Today I was traveling with my wife and 3 kids from San Francisco to Roanoke with connecting flight in Charlotte, to our surprise American Airlines employee has closed the gate's door right before us and told that us that the plane is full and we cannot board this flight despite the fact that I've checked in earlier today with all the seats assigned. What made the things more odd was that later they've allowed to board 6 more people that were staying behind us and probably actively negotiating something behind the scenes.
Apparently AA has assigned smaller plane to this flight so they couldn't board around 16 people with tickets. It was weird experience watching how the smiles have gone from AA employees faces when they've realized there is an issue with the plane and immediately they became very rude with passengers. I've started filming they behavior on my phone, one guy has rushed to me and told that it's prohibited to filming them at the gate and forced me to delete what I filmed threatening with calling a police and having me arrested.
So now I'm writing in the corner of the hotel room (not to a surprise - the room we've got is too small to accommodate 5 people) with slight hope to get to our destination tomorrow - we were told we can try 11am flight to Roanoke tomorrow if we get early enough to the airport - looks like regularly ticketed passengers take priority, I don't know what would happen if we take seats of somebody who has purchased tickets but late to the airport.
Hope somebody at AA will read this and take some measures the future passengers will be treated with more respect, or I we will witness this company goes bankrupt.
And also do you know if it's really prohibited to film videos/take pictures at the gates at airports?
Never let some wage jockey tell you what data you can or can't have on your phone. Call em on it, let em call the cops. It was a bluff anyway.
The only reason I decided to not force it to the police is that we were really tired and also I didn't want to scare kids - they were tired too and never have been in situation like this before.
Really sorry to hear about this and thank you for posting your story. I think we should all post consumer experiences and complaints and questions on Steemit, and tag them with the company's name as you have, then contact them to tell them to come on Steemit to respond. Hope the rest of your trip goes better.
This removing video from the phone made me very upset in particular - this was just the deja vu from my another experience back 8 years ago in Russia when I was waiting for the plane at the airport and I took out my DSLR out of my bag - before I even made a photo an airport worker got behind me and started yelling at me that I'm not allowed to take pictures here - I didn't mind, I took camera down and thought - relax, that's ok, I'm in russia, it's a kind of semi authoritarian state, this could never happen in the US that I'll be back just in hours..
as a videographer i am telling you that, this was your right to film it... :) they had no right to make you delete the video... if video is prohibited, they must have signs, BEFORE, entering that certain area... well they are stupid enough... you can actually recover it... if you didnt place anything on top of the sd card after that...
damnit, recovery was already mentioned, and i was late typing that post... :)
I've recovered the video I was forced to delete..
watch this guy is moving to my right hand - this is where I pressed the stop button.Dear val ,
I just read your article with AA trouble.As an airline professional more than 30 years of experience I can reply you only about european regulation:any airline member of IATA can deny boarding to any passenger of thier choice,without explaining,but they have to pay a fee of € 200for short haul economy or 400 for long haul,plus accomodation and food and transportation to and from airport.
The second this more annoing is that they did not let you film them to avoid company and personal suing,which is illegal.My dauughter had a similar incident in2012 at milano linate airport,and the ap employee did refuse to give her his personal data,name etc,by phone I suggested my daughter to take a photo of him and witnesses as to sue this illegal act he was shouting and wantedto confiscate the camera at the cheking counter.Yet she took the photo but was denied boardigstill.She went to city center in the airline office and spoke with the manager.
She got compensation,good htl acc.and booked flight with upgtade.Tha airline is avoiding bad reputation in all cases,and airport staff usually do not work for the airline.I was director for balkans of LX Swiss International Air. Lines 2003-2008
Rastko
I guess you have some evidence to back that up.
Not that I wouldn't believe you, but regarding you're posting it here in your full conscious mind (I hope) I don't even dare to doubt it.
Awesome first case for a very useful functionality of steem :) Good job! Take that, corporate world!
What you wouldn't believe - AA overbooking or I was forced to remove the video? Actually I was able to restore the video and I can post it here if someone can prove whether it's legal or not filming airlines employees at the gate.
P.S. was intended to post via @val account (@faddy is my another account)
That's great to hear, and of course it's legal.
It's not about what I belive, but what the company is going - and as jsc pointed out, depending on the legal situation, able - to do.
This is the first post tagged with their name on the soon-to-be biggest social media platform. Who knows, they've been stupid enough to try before, and sometimes they even succeeded.
I'm absolutely not worried about them trying their best when you are covered, great additional publicity :D
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." --First Amendment - U.S. Constitution
A law that infringes on the freedom of press, isn't really a law at all..
@val is one of the primary web developers working on Steemit. The account can be trusted as far as I am concerned.
I should've added that I'm aware of that. I expected him to have evidence when I wrote that post! Seems I failed to express that.
I'm not surprised about the film harassment. They even try to make civilian dash cams illegal. People have stand up against this; that is completely unconstitutional. Good job going for the camera... Make some tweets, etc.. If your in the mood to hear about more craziness, search Steemit for Bilderberg.
Steemit has been stable, had a good AMA. Learned a lot. We will take care of everything while your gone...
I made some tweets https://twitter.com/@valzav ... pretty sure AA won't bother replying them.
My friend's tweet made the Denver post last year.
I was told off for filming onboard an Emirates flight: