Hang In There Agents

[LCC_#1]

As a f/a, I have a love/hate relationship with GA's. I have seen great ones and I have seen useless ones. Of course the same can be said of f/a's. The other night I had the pleasure of inheriting about 40 passengers from from an earlier cancelled flight onto my flight. The agent we had was one I knew as very kiind and professional. Most of the rebooked passengers were just happy to know they got on our flight and would be home that night.

BUT...There were a few passengers who complained about the agent being rude. I had to scratch my head and wonder what the heck they were talking about. Most of course I figured were the ones toward the end fearing they wouldn't get on the flight.

It dawned on me that the agent probably wasn't rude, but pressured to get that now 40 minutes late flight out. She has had to deal with 40 stressed passengers with 40 different personalites. She has probably been yelled at by a few of them because it took over 20 minutes for Shares to rebook them on what use to take maybe 3 minutes. They have had to apologize too many times and by the time passengers 35-40 step up has nothing left. She is working alone, in charge now of a full A320 that was barely half full. She is getting heat from her manager, heat from the captain, and heat from the customer. She is working with 1985 computer technology in a 2007 warp speed environment and has few tools, mustless assistance to make her job easier. What seems like being rude to others is simply pressure and anxiety to get that flight out and go home to the people who actually love and care about her.

In this I see the reality of the Gate Agent. It is a high pressure, thankless job having to cater to thousands of passengers who expect too much for too little and who have no clue about air travel and feel no need to educate themselves. The business traveler becomes the alli but many times take the heat from the GA when at least they know the system and are more patient.

When I inherit them, they are now homeward bound. They are happy to see me and I assure them they will get home. If kind or honest in their frustrations, I can offer them a cocktail and their view has changed.I am their new best friend. I have no pressures. I'm going where they're going. The GA has done the hard work. I become either their affirmation of what they THOUGHT or I show them who we really ARE. My job is easy...VERY IMPORTANT...but easy!

GA's, I know what you deal with. I know the pressure you are under. You're job IS thankless and you have few tools to work with. You ARE understood and you ARE appreciated. The overwhelming majority of you do a great job and if short or surly are so ONLY because of the GROSS INCOMPETENCE that is upper management.

THANK YOU for the job you do!!

 

[apofurlough]

As a f/a, I have a love/hate relationship with GA's. I have seen great wants and I have seen useless ones. Of course the same can be said of f/a's. The other night I had the pleasure of inheriting about 40 passengers from from an earlier cancelled flight onto my flight. The agent we had was one I knew as very kiind and professional. Most of the rebooked passengers were just happy to know they got on our flight and would be home that night.

BUT...There were a few passengers who complained about the agent being rude. I had to scratch my head and wonder what the heck they were talking about. Most of course I figured were the ones toward the end fearing they wouldn't get on the flight.

It dawned on me that the agent probably wasn't rude, but pressured to get that now 40 minutes late flight out. She has had to deal with 40 stressed passengers with 40 different personalites. She has probably been yelled at by a few of them because it took over 20 minutes for Shares to rebook them on what use to take maybe 3 minutes. They have had to apologize too many times and by the time passengers 35-40 step up has nothing left. She is working alone, in charge now of a full A320 that was barely half full. She is getting heat from her manager, heat from the captain, and heat from the customer. She is working with 1985 computer technology in a 2007 warp speed environment and has few tools, mustless assistance to make her job easier. What seems like being rude to others is simply pressure and anxiety to get that flight out and go home to the people who actually love and care about her.

In this I see the reality of the Gate Agent. It is a high pressure, thankless job having to cater to thousands of passengers who expect too much for too little and who have no clue about air travel and feel no need to educate themselves. The business traveler becomes the alli but many times take the heat from the GA when at least they know the system and are more patient.

When I inherit them, they are now homeward bound. They are happy to see me and I assure them they will get home. If kind or honest in their frustrations, I can offer them a cocktail and their view has changed.I am their new best friend. I have no pressures. I'm going where they're going. The GA has done the hard work. I become either their affirmation of what they THOUGHT or I show them who we really ARE. My job is easy...VERY IMPORTANT...but easy!

GA's, I know what you deal with. I know the pressure you are under. You're job IS thankless and you have few tools to work with. You ARE understood and you ARE appreciated. The overwhelming majority of you do a great job and if short or surly are so ONLY because of the GROSS INCOMPETENCE that is upper management.

THANK YOU for the job you do!!

Thank you for noticing and you have hit it exactly right - most of the time we are under pressure to get the flight out on time even though we are rebooking 40-50 people from a cancelled/delayed flight and we do not have the tools to do our job easily. This computer system is the worst thing I have had the displeasure to work on in my 27 years in aviation. You cannot find flights to begin with because availability is not always loaded and then when you do find them, you can't have confidence in selling them because availability is not always right - AA flights always show 4 seats no matter what - and if you do sell them, the system sells it for the next day. I can not tell you the number of times I have come close to meltdown not with the passengers but with frustration at the computer system for not allowing me to do my job. Then you have flight crews who want to depart early because it is their last leg and they want to get home early but they don't realise we have to justify to our management when we let a flight leave early. Of course most of the time lately, we want to do a quick turn so that some passengers just might have a chance to make their connecting flights because there is nothing else to book them on because of the downsizing of aircraft and then the flight crews want to take their time with tidying and paperwork.
It is nice to know that someone does notice and I can't thank enough our FF who will usually offer to go purchase a beverage for us to give us a break you have no idea how nmuch that helps to hear when things are going haywire, which seems to happen on a daily basis this year.

 

[N109UW]

Nice post LCC#1. I agree with you on this. I've always said there were two jobs that I wouldn't want to do at this company, Gate Agent and Crew Scheduler. Some think my job as a f/a is tough, and it is some days, but agents seem to have it tough almost every day. And crew sched., that has always seemed like a tough one. I appreciate everything, both of these folks do for us.

 

[kao]

Nice post LCC#1. I agree with you on this. I've always said there were two jobs that I wouldn't want to do at this company, Gate Agent and Crew Scheduler. Some think my job as a f/a is tough, and it is some days, but agents seem to have it tough almost every day. And crew sched., that has always seemed like a tough one. I appreciate everything, both of these folks do for us.

LCC...thank you! This is by far more meaningful than a thank you (not) from management.

 

[jerseyfinn]

LCC,

A very nice post which puts a face on those frontliners who often get forgotten in the shuffle.

I agree completely with your outlook which attempts to be mindful of the shortcomings of people. We can't control the system ( or the half-assed management behind it) but we can try to control ourselves. I guess that all of us who fly will have a "bad hair" day every now and then ( given my receding hairline, my own life should be perfect <_< ). I try not to be the first one to bite when the going gets tough. Part of this does come from being an elite who knows more of the ins and outs and we can indeed tell who is honestly trying to help and who is not. Sadly, not all pax are nice people nor is every agent in there pitching.

I can only imagine how bad it's been at times for GAs and counter folks to deal with a computer system that does not work and still does not work. I promise that I will always try to keep that in mind when/if I finally get stuck in one of those unfortunate situations as I'd like to think that I still have plenty of patience left for the frontliners.

Now when it comes to management, that's an entirely different story as it's gonna take a lot for me to change my opinion of those folks and their cocksure arrogance and outright lies. My wife and I are slowly tiring of US and the lame excuses. But it's our longstanding experiences with those east frontliners that have kept us in the game this long.

Safe flying ( and perhaps DP et. al will choke on an enchilada ).

Barry

 

[Awa Contract]

Gate Agents have a tough job - dealing with the public always is - and I am not over looking the F/A's. That is why I quit being a Service Manager at Jaguar to bend wrenches on aircraft. My hat is off to all that have to deal with the public.

 

[Hope777]

Want to know how POOR our shares sysyem is?

One of our agents tried rebooking a passenger off numerous cancelations out of our city who was going to Cancun. He asked the pax if he was willing to go out of ABE as there were seats available down to CLT. So he pulls service ABE-CUN, guess the response from shares.......

ABE-PHL to sit about Ten hours then, PHL-AMS ( YES AMSTERDAM ) connecting to Martin Air AMS-CUN!!! Are you kidding me??? So he just books it point ot point ABE-CLT-CUN. We both wondered how many times one of our contracted Res Centers actually tried to sell a passenger the above routing.

Great System DoUgIe...........

 

[philly rocks]

Hope, thank you for the thread. We must tell dutch aliens that the cheapest way to amsterday is to book their flight via amsterdam to cancun. This way they can hop right off in amsterday and throw away the rest of the ticket. Kudos Usairways, yet another FAILURE for share !

 

[beachboy]

You know, I agree 90%! I draw the line at crew schedulers as while they have a tough job they oh so enjoy exerting that little control they get. They do it just to be spiteful a lot of the time. I for one won't do them a favor to save their life and the sooner they learn to start treating others with respect the better. Maybe if they could wrap their minds around the fact that if you treat the people you deal with respectfully and with a heart they would give it back 10 fold...they would appreciate it. But no, they abuse and manipulate crews at every chance. Screw off at this point I would not give you crap! Scheduling earned it from me while hanging upside down in your bat cave in PIT. The last straw was me making myself AVL for an off day for a trip that was open. Took a QUICK CALL to the airport for this trip on my OFF day! busted my butt to get there and called three times to update them. Never once but OK...go to the gate. Get to the gate only to be told..."Oh scheduling has you on a RSW two day now instead of SFO!" What?! They knew all along and admitted they did a bait and switch. I called saying I offered them a favor and was told QUOTE : "FAVORS ARE NOT A PART OF YOUR CONTRACT". It goes both ways...HUGS and KISSES! You remember that when you need me to fly over 15 hours or make myself AVV on an OFF day. Sorry, I don't see favors in my contract! There are two signatures on that contract. One from AFA and one from the company.
Gate agents do indeed have a hard job and I do everything I can to make their job a little better. I push wheel chairs and whatever else I can. Doug Parker is responsible when it all boils down to this mess and I say the BOD should kick his ass right back there it came from. On the street or AA whichever is worse.

 

[AstroLounge]

Gate Agents are probably the most critical personnel in KEEPING the operation In MOTION. They are probably the most overworked, overstressed and under compensated people at an airline. Agents have a difficult job in serving the customer (good times and bad) and are rarely complimented unless an individual has some PERSONAL GAIN (upgrade, pre-board etc.). I know that I couldn't do their job but certainly appreciate everything they DO to make my mission easier.(If only the pathetic Mgnmnt saw it.....they explain, apologize and remedy for their INCOMPETENCE each and Every Day.)

 

[Oliver Twist]

The first post is an excellent tribute to Gate Agents everywhere.

 

[EastUS]

GA's, I know what you deal with. I know the pressure you are under. You're job IS thankless and you have few tools to work with. You ARE understood and you ARE appreciated. The overwhelming majority of you do a great job and if short or surly are so ONLY because of the GROSS INCOMPETENCE that is upper management.

THANK YOU for the job you do!!

Just my added two cents worth via a heartfelt salute to all the agents that, despite "management's best efforts", and the March Hare Madness of SHARES, still make this magically work somehow. I honestly do not know how you guys/gals keep it together like you do

 

[Mrs. Doubtflier]

In this I see the reality of the Gate Agent. It is a high pressure, thankless job having to cater to thousands of passengers who expect too much for too little and who have no clue about air travel and feel no need to educate themselves. The business traveler becomes the alli but many times take the heat from the GA when at least they know the system and are more patient.

THANK YOU for the job you do!!

My Thanks to the Gate Agents also. Watching what they go through, especially when weather affects the system is bad. And the environment! People crowding around the podiums and leaning over, interrupting them and waving paper at them when they are trying to work out problems...I do not know how they hold it together.

This is an excellent post...I hear far to many F/A's critisizing GA's when they have never walked in their shoes. When the terminals are in chaos we should also ask them is we can assist them in any way as they are prisoners at the gates and can't slip away to the galley.

I saw a SWA setup where they had constructed the gate area with bar stool type chairs behind a large podium. There was consideration given to their "office" to at least minimize the physical stress. Seems to me that it is much easier to stay at your post if you can sit down and still work the screen and reach the printer and phone. It might make it easier to work those extra hours, when asked, if you have not been on your feet for twelve already. It also had the interesting psychological advantage of making the GA's, even sitting, a little taller than the Pax. It showed that SWA's management has some non-ivory tower understanding of the airport environment.

 

[WCT]

I agree too. Thank LCC for a great post! To all the gate agents out there, THANK YOU!!! xoxoxo
And all you ground agents too. THANK YOU, I know it can't be easy in the awful desert heat, and horrid humidity in the East. You guys and gals are way overlooked too!

 

[kao]

not sure if it was a good thing to put the name "camacho" in that song....might go to his head....