Yeah, by all means be nice to them. Most are just trying to their job the best they can...and I don't think any of US want their job.

 

Speaking as a former "gate agent"----actually a cross utilized aka I can do anything agent---- I can understand why some are rude... especially towards pilots. I have been sworn at more by pilots because I did something in a way that they didn't like... blah blah blah... in fact I was sent in before a review board because a CA claimed that I took too long to pull the jetbridge up to the aircraft (mind you this was on a winters night in ND.... get it?)

Basically be nice and if they want to act like a pile of $h!t..... just walk away.

BTW DC-9 CA's at a certain company really need to work on their social skills and stop screaming so dang much.

 

DC-9 and ND. I think I can guess what company that is!

I had an AA gate agent get upset with me when I was trying to commute to work a couple of weeks ago. I was very polite and all she could do was complain and tell me how she didn't have time to be taking care of someone wanting to jumpseat. She felt that it was necessary to tell me over and over that I needed to do it at the ticket counter and not the gate. I just said "ok" and sat down after she finished. Needless to say that CA was right there and saw the whole thing.

 

As a commuter, I'm always overly friendly to gate agents. I can only imagine how miserable I would be if I had to do that job...where if YOU do a good job, everything is just as expected, but if ANYTHING goes wrong, you're the face the pax are going to throw under the bus. I've had a few agents give me a hard time, one DAL gate agent wouldn't let me down to the plane to ask the captain if I could jumpseat and I had to catch a later flight, but the vast majority of the time every gate agent I deal with is awesome.

 

I don't commute, and this is one of the reasons why.

There's no way I could do what they do. I was stuck at IAD on a mechanical delay on the Sunday after Thanksgiving. During that 5 hour delay I talked to quite a few of the pax waiting for our flight. Most were pretty mad, and with good reason. However when I explained my stance, and the fact that I had been sitting, waiting to go home (not being paid) after a four day during the holiday (my T-day dinner was a turkey sub from quiznos in ORD) they were pretty understanding.

However, in the gate agents' and CSRs' defense, when you're dealing with people in this capacity it's going to be negative every time. How often do people go to the counter to tell the agents how great their experience was?

I quit a job at Circuit City during college because of this. Working the customer service counter there after Christmas is hell. After being cussed out because I couldn't accept a TV for return without the remote for the 10298380398 time and trying to explain that if they needed a remote they should buy a $20 generic remote I came to the descision that simply clocking out and walking away was better than reaching across the counter and beating the crap of one of these idiots.

Gate agents deal with this dozens of times per day if everything is going well. When it hits the fan, it's probably thousands of times. You'd be ****ed off too. If you're professional, it will go a long way.

 

I would agree with that being a former ramp/ gate agent. I just wish people would get rid of what power trip there on an just do there job. An thats both sides of the table. As a agent, we shouldnt stroke pilots with the same brush, and pilots shouldnt go around acting as if everyone owes them something. Cuz i dont owe any pilot a damn thing other than the respect that i give everybody.

Tristar: why do u believe it is this way?????

 

I think all schedulers owe pilots a lot...j/k ftr

 

I just find it unfortunate that when you go out of your way to be friendly to someone such as a gate agent, you get it thrown back in your face (not by all, but a select few). You would think that they would be welcoming to the fact that someone actually has respect for them.

 

A similar deal happened to me once...Piedmont agent in PHL wouldn't let me on one of our airplanes because I hadn't checked in at least 30 minutes prior to departure. I apologized to him and tried explaining to him that I had blocked in just 27 minutes prior to departure and ran to the gate to catch the flight home. Guy wouldn't give me a JS pass so I got another one from a different gate, filled it out, and dropped the slip on the counter for him to do at his convenience and he physically blocked me from the jetway.

A quick wave to the CA on the flight deck and she came up and asked what the problem was. The agent started hemming and hawing to her and then told her "he can go down now". We would have left the gate early...but there were no rampers to load the gate-checked bags.

 

That wasn't in DFW was it? I had a similar incident with a gate agent trying to sneak a friend ahead of some pilots onto our airplane.