Thread: Entitled Passengers

Sort of similar, I had a horrible nonrev (I think buddy pass? She claimed her ex-husband's dad was the employee, and she was travelling with her son) when I was working today. Because of a cancellation of our first flight (we only have 2 a day) our only remaining departure was extremely full. To make things worse, that plane was delayed and most people had connections to make (and be rebooked for, which was not easy). Things that come to mind that I had to deal with (all from the same NRSA pax, mind you, most within one conversation)

• About 10 times asking if I thought people would leave
• Asking about flights from MSP, about 100 miles away, and needing to know every detail about every possible flight combination
• Asking about odds getting on MSP-ORD flight. When I said they looked bad, she found a slightly different way to ask the same question, multiple times. Answer didn't change.
• I found that another airport a similar distance away in the opposite direction had space, might be able to make a DTW flight if space was there from ORD
• Asked how to get to this other airport, then said they'd just use their GPS after I tried to find + print directions, then ended up writing them down when the office computer was acting up
• Even after knowing getting to ORD was a sure thing from this other airport, kept asking about local and MSP flights (gah!)
• Decided on going to other airport, we gave her checked bags back
• After bags were brought back, decided she wanted to try afterall (TSA had to rescreen her bag, of course)
• After clearing her and her son (I never thought I'd feel angry about clearing a nonrev, go figure) we find out that her son is outside the secure area since they didn't think he'd make it (maybe rightfully so, but where else is he gonna be?)

She's lucky that I'm a nice guy (read: pushover) and that most of this was when we weren't busy. I also tend to keep my rage buried pretty well. Thankfully, my supervisor (who is absolutely fantastic) was next to me this whole time and put her in her place pretty well.

Oh, and a bonus story: The previously cancelled flight was our overnight plane. One woman was complaining about what she and her husband went through when he was stuck in Chicago because of that cancellation. She asked me if "they know how much of an inconvenience this causes everyone, because we're not flying out of here again." Mind you, this wasn't a complaining statement given as a question, this sounded like an honest question from her if the inconvenience was taken into consideration when canceling. Given that they're not flying with us anyway, I really wish I gave a sarcastic answer like "no, I had no idea you guys didn't like these cancellations. I'll be sure to let the others know."

*sigh* Normally our passengers are relatively normal and even understanding at stuff like this. Today I guess all the weirdos wanted to come in. On the bright side, we were short staffed on that flight, very full, have to have the crew make a manual manifest because we don't have ACARS, and had a couple other things to do, but we still managed to turn that plane around in 18 minutes (I think we get 26 normally?) I was pretty proud of that one.