternoon by several people! shows some interest!
There’s no evidence here for anything other than the passengers were on site but not checked in at the check-in cutoff.
@Lori – That’s simply mistaken (and it was a domestic flight)
There are rules and people, black, white, red, yellow, orange (that’s a trump reference for his followers who would get it) need to follow them. Just because your “famous” doesn’t mean you get special treatment. Tired of the “newly privledged” claiming racism every time they don’t follow simple rules. If AA was truely racist they would have never let you buy the ticket in the first place.
Time to act like a human being and not a spoiled privledged brat!
@sunviking82 – I think it’s non-crazy for the passenger to see this through the lens of race, since less than a year ago he had a flying experience that pretty clearly was… I just don’t think there’s evidence for it in *this* instance.
Note to self-absorbed ‘celebrities’ of all sorts. This is the kind of treatment you often receive when you show up looking like this. When you’re impolite on top of it, everything escalates. And the escalation is not in your favor. We don’t need any bums sitting up front. A completely politically incorrect statement, but a true statement.
It is very interesting to see people who are not getting the full story weigh in. Was it about race? I don’t know, I wasn’t there and I am certainly not going to judge whether it was or wasn’t. Every has an opinion and that is good but also part of the problem. Society reads or hears half the story and decides what is true. I think everyone should be more concerned and upset about the sub standard story than what little content it provides. I remember my very first introduction to writing in elementary school and it has been imprinted there every since: who, what, where, when, why and how. This story have left out some key facts, and no, there are not alternate facts, in this story and we should all be demanding better reporting. So, given what little we know, it would appear everyone was wrong or part of the problem in this case.
How do you know that this has nothing to do with being black? You don’t have enough information to make that statement. Check your privilege And are you aware that Spain has a problem with airline customer service? Ask someone who is Spanish. There’s a whole movement of people who want to organize for passenger rights in Spain. Airlines staff rarely listen to complaints and usually say “I’m not going to talk to you” or “there’s nothing we can do.”
It would probably help his case if he could communicate in clear English. With punctuation.
What is that guy complaining about? They were late, so unless there was some undue process issue at the airport caused by the airline that made them late (like having to wait in line for an hour), the airline did the right thing.
CLEARLY AA is racist. It is a known fact that black people are time challenged and AA should be more accommodating
How do you know that this situation had nothing to do with being Black? Is it because the work “Black” was not used? Madrid is a wildly racist city. The idea that this denial, poor customer service and refusal of the supervisor to use his discretion was not based in race is short-sighted and not based in any fact whatsoever. This is not reporting. It’s an OpEd. I don’t know if race was a factor in this man’s treatment any more than you do, but as a white man who wasn’t there, declaring that race was not an issue is not your declaration to make.
@Lori, I’ve flown internationally for 45 years and never been asked whether I have any narcotics.
@Gary: If I have a business class ticket, and I can’t walk up to the ticketing area at minutes before the check-in cutoff and check in, then that is the airline’s fault for not being able to process business class checkins, ESPECIALLY if it is the last flgiht and the only flgiht they are checking in. There should not be a line at all. It’s just plain insufficient staffing and that is the airline’s fault.
If I’m also an elite customer and the airline refused fuses to check me in even though it’s a few minutes past their arbitrarily imposed deadline, I am going to be furious.
And in fact, I have NEVER been denied a late checkin a few minutes past the bag-check cutoff. Worst case they have checked my bags conditionally with a “we’ll try but if they don’t make it it’s on you to come get them.”
Now, that may be because I fly United instead of American. MAYBE it’s because I’m white and the airline doesn’t matter.
Regardless, this passenger arrived at the airport prior to the cutoff with a paid business class ticket and should have been on the flight. He wasn’t. That’s either because AA screws over ALL their business class passengers if they arrive close to the bag check cutoff, or they don’t and this particular passenger got different treatment because he looks different.
@Sncy: The passenger was not late. The passenger was on time. The airline was not able to serve the passenger before their self-imposed check-in cutoff, and that is not the passenger’s problem.
Been there, done that, talked about it numerous times. We departed a little too late, shuttle bus took a little too long, didn’t understand that even if you’re flying a domestic leg first, AA still has the same rules for your first leg as for the international leg. Made it to the counter about two minutes after the deadline, whatever that was back in 2019. Economy class with no status, they gave our seats away in an oversold situation – but offered them back to us at $3k a pop (Full Fare)
Mad, yes. But our own fault. Calmed down, sat on the side, searched for options on our phones and found seats on Aer Lingus the next day out of ORD for way less. Lesson learned, know the deadlines for checking in and meet them. Race has nothing to do with it, you provide them an opportunity to solve their problems, they’re going to take it. Honestly, it’s one of the reasons we bought lounge access – less inclined to head for the airport at the last minute when you have a decent place to wait before the flight.
@Chris Raehl – If the cutoff time were 5 minutes later, then they would state that. The cutoff time is the cutoff time – learn to live by the rules. And never expect to show up at the last minute and there to be no line. Often, those cutoffs are coded into the system. Maybe they can override them, but they don’t have to or sometimes simply can’t.
@Gary: How is it many of my comments require moderation before posting yet the comment above makes it through?
@C_M: Cool but irrelevant story. When people do an American airline (not to be confused with American Airlines) the courtesy of shelling out thousands of dollars for a bigger seat with marginal (compared to global competitors) good and service, the least the airline can do is check them in when they arrive at the airport prior the check-in cutoff time.
Sure, the airline can have rules that allow then to screw you over, but that doesn’t change the fact that you were screwed over. And if the staff screws you over when they would have done the right thing for a white passenger, that would indeed be racist.
(We don’t have enough data to know whether AA at this station screws over ALL the business class passengers that arrive at check-in close to but on time, or just the black ones.)
But had AA treated this customer the way ANY business class customer should be treated, this would be a non-issue.
(And yes, I mean business-class customer. Piaaing off your high margin customers because you can’t staff your station to check them in may be OK by the airlines rules, but is a really stupid approach to keeping your high value customers.)
And really, “We aren’t racist, if we’re understaffed we won’t let you fly either!” is NOT messaging you want to send to the people who can afford your business fares and presumably value their time.
This is confusing. I admit to once being too late at check-in, and having to wait until the next morning. Despite my elite status, I neither spliced my minute-timing with the ground staff nor escalated it to social media to somehow monetize it. Then again, I never would be mistaken for a rapper, and I suppose rappers are more williing to press their civil rights unde the passenger contract with the public carrier. C’est la vie, and best of luck to the famous rapper, or aspiring rapper.
@Chris Raehl – I do not know why many of your comments get placed by the system into the moderation queue, I clear them quickly
I understand the “in line” rule for the check in deadline, but I sure would not depend on it. That is why I am always there early.
By the way, I always hear people say “if you have never missed a flight, you are spending too much time at the airport”. Well, here you are.
Have any of y’all been to Philly lately? The whole damn city smells of marijuana, except the subway – that still smells like urine.
@concernedreader
lol you’re projecting hard.
@Nun. We are not talking EasyJet or Ryan Air, this is AA and the website probably said error when checking in which is why he didn’t check in online.
This isn’t great behavior by AA. As a CK and EP, they regularly bend the rules. I’ve had it where I’ve turned up 45 minutes before an international flight and they checked bags for me and ushered me through security.
If he was there 75 minutes before his flight there was plenty of time for someone to bend the rules.