I am a bit surprised Judge that you got "contempt" for the gate agents in the original post.. I didn't pick that up. This is a difficult issue of passengers. For gate agents, they see this daily. I am sure many don't like the rules and policies of the airline, but it becomes routine for them to have the implement them. For the passenger, particularly the non-business customer, this is a time of heightened excitement/anxiety, travelling on holiday or for family reasons.
To be denied boarding due to overbooking when this is your one holiday per year, perhaps your first time abroad and in this day costing you one day of a six day vacation is a stressful and upsetting experience. To whom are they supposed to direct their distress/anger/demands? Continental are a corporation, so the only human they can deal with are their paid representatives. It is inevitable that the representatives will take the brunt of this. The pax in this position feels powerless, stressed, upset and angry and how no outlet. They are entirely at the mercy of the airlines and the sense of injustice can be enormous.
My dislike of Delta goes back to a time when I had very little money. I was living in the US, so thousands of miles from my family. I had booked a flight to the UK to see my family after 2 years of being away. I had very little money and it had taken a great deal of effort to save up the money and I booked 9 months ahead of time. I had a total of 10 days vacation per year and I was using 7 of them for this trip. Those days were precious commodities to me, and the cost of the trip was wiping me out. I got to CLT for the short hop to Atlanta, then onward to London. Delta bumped me off the flight to Atlanta (along with, count them, over 20 others! so much for a "small number" of passengers being overbooked) and essentially abandoned me at the airport. The attitude of the staff was essentially a shoulder shrugging, "these things happen". I was angry, upset and powerless. Delta's total lack of customer care was atrocious.. to whom was I to address my feelings. The most annoying moment was there was a large group of abandoned passengers standing in front of the gate agent. The gate agent said loudly, "I can't deal with you all like this, you will have to go to the ticketing desk" and then walked away. How powerless do you think that those 20 odd people felt at that moment? What consequences would you expect? What is routine for the gate agent, can be devastating to the passenger.
In my case, I was lucky. At this time, BA still had a direct London-Charlotte connection and they helped me, even dealing with Delta to get the ticket transferred. Delta did absolutely nothing. I have never flown Delta since, and BA have been rewarded for their customer service by the fact that I have flown with them many times, but on the day I was powerless, frustrated, angry and upset. I think the staff have to recognise that these human emotions are generated in part by the actions of their employer and have some understanding of where the customer is coming from.
Anything I have just said should not be interpreted as excusing passengers who are abusive, threatening or violent.
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