Airport employee gets petty revenge on rude customer's luggage.
The inner workings of air travel are usually a mystery, until now.
Most people have had an airport experience regarding canceled flights or lost luggage but it is always pretty hard to get a straight answer as to why. One man shares exactly how he handled an angry customer.
Airline employee revenge
I use to work for a airline at a small airport and got a bit of revenge on a rude customer. I did everything from check people in to push back the aircrafts.
One day we had a bad rain and wind storm. Flights where delayed and/or canceled. I walked into work at 4am and the line was what seemed like miles long of passengers waiting to get rebooked. So I helped out rebooking people.
This one lady was a straight up rude b*tch. Yelling at us, flipping out she was going to be late for her vacation. Like we can control the weather. So we got her rebooked and she checked in a bag.
I went back to start loading the baggage carts since TSA was complaining the bags where getting backed up. In the process, I found the crazy lady’s bag and put it right up front.
I drove out the carts once the weather was safe to do so and parked it. It was still raining but the baggage carts have covers so the bags would stay dry. Her bag was right up front.
Conveniently, a puddle was right next to where I parked the cart. Her bag just happened to fall out into a puddle of water and sit in the rain for the next few hours. Well, that’s what I made it look like.
Everything cleared up and the flights went out. Week later, this lady comes into the baggage service office and complains that her stuff got wet. I was training at the time so I let the trainer tell her unfortunately that’s not something covered since nothing was damaged.
She left all pissed off and I fell off my chair laughing. The trainer looked at me and said “ what did you do?”. I told her who the passenger was. It all clicked for her. She was half disappointed and half laughing.
Life lesson: Don’t flip out on people for things they can’t control especially when they have your property.
Here's what readers had to say:
See! Just be nice to the people that are trying to help you! Is that so hard?!
Being calm and polite also has benefits. For 4 years in the ‘94 to ‘98 I was commuting from Dallas to Minneapolis weekly. There was a Minneapolis gate agent who I always joked with (back when a boarding pass wasn’t needed to get to the gate). He would often see me coming and would have my boarding pass ready.
Since I was flying so much I had many upgrade opportunities in the frequent flyer program. Sometimes he would just tell me I had an upgrade before I asked.
Fast forward to 2002 and my wife and I are flying from Dallas to Los Angeles on that same airline. The same gate agent from Minneapolis is working the counter in Dallas. I saw him but he was working and the place was packed.
As we got around the last bend of the line he walks over the scale thing and says “Mr Cooks” I have everything ready for you, please follow me … to his counter. Chatted for a few minutes, he’d met my wife a couple times, when she’d fly with me, and recognized her first because I had grown a beard.
I mentioned that I no longer flew enough to be qualified for upgrades and hadn’t flown anywhere for 2 years. As he hands us our boarding passes he says “oh, I see you’re confirmed for upgrades both ways”. It always pays to be kind.
I once overheard an airline employee ask a complaining man, 'Why did you book your vacation to start on a rainy day like this?' 'I can't predict the weather eight weeks out,' he replied. 'Neither can we. Nothing I can do for you, Sir.'
ah, petty revenge - best served moist...
I always like being the pleasant, reasonable passenger in line after the asshole passengers. The squeaky wheels get just enough grease to stop the squeak, it's the treasured car that really gets taken care of.
I always loved those little airports, where only a couple people did everything. Once you were on the employee's good side, you got treated well every step of the way.
Kind of a douche move really.
I was at the back of the queue when my flight got canceled. Had to wait 6 hours for alternative accommodation as there was no flights for a week (it was the ash cloud that impacted Europe a few years ago).
Someone in the queue decided that their human rights were being impacted by the staff that were clearly staying late to find alternative accommodation for a whole flight of tired people.
This person was shouting and being obnoxious and didn’t mind that they were holding up the queue for the families stuck behind them. I strode up to them and told them to shut the fuck up and let the staff do their job as quickly as possible.
They were eventually sorted out (they were also demanding a sea view FFS) and left the airport. When it was my turn, the staff said the only place left was at the Hilton and they hoped I wouldn’t mind. Think that made my day and theirs.