[Wes Christensen]

On Alaska Airlines flight 6960 from San Jose, CA to Seattle, WA at 10:20 am on Saturday, May 28, 2011, we ran into an absolute Nazi gate attendant. It was a three-woman team. All three were very aggressive and needlessly confrontational, but the woman taking boarding passes was overly hostile and even punitive.

It started when everyone crowded around the gate. She kept telling people to back away and form one line. When people didn’t move fast enough, she started yelling.

One group of 4 who spoke little English tried to board early. I think this set her off, because she was very nasty to them and then to pretty much everyone else. They were roughly and rudely told to go to the end of the line. It was clear that they didn’t understand what she was saying.

She then demanded that each person have their own boarding pass, including children. Several families were forced with small children were not allowed to have one parent present 3-4 boarding passes for the group. The parents had to give each child, some as young as 3, their own boarding pass, which was a problem for some of the children.

This was also repeated with the carry-on luggage. Many of the small children had little cartoon roller bags. They weren’t able to walk fast enough so the parents were carrying the child’s roller bag. This caused them to have more than 2 bags, so the Nazi demanded that the child had to drag their own bag. No one was allowed through the gate with more than 2 bags, not even a parent assisting a child.

One woman had a small camera, another had a small purse, each in addition to 2 carry-ons. Any idiot could easily see that these “extra” items would easily fit inside their carry-ons, but the Nazi made them go to the side the pack them before re-entering.

When one person complained about the tone and rudeness, he was threatened with being kicked off the place.

This was a powerful disincentive to ever fly Alaska again.

[jimworcs]

This attitude is so common in airline personnel, you wonder if they receive training in how to be stupid, pig ignorant and hostile... Or is it just something they look for at interview?

[Hank Man]

More like the Gestapo with an Aussie accent. A large woman with a badge identifying her as an Alaska Trainer let one woman go by with three bags (roll on, big purse plus small purse) but told her "trainee" to halt the next woman who had a roll on with purse on top and tiny backpack that fit in the purse. The woman explained to the Gestapo woman that the tiny pack fit in the big one (which it clearly did) but the poor woman was summarily order to "Stand aside" until she put the tiny back pack in the purse. Ugly.

The Gestapo woman had a big badge labeled "Trainer", so I guess we can expect more of this in the future from other Alaska employees.

I commiserated with the woman on the plane. Turned out she had had an operation which prevented her from using one hand, but she didn't want to create a scene with the Alaska Gestapo.

The worse part was the obvious hostility of the Alaska Trainer and the uneven application of the policies to passengers.

Go figure.

[Gromit801]

Since I fly Alaska out of SJC a couple times a week, I've gotten to know the ground staff somewhat, and I asked around a little. The trainer at SJC for Alaska, is a young Indian woman named Ranjita. She's very slim and trim, not what you describe at all. So what else in your diatribe is not as you describe?

And using hackneyed only insults like Nazi and Gestapo kills your credibility right off.

[Hank Man]

Let's see what other people's experience turns out to be.

Interesting that you would attack other people's credibility when you weren't even there.

Do you fly out of SJC because you are an Alaska employee?

[Gromit801]

If I were an employee, it would say so. I wear "The Red Badge of Courage" because I know from observation 80% of most airline complaints are usually the fault of the passenger who was late, have baggage too heavy or oversized, etc., and don't automatically buy into complaints. The complaints that are real, I will back up, but my BS detector is going off here.