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A pair of Frontier Airlines gate agents tried to extort $50 from a soldier as he was attempting to get on flight F9 3215 to Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) when this demand was made by the employees at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL). The gate agents were closing the door and allegedly said they would let him board if he paid them.
The flight was delayed and the passenger, Demonta Roach, left the gate area to grab food before the flight. He made it back to the gate area before the door should have closed to find the employees just shutting it. When he asked about boarding, one of the gate agents reportedly said: “I don’t care who you report to if you want to get back on this plane, you have to pay me. I don’t give a damn what you’re in, as long as you have my damn money.” The second agent allegedly added: “We normally charge $100 for this but since you’re in the military we’ll charge you $50.” They also reportedly told him that they wanted the money for weed and to get their nails done.
Roach refused to meet their demands to pay them via Cash App. They attempted to not let him on the plane until he told them he would pay them. With the flight already late, they let him board thinking that he would send the payment. He did not and managed to make his flight.
To compound this extortion scheme, these gate agents demanded this payment on Veterans Day. Distasteful any day to any customer, but more so to a soldier on this day of gratitude for the armed forces. Frontier Airlines commented with the following statement:
We take claims like this seriously, and our team is in the process of investigating the situation to determine what happened. In the meantime, we have offered the customer a voucher for $150 as a customer service gesture.”
Anthony’s Take: Hopefully, these two agents were fired. Roach claimed that it seemed they had done this before and I would not be surprised since they seemed so matter of fact in their reported delivery.
(Featured Image Credit: Frontier Airlines.)
(H/T: View from the Wing.)
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Advertiser & Editorial Disclosure: The Bulkhead Seat earns an affiliate commission for anyone approved through the links above This compensation may impact how and where links appear on this site. We work to provide the best publicly available offers to our readers. We frequently update them, but this site does not include all available offers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed, or approved by any of these entities.
