An American Airlines gate agent purportedly threatened to cancel a flight to Charlotte if 20 people did not agree to give up their seats and take a taxi instead.
Did A Gate Agent For American Airlines Threaten To Cancel Flight If 20 Volunteers Did Not Step Up?
Our story takes us to the Carolinas, specifically to Columbia, South Carolina (CAE), an airport I frequently flew into during law school when my uncle lived there. It’s 89 miles from Charlotte (CLT), an American Airlines hub and AA operates several daily flights between the two cities.
On Saturday, January 6, 2024, a gate agent threatened passengers traveling from CAE-CLT: if 20 people did not give up their seats and take a taxi to Charlotte, he would cancel the flight.
I’m trying to leave Columbia, SC for a 9 am connection in Charlotte. @AmericanAir is announcing that if 20 people don’t give up their seats and get on a taxi to Charlotte, they’ll cancel this flight and no one will make it. Has anyone ever experienced this on American? Insane. pic.twitter.com/IAVntnMex0
— Seth Dillon (@SethDillon) January 6, 2024
We cannot say with certainty whether this story is even true. The complaint was posted by Seth Dillon of the Babylon Bee (consider it the Christian version of The Onion). With him, the line between fact and fiction is often blurred.
But his tweet does not seem like a joke. On the contrary, he appears quite serious and it factually makes sense if the flight was weight-restricted. While it is doubtful that the flight was literally oversold by 20 passengers, it is much more plausible that weight restrictions meant 20 seats had to remain open.
View From The Wing thinks the gate agent was just bluffing, but I am not so sure. Consider if American Airlines had to pay out involuntary denied boarding credit (i.e. cash) to 20 passengers. That would add up quite a bit. In fact, theoretically, it would be cheaper to cancel the flight due to operational reasons, then set up a new section using the same aircraft and crew but with only 50 seats available.
The USA does not have the generous delay/cancellation credit that exists in the European Union and the United Kingdom. A canceled flight may require hotel and meal vouchers, but not cash compensation.
It’s a tricky loophole, but I do not see a legal barrier to such a “innovative” solution to a flight that is suddenly weight-restricted. Sure, AA takes a ding in terms of its operational metrics (competition factor) but it comes out saving money.
In this case, however, it was not necessary because 20 volunteers did step up to take the cab to CLT.
CONCLUSION
A gate agent threatened to cancel a flight oversold by 20 passengers if 20 volunteers did not step forward to use a taxi for the 89-mile flight. It isn’t clear to me if this was a bluff or not, but apparently enough people stepped up and took the cab.
(and as it turned out they beat the flight to Charlotte Douglass International Airport)
Threatening customers is always a bad sign. I occasionally am allowed to add a roundtrip DTW-LAN leg with DL with my company to visit my folks on the holidays or a long weekend (i.e XXX-DTW-LAN-DTW-LGA) before heading back to work. Once every while, the flight gets overbooked either way and DL offer to pay for an uber/taxi since it’s around 90 miles away. However, unlike AA here, they don’t threaten customers and actually try to sweeten the deal with vouchers/gift cards and oftentimes, the cab arrives at most 30 minutes later than the flight, which isn’t bad.
In my opinion, DL and UA seem to be improving in their side on customer service, and AA could try to take some notes from them.
“It’s a tricky loophole, but I do not see a legal barrier to such a “innovative” solution to a flight that is suddenly weight-restricted.”
There may not be an explicit rule, but I would bet the DOT would rule that canceling flight 123 but immediately putting in a new flight 456 with the exact same aircraft and crew and a similar departure time to get around IDB does not actually get around IDB comp.
With that said though, I believe weight restrictions are not covered under IDB comm, it’s one of the few reasons and airline can get out of paying it.
My understanding is that loophole covers 50 seat jets.
So you pay to fly but instead travel by taxi? Overbooked by 20 passengers? How is this possible as I assume this is a small plane. How can their planning be so bad?
I’m not normally sympathetic to those who want to ban short flights 4 DE NEVIRONMET!!1, but the distance here is tiny and there is a fast road connecting the two cities, as evidenced by the taxi arriving faster than the plane. It makes no economic or environmental sense to operate such a flight and cover all the fixed costs associated with aircraft operations when they can just charter a few large coaches and give them an AA flight number for connections, mileage credit etc.
The taxi only arrives before the plane if the taxi leaves earlier.
There are a great number of city pairs in the continental US that have similar characteristics to this one.
There are far more flights than buses between this city pair for a reason. Similarly there are reasons why the airlines generally don’t run shuttle bus services to/from their various hubs to surrounding communities.
This pattern of travel doesn’t seem to make sense when one portion of the travel viewed in isolation– Columbia airport to Charlotte airport, but the vast majority of travelers are making a more complex journey. When viewed in the context of the entire travel experience for the traveler, the flight does make sense. Similarly when viewed from the perspective of an airline’s business model, it similarly makes sense.
Still doesn’t make any sense to me, Lufthansa even have a cross-border shuttle from Strasbourg, and it even departs from the city centre- they’ll sell you a through ticket to virtually anywhere in the world via FRA. I thought that there was a pilot recruitment and retention crisis in the USA, surely there must be some incentive to rationalise- though it’s obviously not possible to do when if are lakes to cross or poor road connections.
I agree Marcus… MCO to TPA is 18 min flight, and by highway 92 miles… If you are going by taxi, you can’t beat a plane there unless you leave in the taxi an hour and 15 mins before the flight leaves… THAT is the longest 92 mile drive you will EVER experience…
What is AA’s scope agreement for their regional carriers? Solely number of passengers, or also weight?
My Brother-in-law flew on a CRJ-550 from EWR to GRR- full flight w/ 50 pax. Before pushback, they informed pax they were weight restricted and had to remove some checked baggage. Well, they unloaded ALL the checked bags except for ONE. I was perplexed knowing the CR-550 w/ 50 pax and baggage should have no weight issues for an hour and a half flight knowing the aircraft is a CR-700 which UA also operates with up to 70 pax. After doing some sleuthing, I discovered UA’s scope for regionals also includes max weight as well as max pax.
They initially told my Bro-in-law (1K) they would put his luggage on the next non-stop from EWR to GRR (regional jet again) which wouldn’t arrive until almost midnight. He insisted United route it through ORD which had many more flight options, including mainline aircraft. He got his bags with Christmas gifts and clothing about 9 hours later.
Well Tee Jay, MOST regional carriers operate with the “avg adult body weight” and use the figure of 170 lbs per adult passenger. This has been the rule of thumb for many years, except NOW the avg adult passenger has a body weight closer to 202-203 lbs, so when the pilot calculates his W/B checks, including fuel, baggage, AND passengers, and those figures put him over his W/B calculations, they ditch the baggage first, and THEN if needed, remove a passenger or two… When it comes to Weight & Balance, that is a critical part of aviation, and I honestly believe they should put unseen scales at the gate that measure everybody’s body weight when you are presenting your boarding pass. What people don’t know won’t hurt them, AND you are getting a 100% accurate weight of each passenger boarding… That’s just MY opinion…
Come on Matt, the top 2 current stories on the Babylon Bee are about 3 women killed in a fight over a Stanley tumbler. And Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban making good on DEI pledge by signing Peter Dinklage.
Hard to believe anything on a site that is clearly parody.
His parody is hilarious, but this wasn’t a BB story..it came on his own X account. And unlike his “fake news you can trust” (lol) website, this doesn’t seem like a joke.
A gate agent does not have the legal authority to cancel a flight. See 14CFR 121.533. That resides with the captain and the dispatcher. Airlines also do not cancel flights just because it is “cheaper”. They are insanely competitive on DOT stats.
ABSOLUTELY CORRECT … ONLY CAPT AND FLIGHT DISPATCH OFFICER
What I find astonishing is that there is (presumably) demand for 6 flights per day each way for a city pair less than 100 miles apart!!
I believe it easily. I flew Delta once and it must have been when they were switching out planes so they were about 6-8 passengers over. The gate attendant said the plane wouldn’t leave until volunteers stepped forward, compensation was a later flight. We ended up leaving an hour and a half later.
What is wrong with you spreading such rubbish?! A gate agent has no ability or authority to cancel or threaten. They are micromanaged like you cannot believe. Just continue spreading such idiocy so passengers feel entitled to behave badly with gate agents.
Also with weight restrictions the fuel can be adjusted or the flight plan changed to fly lower or higher altitude to make the weight work. Happens all the time.
You need to be cancelled.
So you’re saying this story is totally fabricated? You’re saying the gate agent made no such threat?
I was on that flight and the story is true! The gate agent did ask for 20 volunteers to take a later flight. When that did not work they added the taxi idea. I overheard the employees talking about the reason was they had overfilled the plane with fuel. Plane was an EM 145 that seats 50.
Thank you for the data point!