usdcaguy wrote:

klm617 wrote:

usdcaguy wrote:

Having been a baggage service agent, I can confirm that passengers, especially East Indian males, can throw terrible tantrums only seen in daycare centers. The guy was wrong for cussing him out. Personally, I would have seen whether we had the bag before sending him back to Hawaiian, but the rules are the rules regarding the final carrier.

First of all the man is the customer he pays for a service to get him and his belongings from point A to point B together. IF my suitcase that I paid for to be checked didn't arrive with me you better be doing everything in your power expeditiously to reunite me with my belongings that is your job end of story. God only knows how long this guy has be traveling because his initial flight was canceled and rebooked only to be stuck at your destination waiting to find out where your bag is and no one seems to be going over and above to help you resolve your issue. I'm sure if the man felt that his concern was being taken care of seriously we wouldn't even be having this thread but once again said airline CSA thinks they have the right to push customers around. If you don't want to deal with overbearing people that you shouldn't work in the service industry. If this man couldn't find the customers bag in the Delta system he should have been on the phone finding out where it was after all Delta was the initial service provider that this man purchased his ticket from.

It’s not the end of the story. The rule is that the final carrier must take the claim (the passenger becomes theirs) as long as there is a ticketing and baggage agreement in place. In this case, it was HA, and they likely weren’t doing their job. With the Delta app, you can check to see where your bag is. If it’s at the station, you can ask them for it. Realistically, DL should have already taken the bag to HA, so that should have been a mute point.

Not everyone has the app why should he download an app on his phone if he flies once or twice a year and further more why should he do the work that the Delta customer service agents should be doing for him and who's to say Delta ever got his bag over to Hawaiian if it was checked on the Delta flight and in their possession before his original flight was canceled.

Revelation wrote:

It's just leveling the power gradient.

The agent threatened the guy with calling the cops with no discernible reason, which justifies the recording IMHO.

The agent deserves the notoriety, IMHO.

I must respectfully disagree.

I think as soon as you pull out a recording device you immediately lose the high ground. Did the customer really believe that whipping out his phone and recording the interaction would do anything but escalate the situation?

As for the "power gradient", all the customer had to do was get on the phone with Delta corporate, and explain the issue. If necessary, name the agent(s) involved.

I find in these kinds of situations, you get more flies with honey.

I've never found myself in a similar situation, but pulling out a camera and recording the interaction is not something I would consider doing.

klm617 wrote:

Rookie87 wrote:

sergegva wrote:

Some insiders keep saying that it was Hawaiian's responsability to give the luggage back to this customer (period).
All right. However, in this particular situation, it appears that the suitcase flew with Delta, and was already delivered when the pax arrived. Right?

If I understand it correctly, Hawaiian should have asked Delta for the suitcase, and gave it back to this customer at the Hawaiian counter. Still correct?
But what if the Hawaiian counter had checked where the bag was, discovered that it already arrived at the airport and was still with Delta, and decided something like "instead of contacting Delta & asking them to bring the bag here, it will be more quick to tell this pax to go directly to Delta's counter"?

I mean, they maybe sent the guy back to Delta on purpose, knowing that his bag was still there because they didn't ask it back from Delta yet. Is this scenario possible? If yes, the guy was totally stucked. And when you watch the videos, it seems that he was totally unable to explain his case at Delta's counter because they decided not to listen to him the moment he said "I arrived with Hawaiian"...

Big NO. We don’t know anything from the bag status from the video. All we know is that he got rebooked and that HA assumed responsibility for the bag, which means, the HA agent should have been the one to get the bag, end of story. It wasn’t the DL agents responsibility at that point AND considering how the customer sounded and how both agents were reacting, he had said and done things before recording that would have explained the whole story.



So far we have a few facts regarding DOT rules that have been posted from other posters. And proof from the video that he was angry and refused to listen AND was rude! Do you cut off people while they’re trying to explain something to you calmly? If not then how dare you condone his behavior?

Who said his bag was on the Hawaiian flight with him perhaps his bag still flew aboard a Delta aircraft or after he checked in his bag Delta never brought it to the Hawaiian aircraft.

Who said the bag wasn’t on the HA flight? It was domestic right? Bag could have been found and re tagged on an HA flight OR left on the original DL flight. What’s hard to comprehend? If your bag didn’t fly with you and got placed on another airline, who do you think has you fill out the lost baggage report and gets your bag delivered to you? The airline you FLEW on. In his case? HAWAIIAN. What was he doing at DL anyway in the first place!? You come off an HA flight, you go to HA baggage ! The first customer service failure would have been at HA. But it’s DL’s fault for getting him were he needed to be? It’s DL’s fault that he refused to listen to reason? Give me a break

Calder wrote:

Revelation wrote:

It's just leveling the power gradient.

The agent threatened the guy with calling the cops with no discernible reason, which justifies the recording IMHO.

The agent deserves the notoriety, IMHO.

I must respectfully disagree.

I think as soon as you pull out a recording device you immediately lose the high ground. Did the customer really believe that whipping out his phone and recording the interaction would do anything but escalate the situation?

As for the "power gradient", all the customer had to do was get on the phone with Delta corporate, and explain the issue. If necessary, name the agent(s) involved.

I find in these kinds of situations, you get more flies with honey.

I've never found myself in a similar situation, but pulling out a camera and recording the interaction is not something I would consider doing.

THANK YOU Calder!

If an employee decides he’s God, I remind him who signs his paycheck by getting in contact with his corporate office! I’m not about to go back and forth with anyone.

Rookie87 wrote:

Who said the bag wasn’t on the HA flight? It was domestic right? Bag could have been found and re tagged on an HA flight OR left on the original DL flight. What’s hard to comprehend? If your bag didn’t fly with you and got placed on another airline, who do you think has you fill out the lost baggage report and gets your bag delivered to you? The airline you FLEW on. In his case? HAWAIIAN. What was he doing at DL anyway in the first place!? You come off an HA flight, you go to HA baggage ! The first customer service failure would have been at HA. But it’s DL’s fault for getting him were he needed to be? It’s DL’s fault that he refused to listen to reason? Give me a break

The bag was not on HA. The bag flew on his original DL itinerary. DL delivered the bag to him at his hotel, not HA.

Did you read the previous comments? In particular, #45:

Schweigend wrote:

I'm commenting because I've worked in Ramp and Baggage Service Office (BSO) areas.

It appears that the bag travelled on the original DL itinerary as tagged -- HNL-LAX-PDX -- even though the pax had been re-routed on HA. DL did not re-tag the customer's bag to match his new routing, so it just went on the original flights. (On International flights, customers' bags must accompany them, due to PPBM Positive Passenger Bag Match rules, but this was a domestic itinerary, so that doesn't matter as much.)

When the pax went to the DL BSO in PDX, the DL employees should simply have looked up the bag tag number in their tracking system to determine its location. I believe that DL has top-notch bag-tracking systems in place. It should not have mattered that he had flown on HA. The DL BSO folks would have immediately seen that they had the guy's bag already.

Instead, upon hearing that he'd flown on Hawaiian, they started objecting, and then the obscene rudeness -- startlingly, IMO, to a customer who'd already experienced a DL service disruption, otherwise he'd never have been on HA at all.

BSO employees' first step should always be to pull up the info from customer's bag tag in their tracking and reservations systems -- before making judgements or directing the pax elsewhere.

Perhaps the DL employee was not properly trained to be working in BSO, where you deal pretty much only with customers whose bags have been mishandled -- and who generally are already upset -- and who really need a lot of TLC and expert factual info from the airline agents.

-Aloha!

Calder wrote:

I must respectfully disagree.

I think as soon as you pull out a recording device you immediately lose the high ground. Did the customer really believe that whipping out his phone and recording the interaction would do anything but escalate the situation?

As for the "power gradient", all the customer had to do was get on the phone with Delta corporate, and explain the issue. If necessary, name the agent(s) involved.

I find in these kinds of situations, you get more flies with honey.

I've never found myself in a similar situation, but pulling out a camera and recording the interaction is not something I would consider doing.

I do not think recording the interaction is escalation in today's world.

It was already clear there was a disagreement, and being recorded should not be upsetting if you're confident that you're in the right.

On the other hand if you're just trying to brush off the customer...

I think calling corporate would have been a good move on the customer's part.

Unfortunately it didn't go down that way.

The way it did go down was the employee got suspended and the customer got a $200 voucher.

Something to be learned from that, no?

Rookie87 wrote:

And please tell us how wise you are.

From the video it’s easy to see, if you can actually pay attention, that he’s been given the information he needs. HA assumed responsibility for the bag, point blank period. The DL agents repeatedly informed him from his video that he needed to go Hawaiian AND that the agent could not even pull up his baggage info from what he had! Which means his bag got retagged to Hawaiian and the DL bag tag he has does not exist. Most of us who have been in these jobs know this information from experience! You obviously lack that so why not just ASK us what could be going on instead of jumping to your ill informed conclusions???
You did not watch the video to understand the information from both sides. He did not care what the agents were saying, all he cared about was repeating that he had a DL tag so DL has his bag and recording that. It’s basically like you having been rebooked and you kept your info from the flight you got rebooked from and start recording an agent from the previous airlineaskimg why you don’t have a seat! Seriously...

Wise: 20+ years of 170K yearly with DL, NW, TW + current DM. And the lack of service provided by that agent is nothing like I have ever experienced.

speedbird52 wrote:

Nearly killing someone for refusing to move off a seat when it was his legal right to stay is hardly "nothing right" in my opinion. Those employees deserved a lengthy jail sentence if you ask me. Sadistic brutes who only took the job to get some sort of twisted pleasure out of causing bodily harm to others.

They were not employees of the airline. They were police officers and that’s what police officers do up to killing you if they feel they need to. Society has deemed that necessary and acceptable in hundreds of cases.

bgm wrote:

The fact that people are defending the employee says a lot about how low customer service has sunk in the US airline industry. Their job is to deal with difficult passengers, that's what they're paid to do. To use profanities against a paying customer, regardless of whoever was in the right, is wrong. No ifs, no buts.

Exactly very on point with this comment.

B737900ER wrote:

speedbird52 wrote:

Nearly killing someone for refusing to move off a seat when it was his legal right to stay is hardly "nothing right" in my opinion. Those employees deserved a lengthy jail sentence if you ask me. Sadistic brutes who only took the job to get some sort of twisted pleasure out of causing bodily harm to others.

They were not employees of the airline. They were police officers and that’s what police officers do up to killing you if they feel they need to. Society has deemed that necessary and acceptable in hundreds of cases.

As they were reprimanded and fired, I assume society did not find that acceptable. Police officers should not act as the private goons for a company.

aloha73g wrote:

Rookie87 wrote:

Who said the bag wasn’t on the HA flight? It was domestic right? Bag could have been found and re tagged on an HA flight OR left on the original DL flight. What’s hard to comprehend? If your bag didn’t fly with you and got placed on another airline, who do you think has you fill out the lost baggage report and gets your bag delivered to you? The airline you FLEW on. In his case? HAWAIIAN. What was he doing at DL anyway in the first place!? You come off an HA flight, you go to HA baggage ! The first customer service failure would have been at HA. But it’s DL’s fault for getting him were he needed to be? It’s DL’s fault that he refused to listen to reason? Give me a break

The bag was not on HA. The bag flew on his original DL itinerary. DL delivered the bag to him at his hotel, not HA.

Did you read the previous comments? In particular, #45:

Schweigend wrote:

I'm commenting because I've worked in Ramp and Baggage Service Office (BSO) areas.

It appears that the bag travelled on the original DL itinerary as tagged -- HNL-LAX-PDX -- even though the pax had been re-routed on HA. DL did not re-tag the customer's bag to match his new routing, so it just went on the original flights. (On International flights, customers' bags must accompany them, due to PPBM Positive Passenger Bag Match rules, but this was a domestic itinerary, so that doesn't matter as much.)

When the pax went to the DL BSO in PDX, the DL employees should simply have looked up the bag tag number in their tracking system to determine its location. I believe that DL has top-notch bag-tracking systems in place. It should not have mattered that he had flown on HA. The DL BSO folks would have immediately seen that they had the guy's bag already.

Instead, upon hearing that he'd flown on Hawaiian, they started objecting, and then the obscene rudeness -- startlingly, IMO, to a customer who'd already experienced a DL service disruption, otherwise he'd never have been on HA at all.

BSO employees' first step should always be to pull up the info from customer's bag tag in their tracking and reservations systems -- before making judgements or directing the pax elsewhere.

Perhaps the DL employee was not properly trained to be working in BSO, where you deal pretty much only with customers whose bags have been mishandled -- and who generally are already upset -- and who really need a lot of TLC and expert factual info from the airline agents.

-Aloha!

Some of y’all kill me with the lack of critical thinking and nil reading comprehension.
Whatever the poster commented above, I basically repeated WITHOUT having to bother looking it up. My point remains the same, he should have gone to Hawaiian PER the DOT rules in place

Why are you SO adamant, Rookie? Are you the agent??? If not, you sure are coming off like it!

filipair wrote:

This dude should sue. Delta's irrop issues and subsequent disastrous customer service are not his problem, nor should being calling profanities by a representative of a company you patronized be his problem.

What would he sue for? Contract of carriage was fulfilled, he (and eventually his luggage) got to where DL was paid to get him. If we can start suing people for speaking harshly to us, then all of NYC would be perpetually suing itself.

Moderators! Please! This thread is getting out of hand! Common decency and the ability to exchange views without insulting each other disappears from this site WAY to often!

mjoelnir wrote:

B737900ER wrote:

speedbird52 wrote:

Nearly killing someone for refusing to move off a seat when it was his legal right to stay is hardly "nothing right" in my opinion. Those employees deserved a lengthy jail sentence if you ask me. Sadistic brutes who only took the job to get some sort of twisted pleasure out of causing bodily harm to others.

They were not employees of the airline. They were police officers and that’s what police officers do up to killing you if they feel they need to. Society has deemed that necessary and acceptable in hundreds of cases.

As they were reprimanded and fired, I assume society did not find that acceptable. Police officers should not act as the private goons for a company.

They may have been fired. But there are thousands of examples that show the opposite. If you don’t believe be, the next time you interact with law enforcement do the exact opposite of what they tell you and see what happens. After you get the crap beat out of you see how much sympathy you get from the courts. Yes, society accepts brutality from certain people on an overwhelming scale.

airportugal310 wrote:

Why are you SO adamant, Rookie? Are you the agent??? If not, you sure are coming off like it!

Adamant? I’m just stating what anyone can observe in the 3 videos. The responses I’m getting are mainly from those who barely watched the 3 videos in the OP, have no experience in the field, and are quick to blame without even trying to understand the 3 sides to the story.

1st side: the customer,
He got ping ponged around with flights (I’m not sure if he actually went from gate to gate, he could have been rebooked on all flights from the same area for all I know), he got to his destination on Hawaiian, because his original tag was DL, he went to DL to claim the bag and something happened and then he started recording.

2nd side: the agents, the female agent was polite in every video, the gentleman obviously had lost his cool by the time the record button was played. You can hear them say that they tried to help him, he ignored them, Hawaiian ignored him, and that even when he punched in his info, nothing would come up. The agent said it. Maybe he made a mistake and due to the customer’s agitation and his inability to deal with this stressful situation, he couldn’t think straight.

3rd side: what really happened
From what some of us who’ve worked in baggage claim, HA should have dealt with the claim, got the bag from DL and sent him on his way.

If anyone can argue the facts of the “3rd side” I’d love to learn something new about baggage because it’s been a while for me.

crownvic wrote:

ual763 wrote:

thegoldenargosy wrote:

The passenger probably deserved it.

Wouldn't doubt it. But, the employee shouldn't have said those things, especially when being filmed.

I disagree... If the customer was antagonizing the employee, I fully stand behind the employee. The adage "The customer is always right", has long been forgotten by me after dealing with irrational people for so long. Then again, maybe this DL employee finally had enough and it was his "grand finale" before walking off the job! People generally suck today, so who knows what happened here.

Based on what evidence is this customer wrong? Delta had his luggage. Hawaiian did not have it. Now, Delta gets bad publicity because someone swore. It is clear he was not being listened to because the person said go to Hawaiian.

Rookie87 wrote:

You know what, I afforded you some respect when I wrote to you.

First of all you don’t know how to understand anything from a video (3) that we’re posted. Your previous comments and your lack of proper responses prove that you sir have no comprehension skills nor do you know how to read.
Let’s break it down:
3 videos were posted
Those of us who watched and have any experience or ability to judge a scene could clearly see that the customer was through his tone alone belligerent! He cut the woman off multiple times to say what? NO NO my tag says Delta! You don’t want to help me. When clearly she states that they DID indeed try to help him and he refused to listen to him.
You and others on here can’t seem to notice that and are fixated on the end result of the older agent losing his cool. But not what happened clearly in the video. If he was right, like any sane person, he would call corporate and tell them what was going on instead of recording and repeating himself over and over again. But, the consensus for you and everyone who can’t wrap their minds over the possibility that people are in fact crazy want to immediately vouch for him being a “professional”? That’s so professional of him ? regardless of how he was being treated!
None of you defending him have come up with anything but pity for him and shame on big bad Delta and the agent. No accountability on his part, his behavior, his actions? Armchair quarterbacks at their finest on here.

I think the problem is that the DL employees in this case were not calm and professional. Compare them to the woman at LAX who dealt with Buzz Aldrin a few weeks back. Mr Aldrin was much more belligerent than this passenger, but the DL Red Coat at LAX was completely calm, pleasant, and professional while dealing with him. Note also that the LAX agents did call a Red Coat while the PDX baggage agents would not or did not...they jumped straight to calling the police which is a bit much.

The DL agents at PDX may have looked up the location of his bag (which was in DL's possession) but it seems like they did not and simply wanted HA to deal with it. No one is arguing that it would have been HA's responsibility to take a lost bag report. The issue is that the bag probably wasn't lost. DL had it ... either in PDX or on its way to PDX, and the DL agents were refusing to check where it was. Perhaps the HA agents did track the bag and told the passenger that DL had it, it very well could have been sitting in DL's PDX baggage office. We don't have all the information. We do know that the DL agents did not appear to be calm, pleasant and professional like the LAX Red Coat was. It also concerns me that they wouldn't call a supervisor or Red Coat and jumped straight to 911.

-Aloha!

aloha73g wrote:

Rookie87 wrote:

You know what, I afforded you some respect when I wrote to you.

First of all you don’t know how to understand anything from a video (3) that we’re posted. Your previous comments and your lack of proper responses prove that you sir have no comprehension skills nor do you know how to read.
Let’s break it down:
3 videos were posted
Those of us who watched and have any experience or ability to judge a scene could clearly see that the customer was through his tone alone belligerent! He cut the woman off multiple times to say what? NO NO my tag says Delta! You don’t want to help me. When clearly she states that they DID indeed try to help him and he refused to listen to him.
You and others on here can’t seem to notice that and are fixated on the end result of the older agent losing his cool. But not what happened clearly in the video. If he was right, like any sane person, he would call corporate and tell them what was going on instead of recording and repeating himself over and over again. But, the consensus for you and everyone who can’t wrap their minds over the possibility that people are in fact crazy want to immediately vouch for him being a “professional”? That’s so professional of him ? regardless of how he was being treated!
None of you defending him have come up with anything but pity for him and shame on big bad Delta and the agent. No accountability on his part, his behavior, his actions? Armchair quarterbacks at their finest on here.

I think the problem is that the DL employees in this case were not calm and professional. Compare them to the woman at LAX who dealt with Buzz Aldrin a few weeks back. Mr Aldrin was much more belligerent than this passenger, but the DL Red Coat at LAX was completely calm, pleasant, and professional while dealing with him. Note also that the LAX agents did call a Red Coat while the PDX baggage agents would not or did not...they jumped straight to calling the police which is a bit much.

The DL agents at PDX may have looked up the location of his bag (which was in DL's possession) but it seems like they did not and simply wanted HA to deal with it. No one is arguing that it would have been HA's responsibility to take a lost bag report. The issue is that the bag probably wasn't lost. DL had it ... either in PDX or on its way to PDX, and the DL agents were refusing to check where it was. Perhaps the HA agents did track the bag and told the passenger that DL had it, it very well could have been sitting in DL's PDX baggage office. We don't have all the information. We do know that the DL agents did not appear to be calm, pleasant and professional like the LAX Red Coat was. It also concerns me that they wouldn't call a supervisor or Red Coat and jumped straight to 911.

-Aloha!

Yes but she also had an attitude and was very unhelpful the only difference was she stayed calm as she pulled her power trip on Buzz .

klm617 wrote:

aloha73g wrote:

Rookie87 wrote:

You know what, I afforded you some respect when I wrote to you.

First of all you don’t know how to understand anything from a video (3) that we’re posted. Your previous comments and your lack of proper responses prove that you sir have no comprehension skills nor do you know how to read.
Let’s break it down:
3 videos were posted
Those of us who watched and have any experience or ability to judge a scene could clearly see that the customer was through his tone alone belligerent! He cut the woman off multiple times to say what? NO NO my tag says Delta! You don’t want to help me. When clearly she states that they DID indeed try to help him and he refused to listen to him.
You and others on here can’t seem to notice that and are fixated on the end result of the older agent losing his cool. But not what happened clearly in the video. If he was right, like any sane person, he would call corporate and tell them what was going on instead of recording and repeating himself over and over again. But, the consensus for you and everyone who can’t wrap their minds over the possibility that people are in fact crazy want to immediately vouch for him being a “professional”? That’s so professional of him ? regardless of how he was being treated!
None of you defending him have come up with anything but pity for him and shame on big bad Delta and the agent. No accountability on his part, his behavior, his actions? Armchair quarterbacks at their finest on here.

I think the problem is that the DL employees in this case were not calm and professional. Compare them to the woman at LAX who dealt with Buzz Aldrin a few weeks back. Mr Aldrin was much more belligerent than this passenger, but the DL Red Coat at LAX was completely calm, pleasant, and professional while dealing with him. Note also that the LAX agents did call a Red Coat while the PDX baggage agents would not or did not...they jumped straight to calling the police which is a bit much.

The DL agents at PDX may have looked up the location of his bag (which was in DL's possession) but it seems like they did not and simply wanted HA to deal with it. No one is arguing that it would have been HA's responsibility to take a lost bag report. The issue is that the bag probably wasn't lost. DL had it ... either in PDX or on its way to PDX, and the DL agents were refusing to check where it was. Perhaps the HA agents did track the bag and told the passenger that DL had it, it very well could have been sitting in DL's PDX baggage office. We don't have all the information. We do know that the DL agents did not appear to be calm, pleasant and professional like the LAX Red Coat was. It also concerns me that they wouldn't call a supervisor or Red Coat and jumped straight to 911.

-Aloha!

Yes but she also had an attitude and was very unhelpful the only difference was she stayed calm as she pulled her power trip


******IGNORE*****
i misunderstood your reply. You were replying in regards to the LAX scenario.

I find it sad that so many people think because they paid a few hundred dollars for a slip of paper, they think they are merely allowed to do whatever they want to airline workers. So many people on here seem to share that sentiment even though they won't outright admit it.

There is a point in time where any agent stops being an employee and starts being a human. It clearly seems like there is far more to this than the pax filming is letting on. Anyone with actual BSO experience could tell you this.

Continually harassing the agents, sticking a camera up in their face, is never going to help a situation. We all know that's what this pax wanted though, he wanted the spotlight, and a chance to sue I'm sure, and sadly so many people on here are defending it. He knew he'd get good ole public opinion in on the mob lynch who once again have no idea what they are talking about besides 2 "hurtful words"

It's like a dog, it's been loyal and nice and playful for a long time, yet consistently gets beaten by the owner time and time again. The dog finally snaps back one day and the dog gets put down, the owner walks into the sunset. Similar concept here, too many people are sheep and automatically wired to hate/side against an airline worker.

In a time when general public seems to be more angry and violent (look at all the shootings, airplane meltdowns etcc), it seems people overlook the fact that Customer Service in the country is going down because Customer behavior, and behavior in general toward another human has gone way wrong anymore.

SpinOn2 wrote:

I find it sad that so many people think because they paid a few hundred dollars for a slip of paper, they think they are merely allowed to do whatever they want to airline workers. So many people on here seem to share that sentiment even though they won't outright admit it.

I find it sadder that, without much evidence to the contrary, people are defending the employee. This customer wasn't doing "whatever he wanted" to the airline employee and he didn't stick a camera up in his face. Yes customer behaviour overall might be on a slippery slope but that doesn't give anyone the right to assume ALL customers are this way. The employee could have diffused this situation so fricking easily but instead, while knowing he was being filmed, he did what he did.

Yes perhaps he was having a bad day, but that doesn't make it any more "right".

I said a few months ago that for too long airport / airline employees used the "security" excuse or the "do what I tell you or I'll call the police" line rather that doing their job properly. Now it's come back to bite them in the ass. About time.

Perhaps time some Agents put themselves in the customers shoes.

He had a ticket saying DL.

He went to DL, who sent him to HA.

HA sent him back to DL.

DL now want to bat him back to HA.

He now insists that DL resolve this for him .

DL response is to cuss and threaten to call the Cops.

Why did no one call HA to find out why they sent him back to DL.

Why was this not escalated to a Supervisor as he requested.

It is sad that so many think that the Agent did nothing wrong.

bennett123 wrote:

Perhaps time some Agents put themselves in the customers shoes.

He had a ticket saying DL.

He went to DL, who sent him to HA.

HA sent him back to DL.

DL now want to bat him back to HA.

He now insists that DL resolve this for him .

DL response is to cuss and threaten to call the Cops.

Why did no one call HA to find out why they sent him back to DL.

Why was this not escalated to a Supervisor as he requested.

It is sad that so many think that the Agent did nothing wrong.

And all the time DL had his bag, it never went to HA.

SpinOn2 wrote:

I find it sad that so many people think because they paid a few hundred dollars for a slip of paper, they think they are merely allowed to do whatever they want to airline workers. So many people on here seem to share that sentiment even though they won't outright admit it.

There is a point in time where any agent stops being an employee and starts being a human.

There are human beings on both sides of this situation.
There the similarity ends.
These are not random people, neither of whom has a dog in the fight.

On one side, the customer human being has paid money - even if it is only a dismissive "few hundred dollars for a slip of paper".
Anybody who parts with money is entitled to something in return.

On the other side, there are airline employee human beings who are paid "obscene amounts of money"(*) for the express purpose of providing a service.
Anybody who receives wages should expect to provide something in return.

Pretending that the parties involved simply bumped into each other on Main Street, and should be considered as equals is..... not my understanding of how customer service works.

Another consideration is that whilst nothing moves forward regarding the missing baggage, the Delta agents continue to get paid, and at 5 o'clock they can hand over to the next shift, wave the whole thing goodbye and head-off home. Meanwhile for the passenger, every minute spent standing in front of this service desk, is another minute that will forever be lost to him. Even if the staff had immediately jumped into action and served him faultlessly, the customer is still losing time, whilst they are being paid for theirs.

That alone makes the situation unequal.

I recall some years ago, queuing up at a baggage carousel for my luggage. And still being there 20 minutes later, looking desperately at an empty carousel after all 299 other passengers had collected their bags and hurried off. Shall I describe the feelings of nausea and panic, and light-headedness from rising blood pressure? For some people the natural reaction is anger; in my case it was more likely I would burst into tears. Perhaps I am the exception, because for all the talk about treating people as humans, I'm only seeing stories here of difficult and argumentative customers as the norm, not distressed ones with legitimate concerns.


(*) "obscene amounts of money" is my way of returning the favor for your "few hundred dollars for a slip of paper" comment.

SheikhDjibouti wrote:

SpinOn2 wrote:

I find it sad that so many people think because they paid a few hundred dollars for a slip of paper, they think they are merely allowed to do whatever they want to airline workers. So many people on here seem to share that sentiment even though they won't outright admit it.

There is a point in time where any agent stops being an employee and starts being a human.

There are human beings on both sides of this situation.
There the similarity ends.
These are not random people, neither of whom has a dog in the fight.

On one side, the customer human being has paid money - even if it is only a dismissive "few hundred dollars for a slip of paper".
Anybody who parts with money is entitled to something in return.

On the other side, there are airline employee human beings who are paid "obscene amounts of money"(*) for the express purpose of providing a service.
Anybody who receives wages should expect to provide something in return.

Pretending that the parties involved simply bumped into each other on Main Street, and should be considered as equals is..... not my understanding of how customer service works.

Another consideration is that whilst nothing moves forward regarding the missing baggage, the Delta agents continue to get paid, and at 5 o'clock they can hand over to the next shift, wave the whole thing goodbye and head-off home. Meanwhile for the passenger, every minute spent standing in front of this service desk, is another minute that will forever be lost to him. Even if the staff had immediately jumped into action and served him faultlessly, the customer is still losing time, whilst they are being paid for theirs.

That alone makes the situation unequal.

I recall some years ago, queuing up at a baggage carousel for my luggage. And still being there 20 minutes later, looking desperately at an empty carousel after all 299 other passengers had collected their bags and hurried off. Shall I describe the feelings of nausea and panic, and light-headedness from rising blood pressure? For some people the natural reaction is anger; in my case it was more likely I would burst into tears. Perhaps I am the exception, because for all the talk about treating people as humans, I'm only seeing stories here of difficult and argumentative customers as the norm, not distressed ones with legitimate concerns.


(*) "obscene amounts of money" is my way of returning the favor for your "few hundred dollars for a slip of paper" comment.

Amen and very well said you have expressed my feelings perfectly on the matter.

Rookie87 wrote:

mjoelnir wrote:

Rookie87 wrote:

Some of y’all kill me with the lack of critical thinking and nil reading comprehension.
Whatever the poster commented above, I basically repeated WITHOUT having to bother looking it up. My point remains the same, he should have gone to Hawaiian PER the DOT rules in place

If your reading comprehension would be above nil, you would have realized that he went to the Delta desk, was send to the Hawaiian desk and was send back to the Delta desk. And guess what, the bag was still with Delta. Accepted by Delta, flown by Delta and the passenger in end received his bag from Delta. Comprehend?

You know what, I afforded you some respect when I wrote to you.

First of all you don’t know how to understand anything from a video (3) that we’re posted. Your previous comments and your lack of proper responses prove that you sir have no comprehension skills nor do you know how to read.
Let’s break it down:
3 videos were posted
Those of us who watched and have any experience or ability to judge a scene could clearly see that the customer was through his tone alone belligerent! He cut the woman off multiple times to say what? NO NO my tag says Delta! You don’t want to help me. When clearly she states that they DID indeed try to help him and he refused to listen to him.
You and others on here can’t seem to notice that and are fixated on the end result of the older agent losing his cool. But not what happened clearly in the video. If he was right, like any sane person, he would call corporate and tell them what was going on instead of recording and repeating himself over and over again. But, the consensus for you and everyone who can’t wrap their minds over the possibility that people are in fact crazy want to immediately vouch for him being a “professional”? That’s so professional of him ? regardless of how he was being treated!
None of you defending him have come up with anything but pity for him and shame on big bad Delta and the agent. No accountability on his part, his behavior, his actions? Armchair quarterbacks at their finest on here.

Where are these 3 vidoes that were posted? I only saw the original link from the OP. Where are the other 2?

SheikhDjibouti wrote:

SpinOn2 wrote:

I find it sad that so many people think because they paid a few hundred dollars for a slip of paper, they think they are merely allowed to do whatever they want to airline workers. So many people on here seem to share that sentiment even though they won't outright admit it.

There is a point in time where any agent stops being an employee and starts being a human.

There are human beings on both sides of this situation.
There the similarity ends.
These are not random people, neither of whom has a dog in the fight.

On one side, the customer human being has paid money - even if it is only a dismissive "few hundred dollars for a slip of paper".
Anybody who parts with money is entitled to something in return.

On the other side, there are airline employee human beings who are paid "obscene amounts of money"(*) for the express purpose of providing a service.
Anybody who receives wages should expect to provide something in return.

Pretending that the parties involved simply bumped into each other on Main Street, and should be considered as equals is..... not my understanding of how customer service works.

Another consideration is that whilst nothing moves forward regarding the missing baggage, the Delta agents continue to get paid, and at 5 o'clock they can hand over to the next shift, wave the whole thing goodbye and head-off home. Meanwhile for the passenger, every minute spent standing in front of this service desk, is another minute that will forever be lost to him. Even if the staff had immediately jumped into action and served him faultlessly, the customer is still losing time, whilst they are being paid for theirs.

That alone makes the situation unequal.

I recall some years ago, queuing up at a baggage carousel for my luggage. And still being there 20 minutes later, looking desperately at an empty carousel after all 299 other passengers had collected their bags and hurried off. Shall I describe the feelings of nausea and panic, and light-headedness from rising blood pressure? For some people the natural reaction is anger; in my case it was more likely I would burst into tears. Perhaps I am the exception, because for all the talk about treating people as humans, I'm only seeing stories here of difficult and argumentative customers as the norm, not distressed ones with legitimate concerns.


(*) "obscene amounts of money" is my way of returning the favor for your "few hundred dollars for a slip of paper" comment.

Very well said! Completely agree with you.

clrd4t8koff wrote:

Rookie87 wrote:

mjoelnir wrote:

If your reading comprehension would be above nil, you would have realized that he went to the Delta desk, was send to the Hawaiian desk and was send back to the Delta desk. And guess what, the bag was still with Delta. Accepted by Delta, flown by Delta and the passenger in end received his bag from Delta. Comprehend?

You know what, I afforded you some respect when I wrote to you.

First of all you don’t know how to understand anything from a video (3) that we’re posted. Your previous comments and your lack of proper responses prove that you sir have no comprehension skills nor do you know how to read.
Let’s break it down:
3 videos were posted
Those of us who watched and have any experience or ability to judge a scene could clearly see that the customer was through his tone alone belligerent! He cut the woman off multiple times to say what? NO NO my tag says Delta! You don’t want to help me. When clearly she states that they DID indeed try to help him and he refused to listen to him.
You and others on here can’t seem to notice that and are fixated on the end result of the older agent losing his cool. But not what happened clearly in the video. If he was right, like any sane person, he would call corporate and tell them what was going on instead of recording and repeating himself over and over again. But, the consensus for you and everyone who can’t wrap their minds over the possibility that people are in fact crazy want to immediately vouch for him being a “professional”? That’s so professional of him ? regardless of how he was being treated!
None of you defending him have come up with anything but pity for him and shame on big bad Delta and the agent. No accountability on his part, his behavior, his actions? Armchair quarterbacks at their finest on here.

Where are these 3 vidoes that were posted? I only saw the original link from the OP. Where are the other 2?

Right under the YouTube link where the news article warns about strong language and you see the YouTube video, there’s a Facebook post from the customer Ruhul Amin with 3 videos there. The two bottom, smaller ones in that square are the ones I’m referring to.

scbriml wrote:

So, DL suspends the employee, but the customer is wrong and "deserved it"?

Airliners.net defends the indefensible again. Am I surprised?

Tell me about it. The sickening apologists defending indefensible behavior. They are the reason the industry has such a bad reputation when it comes to service. Too many bad apples who should have been sent packing years ago. Sorry people but the employee was 100% in the wrong. He should have been fired. A bad apple with a seriously bad attitude. There is no room in service for someone like him. And anyone trying to make excuses for the behavior is just as bad as he is. Period.

Regardless of who’s issue the bag was..it’s still not acceptable for DL or any company employee to address a customer like that. Bottom line here. And take that from a DL koolaid drinker.

Never fails, always people who defend poor employee conduct. I find the call the police comment worse than the A-Hole comment. These airline employees have got so bad because if anybody questions their actions, call the police and have them hauled away.

ordpark wrote:

Moderators! Please! This thread is getting out of hand! Common decency and the ability to exchange views without insulting each other disappears from this site WAY to often!

It would be helpful if someone brought this to out attention. As stated in forum rules we do not read every post in every thread. The quicker it is brought to our attention the quicker we can atten to it.

ALL USERS are reminded to debate the topic and keep personal commentary towards one another out of the discussion.

Part of customer service, is solving customer problems/issues. This is an example of the service team solving their problem (getting rid of the customer), not addressing THE customer's problem.

Nothing wrong with recording interactions. Body cameras for staff challenged by the customer service ethic (and those at the other end of the spectrum who are role models), would provide a learning / improvement tool.

Over the last few decades, I've been involved with 'blind' staff surveys involving airlines, airports and other aviation service employees. The number of staff in customer service / interaction roles who describe themselves as not enjoying or seeking customer interaction is alarming. Employers expect staff to have 'natural' customer interaction skills, when face to face communication is increasingly replaced by email and text.

Considered old fashioned, a Dale Carnegie course or two wouldn't go amiss for customer service employees.

The agent has 50 years seniority.

50 years.

Are you sure?.

Yes have friends that know him or of him and the last I heard he was suspended.

As a front liner myself I offer this - recording might be considered elevation by the other party but a customer is maybe considering it as documentation.

Recording seems to me to be a sign that I, or those who were approached before me, did not solve, attempt to solve, or care enough to offer some degree of empathy. If we look at it that way and really show our service skills those videos will only show how well we do our jobs, not how easily we forget ourselves.

Sort of reminds me of the movie Crazy People (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crazy_People) where an ad exec has a break down and starts going the way of "truth in advertising" route when he comes up with a new slogan for AT&T which reads: AT&T We're tired of taking your crap. (https://youtu.be/dktVJ3qRGS0) There's a few god ones for the airlines as well

thegoldenargosy wrote:

The passenger probably deserved it.

Whether the passenger was acting up, or was it an internal system issue, as a representative of a company (Delta Air Lines in this case since he put on Delta's uniform), he should have reacted differently or request assistance from superior if he could not resolve the issue at the time.

Calling your passenger names while at your workstation in your uniform is no way of representing your company.

Again, I am not arguing the validity of the accused's action, but merely pointing how unprofessional the gate agent was while he was at work.

SPI (Suspension pending investigation) is the norm for this situation, and the company would probably investigate whether the gate agent could mitigate the situation at hand had he not used the language he used, if deemed the gate agent could have avoided the situation escalating within his job duties, sadly he probably would be sacked. However, if the gate agent couldn't assist/resolve the situation within his ability but the language used fueled the situation, most likely he'll get a very serious write up.

All the Delta folks had to do was say, "Let me check on that." That's called basic customer service. If you're having a bad day, then step aside and have someone else handle the situation. Getting into a verbal pissing match does nothing to solve the problem.

If the video is any indication at all, the DL guy should be fired. The passenger may have been abusive before the video started, but his demeanor during the video makes that seem unlikely IMHO. Neither agent behind that counter would listen to what he was saying. Neither even looked to see if there were any notes from either DL or HA as to what happened. The guy should be fired; the lady should be retrained.

tallen261 wrote:

If the video is any indication at all, the DL guy should be fired. The passenger may have been abusive before the video started, but his demeanor during the video makes that seem unlikely IMHO. Neither agent behind that counter would listen to what he was saying. Neither even looked to see if there were any notes from either DL or HA as to what happened. The guy should be fired; the lady should be retrained.

I can't really agree about "retraining" the lady. Both employees were so useless that Delta would have been better off closing the desk and replacing those two with potted plants. In the fist video the customer was asking a reasonable question in a non-confrontational manner. The two employees who were clearly doing nothing would not even make eye contact with the customer while deciding to (a) not help him and (b) call the police for no reason.. And while it is understood that HA is ultimately responsible for delivering the bag, it is also now clear that at the time, DL still had possession of the bag. Something that either of these two slugs who were "working" could have determined had they done their job. Both of them would have been fired long ago if they worked for a small entrepreneurial company. Hopefully for Delta's benefit, both are fired as soon as possible. This video -- and not even the one with profanity -- should be used as training of "what not to do" for new employees.

It says on Daily Mail that Ruhul Amin is a British citizen fighting for ISIS....?

Why do people keep insinuating they refused to help him? They clearly already did earlier telling him that he needed to go to HA for the claim. Clearly he did, and if they sent him back to DL then Hawaiian is wrong. When he returns and refuses to listen, then he starts recording and escalating things far worse.

So sad reading completely wrong comments from so many people on here, DL is not the one who takes the claim. So much ignorance from people in here on how this actually works.

This is what's wrong with the traveling public, people spend a lot of money and don't pay attention to what they are buying or what they are told. So many people on this board have no clue as to how working for an airline works.

The employee was wrong to use language like that, other than that, nothing he did was wrong. Screw the mindset that you can just stick your phone in people's faces and record them. Guarantee if employees did that to a passenger they would lose it.

So DL sent him to HA, HA sent him back to DL.

He went to DL and they told him to go back to HA.

What do you expect him to do.

Incidentally, I understand that it then transpired that DL had it.

bennett123 wrote:

So DL sent him to HA, HA sent him back to DL.

He went to DL and they told him to go back to HA.

What do you expect him to do.

Incidentally, I understand that it then transpired that DL had it.

Obviously, listen and follow instructions /s

SpinOn2 wrote:

Why do people keep insinuating they refused to help him? They clearly already did earlier telling him that he needed to go to HA for the claim. Clearly he did, and if they sent him back to DL then Hawaiian is wrong. When he returns and refuses to listen, then he starts recording and escalating things far worse.

So sad reading completely wrong comments from so many people on here, DL is not the one who takes the claim. So much ignorance from people in here on how this actually works.

This is what's wrong with the traveling public, people spend a lot of money and don't pay attention to what they are buying or what they are told. So many people on this board have no clue as to how working for an airline works.

The employee was wrong to use language like that, other than that, nothing he did was wrong. Screw the mindset that you can just stick your phone in people's faces and record them. Guarantee if employees did that to a passenger they would lose it.

The passenger has a DL ticket a DL luggage tag. He goes to the DL desk and gets send to the HA desk, they send him back to the DL desk. Why the hell should the passenger bother with who of the professionals at each desk is right? That is not his to bother about. The absolute minimum is, that the guy at the DL desk takes up the telephone and calls up the persons at the HA desk. The other thing he should have done is check in his computer and guess what, he would have found out that Delta had this passengers luggage all the time. But he was a lazy asshole sitting around on his ass.
I do not claim that the guy should get fired, the woman beside him was as useless. Delta should check up on its people mounting the lost luggage desks and retrain the crowd.