The incident blew up when the man was trying to check in 30 minutes before his departure
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Gate agents who mocked a Frontier Airlines passenger, sparking viral outrage, have been taken off the frontlines for the company.
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The agents, who work for a third-party contractor, “are no longer associated with the Frontier account,” an airline spokesperson told the New York Post, adding, “We are aware of what occurred and have been directly in touch with the customer.
Viral footage captured Frontier agents getting into it with a passenger who can be heard saying, “I’m never flying this sh***y airline again” after being hit with an unexpected $25 fee to check in 30 minutes before his flight departure.
The incident blew up when the male passenger, a 45-year-old father of three, was trying to check in for his Frontier flight from Raleigh, N.C., to Boston last Friday on the heels of a weeklong business trip.
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The passenger, who asked not to be identified, told the Post that he arrived at the airport with about 50 minutes to spare but couldn’t check in at the electronic kiosk because, unbeknownst to him, he had missed the airline’s 60-minute pre-departure window.
He said he spoke to a Frontier employee who told him he needed to pony up the $25 fee to check in at the desk, per the airline’s policy.
“They all kind of started chiming in, ‘Well, you should have checked the website.’ Like not in a professional or polite way. They were like, ‘It was your fault for not checking the website. Sorry, it’s on you,’” he said of the moments before he decided to start filming the encounter.
The passenger said he went back and forth with reps for 20 minutes before finally agreeing to pay the fee. As he reached for his wallet, he muttered, “I’m never flying this sh***y airline again.”
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“When I said that, the lady who I was talking to took a step back and gasped, and was like, ‘How dare you curse at me? I’m not checking you in. I don’t have to check you in.’ And my reaction was, ‘You will check me in.’ I think those were the words that I used,” he said.
“And when I said that, she completely just went — I don’t know if ‘ballistic’ is the word, but essentially she shut off completely and absolutely refused to check me in.”
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Footage shows the moment two of the agent’s co-workers, dressed in long-sleeved black Frontier tops, start pointing their own phones at him laughing.
“You thought you were gonna get on your flight?” one said.
The clip has racked up millions of views on social media and prompted plenty of saucy debate online.
“What was remarkable to me also is that not one person on their side took the professional route or the high road,” the passenger said of the viral exchange.
“Listen, it’s my money at the end of the day, and when somebody is caught off guard with a charge that they feel is in some ways unfair or unreasonable, of course, they have a right to express themselves,” he added.
The passenger ended up paying $500 for another airline’s flight home, which Frontier later reimbursed him for after he called to complain.
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