| rev:text
| - On January 3, 2015 I was taking my 12-year-old daughter through McCarran Airport to her gate to fly her back to her mother. At or about 2:22 pm, I approached the ticketing counter with my wife, 7-year-old son, and my daughter. Southwest employee Heather T (employee number 98585) told me that only ONE person could accompany my daughter to the gate. I explained to Heather that we ALL escort her to the gate 4 times a year (for the last 7 years). I also explained that I called ahead to make sure we could still escort her since she is no longer an Unaccompanied Minor, per airline definition and was told nothing would change until she is 18. When I complained, Heather told me that the TSA had implemented the restriction and she didn't know what to tell me.
Fuming, I immediately located a TSA supervisor upstairs to complain about the policy. The TSA supervisor looked confused and quickly assured me that there was no such policy in place. The TSA supervisor added that the airline may make rules that they find appropriate for their passengers.
Now knowing that Heather T lied to me, I quickly returned to the Southwest ticketing area to seek an airline supervisor. I was soon introduced to Mr Sean Roberts (employee number 36061). Mr Roberts looked puzzled when I told him about Heather's new policy and that alone confirmed to me that she was lying.
At the same time, my wife was at the ticketing counter talking to a different agent to get Heather's name when she heard Heather say, "don't help her, she's trying to get a gate pass and I made up a story because we don't need all these people at the gate". Heather also quickly tucked her name badge into her scarf to hide it.
As soon as my wife heard this, she met up with me and Mr Roberts, reporting what she overheard. Mr Roberts was VERY helpful and is the only reason I'm not giving a one-star instead of two. He quickly prepared gate passes for my wife and son and got us all the information that we were requesting (Heather's name and ID #).
After that ordeal, we were deciding if we ever want to fly my daughter again since it's only an 8-hour drive anyway. We were getting over the ordeal and decided to just write a complaint to corporate... until we got to the gate.
When we got to the gate, and waited in line a long time so that she could board early, we realized that Heather T got the last laugh by issuing my daughter a gate pass instead of a Boarding Pass!!! That was it... we were pissed now. So we went to the counter at the gate to get a boarding pass. The clock was ticking away and we stood there for nearly 5 minutes, with no one in front of us, while some girl yacked on the phone about God knows what (I didn't get her name but she was working the counter adjacent to gate C21 at approximately 4:30pm and had a Miley Cyrus haircut). The girl then lied for Heather saying that the last 15 people don't get boarding passes since the flight is full. We knew we weren't part of that group because we arrived 3 hours before the flight and got to the gate WAY before everyone else.
Long story short, corporate needs to address these employees very sternly. Miley Cyrus needs to adjust her attitude and not argue with customers that are panicking (and get a haircut that doesn't make it impossible to take her seriously). Customer "service", not customer "chastise" or customer "irritation".
Heather needs to be placed in a position where she does not deal directly with customers. Unless Southwest stands for pissed off customers, that is. She needs to understand that she is not an administrator. Administrators know how to find the delicate balance between a happy company and a happy customer... she does NOT. Lying to the customer provides nothing positive for either party.
In the end, we are unsure if we'll ever fly again. I'd like to because of the time savings versus driving but I think we'll be sitting it out for a while. Southwest has always treated us well, with the exception of some grumpy gate attendants, so we are truly disappointed. This may be an isolated incident but we are forever scarred with the thought of "what's gonna happen this time?" We just don't feel secure and fully comfortable any longer. It's kind of like having a loving dog for 7 years and then it suddenly bites the heck out of your arm. Can you ever trust him again???
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)