Chaos unfolded at Raleigh-Durham International Airport in North Carolina when two Frontiers Airlines staff began shouting at a customer and prevented him from checking in for his flight.
The incident involving the unidentified customer, a 45-year-old father of three, and the Frontier staff started right before he began recording last Friday. The New York Post shared the video that has since been viewed by millions on social media.
It is reported that the man arrived at the airport 50 minutes before his flight but had not checked in online. He missed the electronic kiosk’s 60-minute check-in deadline, and when he spoke to the agents, they informed him of a $25 late check-in fee.
A Frontier Airlines representative refuses service to a man in Raleigh, N.C. (Obtained by New York Post)
“I paid for a ticket,” the man said in the video.
“And you didn’t pay $25 for an agent assist fee,” the agent says. “And you thought you was going to check in three hours later, hello?”
“And you thought you was going to get on your flight?” the agent repeatedly asks while filming the customer and snapping her fingers.
Meanwhile, another agent can be heard laughing.
“Because it’s a policy, we don’t control that,” the other agent said.
The customer was reportedly traveling from Raleigh, North Carolina, to Boston.
“Make me check you in,” the first agent says several times.
“You literally work for an airline that I bought a ticket for,” the customer says.
A Frontier Airlines plane prepares to land. (Tayfun CoSkun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
The man vented his frustration to the New York Post.
“What was remarkable to me also is that not one person on their side took the professional route or the high road,” he told the outlet.
“Listen, it’s my money at the end of the day, and when somebody is caught off guard with a charge that they feel is in some ways unfair or unreasonable, of course they have a right to express themselves,” he said.
The New York Post reported that he ended up paying $500 for a JetBlue ticket to get home.
“It’s not OK to be disrespectful of somebody for no reason, but I was not being disrespectful to them personally, in my opinion,” he said. “I thought that they were being disrespectful to me out of the gate because I was complaining about a fee that I was completely caught off guard by.”
Frontier said it has cut ties with the representatives, who were not directly employed by the company.
“We are aware of what occurred and have been directly in touch with the customer,” a spokesperson for the airline confirmed. “The individuals in question, who work for a third-party contractor, are no longer associated with the Frontier account.”
