Police were called to the United Airlines ticket counter in Bozeman, Montana after Senator Ted Cruz arrived at the airport past check-in cutoff for his flight. Out of Bozeman, at the end of spring break, rebooking options were limited and the Senator – who has experience fleeing the snow on United – reportedly became belligerent.
According to a poster on Reddit who took video of the incident, the Senator declared, “don’t you know who I am?” And he “[a]lso demanded to speak to a manager about a dozen times.”
According to the Deputy Director of Bozeman’s airport,
One of our Public Safety Officers (PSO) was in the ticket lobby and was asked to assist with a frustrated passenger at the United ticket counter (which is not unusual). The passenger had missed the check-in window for his flight and re-booking options were limited out of Bozeman due to Spring Break.
Once travel options were explained to the passenger, he was rebooked and departed Bozeman later that evening. Our PSO didn’t realize he was dealing with Senator Cruz until after the fact.
Cruz frequently contends that airline employees spontaneously hug him when he flies United. The agents working check-in for his United flight might find that surprising.
I promise you strangers are not going over to Ted Cruz to hug him
— Molly Jong-Fast (@MollyJongFast) March 8, 2022
Ted knows all about deadlines. He is using his Office of Employment to get favour and circumvent rules, which he helps create being a Governor. Dumbass and Arrogant.
(Part 2) to any journalist who wants to at least be open to what may have actually happened. The gate agent supposedly says Ted Cruz didn’t arrive with in the window of the check in time. Airlines generally have changed this over the last 20 years but currently it’s about 20 min before the flight.
United Airlines app has made easy access to the following information below
The problem is this journalist didn’t seem to mention that this flight left at 17:25 (almost 2 1/2 hours later that the 14:03 scheduled departure).
Also it left with 5 open seats. Many of us if United or another Airline give us notice which United does that our flight is delayed by 2 1/2 hours then we might show up 1 or hours late. I have never had this be a problem.
But it’s possible if the flight is overbooked (used to be fairly often 3 yrs ago).
So if over booked and you show up late even on a flight that is late you might be costing yourself your seat given to others. This is not the case here because this flight actually took off with empty seats. If you don’t believe me go check United’s app for its flight from Bozeman #6219 to IAH
With the facts I see Ted Cruz has a beef here and no video of misbehaving.
Lastly there could be much more evidence that we don’t know which could change everything concerning this situation
@Chris – You win today’s reporting award – nice job.
The idea that airlines can notify you that a flight is delayed, then bounce the time back closer to he regular time has been a problem for awhile. I can’t tell you how many flights I’ve almost missed because they say “We’ll be delayed for two hours.” Then head to the lounge, only to look at my phone 20 minutes later and see the message “Now boarding at gate in East Jesus, departure in 15 minutes.” They really shouldn’t do that.
Beefs are beefs. What turns this brouhaha into an imbroglio is the imputation Cruz leveraged his elected position to benefit himself. The fact the scheme didn’t work doesn’t matter, and neither do the empty seats.
Back to points
1) the flight was in fact delayed many hours and that airlines last to Houston
2) the flight left with empty seats why didn’t they simply put him on the flight
3) the video shows zero of the supposed things the writer claims such as
“became belligerent” “accosting airline employees” the other supposed bad thing Cruz did was “demanded to speak to a manager about a dozen times.”
Interesting that none of this is in the video! Not saying this article could be called fake news but.the asking to speak to a manager seems like what anyone would want to do but having to supposedly ask a dozen times makes me wonder why he had to ask that many times. Was someone trying to wait until the flight took off or what???