Hey Pandas In Customer Service, What’s One Event That Occurred With A Rude Customer That You Will Remember For A Long While?

If you work in aviation field, you will meet loads of rude entitled passengers. One that I’ll Remember for a long time was meeting a family of 3, mom, dad and 5yo daughter. This happened about 3/4 years before pandemic.

They came in when the counters were almost closed and since it was a full flight we had to go look around to move people and make at least seat for 2 so the kid could be with 1 parent, as is every airline’s policy for young children.

This is a long story so bear with me.

After a bit of shuffling we managed to clear 2 seats together for the mother and the daughter. Instead of a thank you, lady went wild and said, exactly:

“I’m not sitting next to a kid for a whole 12 hours. I don’t care what you do I want the first row seats (economy) since I have a child.”

She was being so loud most people were looking at her like she grew a second head.

Staff politely told her that the plane is a full one and since it’s school holidays there are lots of family with kids and given it’s almost closing time this is best we can do. We cannot separate another family to seat you together but we can swap her and her husband seats so he’s the one sitting with their daughter.

She went on:

“I paid for the ticket together so I should have seats together. I want to sit together with my husband, so you should sit us together. That’s what I f***ing paid [Airline Name] for.”

The staff explained that her tickets had no reserved seats and that it really is impossible to move anyone else. At this point her husband was trying to calm down the kid who was restless after her mom kept shouting. And he tried to reason with her and told her it can’t be helped since it’s them who came late and that she shouldn’t shout at the poor lady on the counter who did all she could. “I’ll sit with [kid]. Next time we’ll pre-book the seats,” He said.

She went even wilder”

“You shut up. (her kid started crying at this point). This b***h (pointing to lady at counter) is just lying. Our money pays her so she should get seats for us together. Why should I sit away? I have a child so I deserve the first row seats where there’s space for kids to play.”

At this point supervisor asked us to go help the junior staff. I went and explained again it’s a full flight and since it’s vacation time there’s mostly families with children on holiday in the flight. I also told her that currently we have 116 children on the flight along with 8 babies of less that 2. And front row seats have space for baby bascinet seats as such we definitely cannot give her those and they also were already occupied. Those seats are for mostly under 2 kids and priority is given to youngest.

“I don’t care about 8 other kids or 200 kids. They are not mine.I paid [Airline] and I want the seats.”

Her husband looked totally embarrassed and was busy calming their daughter.

By then supervisor and manager came over.

Again I explained that the child is sitting with her and they can swap with her husband later if they wish. But that There really is no more seats available.

“I already said am not sitting next to the kid for 12 hours. You find the seats for me or we will not get in your **** trash plane.”

It was late and honestly we’d heard enough of it so manager intervened and after presenting himself said,

“Mme while we understand you want to sit together, you also need to understand you can at closing time with no reserved seats and yet she managed to get you at least 2 seats together. And instead of thanking my staff you have been nothing short of manerless and rude towards her and even ignored the fact that your daughter, who’s(asking me) how old again? ‘5,’ I replied. Right, who’s 5yo and screaming because you keep shouting. It’s late, the flight needs to close and we won’t delay a plane full just because you do not want to sit near to your daughter. My staff will change and swap you and your husband. If that still isn’t okay you may rebook

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