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Home » Southwest Airlines » I Won’t Condemn Southwest Passenger Who Paid $100 To Cut In Line…
Southwest Airlines

I Won’t Condemn Southwest Passenger Who Paid $100 To Cut In Line…

Matthew Klint Posted onDecember 29, 2022November 13, 2023 16 Comments

a woman holding a black bag

If there is one thing I’ve seen in my travels around the world (with one glaring exception in Iran), it is that money talks. Money is the conduit through which we do business and having money, wherever you are, is generally more helpful than not having it. Even so, money cannot buy class and money can be abused. A woman paid $100 to cut to the front of a long Southwest Airlines customer service line so she could make her flight home. As easy as it is to frown upon her “unfair” action, I find myself quite sympathetic to her plight.

In Defense Of The Southwest Passenger Who Paid $100 To Cut In Line In Atlanta

A mother with two young children admitted to paying someone $100 to cut in line, so that she could get rebooked and get home with her two young children. The incident took place at a Southwest Airlines customer service counter at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL) at 4:00 am in the morning.

PAYING TO SKIP LINE: Would you pay $100.00 to skip this Southwest Airlines line? That’s exactly what one woman just did at @ATLairport to make her flight on time with her two children ✈️ I walked up as she was passing the 💵 to another traveler. #travel #southwest @GoodDayAtlanta pic.twitter.com/6N2LwzfDxm

— Billy Heath III (@BillyHeathFOX5) December 27, 2022

Of course, there is a glaring problem with her action. It would be one thing if the woman paid $100 to someone to exchange places in line. Instead, she paid $100 to “cut” in line, which impacts not only the recipient of the $100, but the hundreds of people behind her. Only one person got the money but hundreds were inconvenienced by having to wait a little longer.

And yet in listening to this woman, I find myself with great sympathy for her and if I am being truly honest, I would certainly have considered the same course of action, especially if my wife was traveling with my two young kids and they faced sitting in an airport all day long. Traveling is burdensome enough, but traveling with children is far more difficult.

I have to be honest: I am truly not proud of myself for this reaction. But hear me out and then feel free to rip me: you cannot work within a system that is broken. Southwest is broken right now. Its app does not work. Phone lines are clogged. There is no social media response. The only way people are getting rebooked is by waiting in long lines at airports. And when you are with kids, that becomes a far more arduous task.

The world breaks down when people take an “every man for himself” approach. While I reject Social Darwinism, when the system is already broken, sometimes you have to improvise in ways that would normally be frowned upon.

It’s like the bribing dilemma in Africa…

Of course, maybe this woman should have just taken the Larry David approach and saved herself the $100…

CONCLUSION

I won’t go so far as to applaud the woman who paid $100 to cut in line so she could get on an earlier Southwest Airlines flight. Yet I also will not condemn her. Part of me admires her resourcefulness and her wit to find a way to navigate a broken system and get her children home. Her actions were not noble, but faced with a number of unsavory choices, she chose what I think many of us–if we are honest–would choose as well.


image: @BillyHeathFOX5 / Twitter // H/T: View From The Wing

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About Author

Matthew Klint

Matthew is an avid traveler who calls Los Angeles home. Each year he travels more than 200,000 miles by air and has visited more than 135 countries. Working both in the aviation industry and as a travel consultant, Matthew has been featured in major media outlets around the world and uses his Live and Let's Fly blog to share the latest news in the airline industry, commentary on frequent flyer programs, and detailed reports of his worldwide travel.

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16 Comments

  1. Tony N. Reply
    December 29, 2022 at 4:25 pm

    In this case, kindness doesn’t talk. It’s American capitalism.

    • cr Reply
      December 29, 2022 at 11:39 pm

      Do you seriously think this only happens in the US?

  2. AinthePNW Reply
    December 29, 2022 at 4:29 pm

    Hard pass. If she replaced someone else in line for $100 then that’s fine. But otherwise no – I don’t care how terrible the situation is you don’t get to cut everyone else off because of one greedy person. I would not have allowed that to happen under any circumstance.

    You also don’t know the story of everyone else in line (e.g. man missed heart transplant in SEA because of cancelled flight). You are not more important than everyone else – wait in line like a normal human.

    • Christian Reply
      December 29, 2022 at 6:57 pm

      +1. I also would have done whatever was necessary to keep her from cutting in.

    • Brian T. Reply
      December 29, 2022 at 10:12 pm

      Yep, she should have had to pay $100 to every person in line behind where she cut in.

      To Matthew’s comment about not being able to work within a broken system, that’s true, but everyone else is in the same broken system. Everyone was getting their flight cancelled. Given everyone having the same problem, the cheater is still a jerk.

  3. J Reply
    December 29, 2022 at 4:33 pm

    Honestly, pretty unacceptable. How about every other mother or father traveling with their kids? How about those traveling with a disabled/handicapped family member? Travel during the holidays is tough for everyone.

    If she replaced someone else in line or paid someone to wait in line for her, that’s fine. However, everyone else behind her and the person that got her $100 have to wait longer now.

  4. jfhscott Reply
    December 29, 2022 at 4:51 pm

    4:00 am in an airport with a couple of rug rats sounds like a tough position. But I rather suspect that this woman jumped in line over other moms with a couple of rug rats.

    But I am left to wonder why there is not more discussion of the ethics of the person who “sold” a favorable place in line but retained his own. Here in DC, people get paid to be line standers for events like SCOTUS hearings. But they get to sell their place in line only once.

  5. david Reply
    December 29, 2022 at 4:59 pm

    It’s one thing to do what she did, which is BS. But quite another to have such little shame that you allow yourself to have it publicized. Guarantee you I would have said something if I was behind the person who took the $100.

    • whocares Reply
      December 29, 2022 at 8:28 pm

      I would have screamed. Don’t be a PITCH! You better not (to the person receiving said money) I would have cussed her out.

      Just like I screamed at the woman who parked her car in a busy intersection while waiting in a long notorious line of Chick-A-Fil. Blocking my right turn.

  6. Santastico Reply
    December 29, 2022 at 8:28 pm

    She was in Atlanta. I can guarantee you Delta flies to her destination. Much nicer for her to just go and buy a Delta ticket.

  7. Qatar Reply
    December 30, 2022 at 12:25 am

    Did she pay everyone else that she cut in front of or just the one person who let her in? I’d be pissed.

    • Matthew Klint Reply
      December 30, 2022 at 11:50 am

      Just one person apparently.

  8. Scott Reply
    December 30, 2022 at 7:39 am

    Why didn’t everyone in line raise a stink over it?
    The person who really got cheated was the last person to get rebooked because she took their place.

  9. John L Reply
    December 30, 2022 at 9:23 am

    Good for her. If the other people in line behind her didn’t say anything, oh well.

  10. Common Tater Reply
    December 30, 2022 at 12:40 pm

    Taking a broader view here, the “place in front of me” in line is NOT mine to sell. Is it? My logic here is that any schmo could stand in the queue and start taking money from the highest bidder(s) to “cut” in front of him. The line would never move from the standpoint of people waiting behind him, while he gets rich. So, no, something is wrong with this picture.

  11. Paper Boarding Pass Reply
    January 1, 2023 at 9:42 am

    What about those who don’t have the ready cash!!!
    Paying for a place in line sounds like the privileged few in a Third World country.
    Sorry, but I feel no empathy for the lady in question. By cutting in line, I’m pushed back by three positions. I too would like to get home!!!!!!

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