Poor Customer Service_Discourteous Employees
 

:mad::mad::mad:
On April 5, 2012 around 5:50 AM at LaGuardia Airport, Airtran refused to board a woman and her son on the plane to Atlanta, GA because the woman arrived to the gate 20 seconds after the specified 10 minutes before take-off. The woman and her adult son were part of a family of 8, the rest of the family had already boarded the plane. The woman was five days post-op from a foot surgery with a disability card and prescribed medication. She also had each family member's passport.
:mad::mad::mad:
Not only did the employees not allow the travelers to board the plane, but they also continued to ignore them as if they were not human beings. The woman was crying while begging for a solution to this predicament, but the airline failed to acknowledge any of it. There was a supervising employee and she told the customer, "Don't talk to me! Don't talk to me!," while waving her hands in front of her own face and walking away.
:mad::mad::mad:

Are you the woman or the son?

20 seconds is such a precise measure of time. How could you possibly have known that.

I am offended by this post as a road warrior.

Everyone else got to the gate by the deadline. Is the OP is suggesting that over 100 other passengers should be held up for this mother and son? The aircraft could lose it's takeoff window, people miss their connections and subsequently business meetings, weddings, funerals, etc. It doesn't matter 20 seconds, 20 minutes, or 20 years late--you missed the deadline. They need to cut it off at some point.

And the fact that you mentioned that someone cried is absurd and irrelevant. We should have held up an aircraft because grown adults are crying?

The original poster makes me sick. People like you are what make flying such an unpleasant experience.

I hope you're not serious. Even if it was 2 minutes, 5 minutes, or 7 minutes after the cut off time the flight would not be delayed. Situations like this occur hundreds of times every day and no one is the least bit inconvenienced, except, perhaps, the gate agent.

The problem is that gate agents are under tremendous pressure not to be one minute late, although D.O.T. statistics don't count a flight late unless it arrives more than 15 minutes late at its destination.

So, underpaid, overworked, indifferent employees will simply "close" the flight regardless of the hardship caused by someone standing in front of them, even if the jetway door is still open and the plane door has not been closed.

ok, so you have FORGOTTEN what it means to show compassion
 

i fly infrequently but fly from a big airport-and EVERYONE is late! As a passenger you suck it up! There are people who have trouble with TIME and in this case it sounds like this passenger had a disability, so cut some slack here! Personally i'd rather see the plane held for someone like this than the usual case of some moron losing money in a slot machine! (i fly outta Vegas) or the dip who just has to have that Starbucks etc. Can't there be some courtesy left in the world without everyone rushing around with cell phones glued to their face or maybe just being aware that we share this planet with each other?! geez, get a grip

what about this