My girlfriend wanted to visit during the Big C times [the global health crisis], but her government refused to send out her vaccination certificate. She had been fully vaccinated, so nobody could figure out what the problem was there. Regardless, we decided to use a type of form only my country had, for visiting lovers and family, that would allow her in even without a vaccination certificate.

But the airline worker took one look at that, said, “No,” and cancelled her flight!

Supposedly, she thought the form was fake and my girlfriend would be refused entry and have to fly back.

It took us three days to get that airline to fess up and actually take a few minutes to check that, yes, that document and rule were completely legit! Something the airport worker could have done on the spot!

Toward the end of my time at my airline, I was offered the opportunity to work temporarily in Ticketing rather than my usual job of handling Business Class passengers and frequent flyers. I was offered the opportunity because I had taken a training class in basic ticketing and most people had not had any ticket training. There were only six people in ticketing, and one of them was going on Maternity Leave for several months, leaving them very short-handed.

At the time, electronic tickets were just starting to be used by our airline, and if the trip involved both us and another airline, the tickets had to be paper. Our department also helped the airport ticket people who seemed to frequently have problems issuing tickets.

To start with, I didn’t have anything to do with tickets. For my first couple of weeks, I was assigned one of their other peripheral duties which was processing the collection of change fees. This was very simple to do and took almost no training. The backlog for it was really bad. The people in ticketing had been too busy with other duties to do this task for some time. There were definitely some people who had made changes to their tickets and been told they had to pay a change fee but had traveled before we got around to trying to collect the fee. The system did not allow the change fees to be collected after travel, so some people got very lucky.

But that’s not what my story is about; it’s just backstory.

After doing just this for about ten days, the department manager came to talk to the three of us on duty just as two of us were about to leave. This was a Friday night at about 6:00. He informed us that two of the other people in ticketing had been let go effective immediately That left the three of us plus one other person, who was off that day.

I was scheduled in at 9:00 the next morning, and one of the people who had been let go had been scheduled to come in at 8:00. So, suddenly, I was going to be there on my own with really no knowledge of what I was supposed to be doing. The next person wasn’t scheduled until 2:00 in the afternoon.

I was going, “What am I supposed to do? I don’t know anything about issuing tickets or helping the airports with their issues!”

The manager, for whatever reason, was sure I would be fine while I was having a panic attack just thinking about it. My coworker, who was the one scheduled in at 2:00, handed me her phone number and said I could call her with any problems that came up and couldn’t wait.

And of course, there were a couple of calls from the airports that I had no idea how to handle. I called my coworker, but all she could do was talk to the airport and talk them through it. For the second problem, I couldn’t even get through to her, so I had to tell the airport to call back.

My only salvation came at about 12:30 when another coworker came in who used to work in ticketing, and she offered to help me out with anything she could.

Finally, at 2:00, the other ticket agent came and handled things for the rest of the day while I went back to the only thing I was trained for

 I was off the next two days, and when I came back, the manager had rearranged the schedule so I was no longer on my own. He quickly set about finding other people to work in ticketing. I took the training to become a full-fledged ticketing agent, and they brought over someone from “employee travel” who could issue tickets. A couple of months later, after I had been trained, the manager decided that he liked my work better than hers and let her go even though she had a lot more experience.

The coworker on Maternity Leave came back, and all was well again.

I’m a manager at an airline. I’m travelling for business and am wearing my uniform: a suit with a knee-length skirt and heels. I have bought an upgrade to business, and sitting next to me in the first row is a kid with his mom across the aisle.

When we first board, the mom and I talk for a bit; she tells me he’s her first child and that he’s three and a half years old, so I tell her about my kids, aka “mom talk.”

Since this is a long flight, I take short naps of about thirty minutes each, followed by equal periods of awareness. I am in the middle of one such nap when I feel someone trying to unbutton my blouse! I open my eyes and see the kid sitting by my lap. I turn toward his mom.

Me: “Can you get your son?”

Mom: “He’s just hungry. Do you mind covering with this blanket and popping one out for him?”

Me: “What are you talking about?”

Mom: “I just assumed you forgot your breast pumps at home, and that they must be killing you.”

Cue me staring at her in shock.

Mom: “Didn’t you say you had almost three-year-old triplets? Since we women breastfeed until our children are four, and you have a large chest, I thought you would appreciate the gesture.”

I called the cabin chief and told her what had happened, and she made them change seats to the last row in the class, so they’d be as far away from me as possible.

Craziest thing that ever happened to me.

Caller: “I want to cancel my husband’s flight.”

Me: “I can see that it was booked on our non-flex price, so we can’t refund you if—”

Caller: “But he’s dead!”

Me: “Oh! I am sorry to hear that. If you can send us a death certificate, we can refund that for you.”

Caller: “You’re calling me a liar?”

I’m about to respond, but then I hear the caller talking to a man in the background.

Caller: “No, honey, I’m talking to the airline, not you.”

Silence. 

Caller: “S***.” *Click*

I have lots of stories from when I worked for an airline, but this one actually happened before then.

My daughter was fifteen in the late 1990s. She was very into playing soccer, and she was pretty good. So, one summer, she wanted to go to soccer camp in Florida, which was about 1,000 miles away. The price wasn’t bad for the week-long camp, and the airfare to get her there was pretty reasonable, so we paid for the camp and the airfare, and we arranged for the camp to pick her up and transport her from the Florida airport to the camp.

We took [Daughter] to the airport and checked her in at the desk. The agent saw that she was just fifteen and asked if we would like an airline worker to meet her in Philadelphia (where she had to change planes) and make sure she got to the correct gate. After asking [Daughter], we agreed this was a great idea. We took her to the gate (you could still do that back then), waved goodbye, and headed home.

Several hours later, we got a phone call from [Daughter].

Daughter: “I’m in Florida, but there was a mix-up in Philadelphia, so I got here two hours late and missed my transportation to [Camp].”

We panicked and called the camp and the airline — their fault this happened — and tried to figure out what else we could do.

Finally, [Daughter] called again.

Daughter: “I found a cab to take me to [Camp], and I have just enough money with me to pay for it, but I’ll need more money for the rest of the week.”

Us: “Okay. Take the cab, and we’ll send you some more money by [Shipping Company].”

She made it to the camp okay and had a good time.

Now for the fun airline part. As soon as [Daughter] called us from the airport, I got on the phone with the airline to complain. [Daughter] told us that no one met her in Philly, but she found her own way to the gate anyway. She heard her flight called and went to board, but the gate agent told her that it wasn’t her flight and her next flight was the next one. She took the agent’s word and went and sat back down to wait.

After a couple of hours, another flight was called. [Daughter] went to the gate and was allowed on. After boarding, it was announced that the plane was going to Puerto Rico — no mention of Florida. She asked a flight attendant, who confirmed that they weren’t going to Florida, so [Daughter] got back off the plane. She managed to get a new flight, but it was a couple of hours later, of course. That’s why she was so late to get her transport.

On the phone, I started loudly complaining about what had happened, and I asked the airline to refund everything. They absolutely refused, despite numerous phone calls and escalations. (These days, I probably would have sued, but I wasn’t the type to threaten that back then.)

In frustration, I finally asked for something that seemed very reasonable. On [Daughter]’s return trip, she was due to change planes at NYC’s LaGuardia airport. I asked if it was possible for her to get off and have her luggage taken off, as well, and we would pick her up there instead of her original destination. They said she could get off at LaGuardia, but her luggage would continue on. I spent more time trying to get them to change their mind, and I sent a lot of complaint letters, but nothing was ever done for us.

Fortunately, [Daughter]’s return went smoothly, and she had no trouble changing planes this time. When we met her flight, we were all relieved.

Lesson learned, though, about letting even fifteen-year-olds fly alone.