Quote:
Originally Posted by HoustonFlyer
You are not entitled as of right to any exit seat or any seat unless you paid extra for that seat. Who to put in the exit row is the agents' call. I don't think you'll get far in your call for action against the agent. I think you were quite wrong to grab anything out of any agent's hand.
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If that's true, then why would the agent have to ASK him to give up his already assigned seats? If the airline made a promise to reserve an exit row seat for this person, then they're required to fulfill that promise. An individual airline employee deciding all on her own to break that promise for whimsical reasons is not defensible.
The only disagreement I have with the OP is that I would have let "Potts" call the police. I would have said to the gate agent: "Go ahead, call the police. Since I'm not guilty of any criminal acts, I have nothing to worry about, but you should be advised that filing a false police report IS a crime for which YOU can be held accountable."
As a taxpayer, it galls me that airline employees would even THINK of calling the police for such frivolous reasons. They're blatantly wasting limited police resources because of their own refusal to keep their own airline's promises. The police have far more serious crimes to deal with than the "crime" of a passenger arguing with an airline employee.
If they had called the police, then I would say that "Potts" should be dragged out of the airport in handcuffs and spend a few days in jail. Maybe a few lessons like that, and airline employees might think twice before calling the police unnecessarily.
I also find it interesting that airline employees would be so quick to call the police before speaking to anyone in their own chain of command. The highest ranking airline management-level employee at the airport should be called first and arrive on the scene to either override or endorse the gate agent's decision BEFORE any calls to the police are made.
That's what seems to be missing here. The airline should be required to utilize all of its own resources first, before calling in "outside help" to settle a dispute with a passenger. The highest-ranking airline manager should be there on the scene to handle things, since the police have far more important things to do than to do the job of an airline manager.