Gilbert Tuhabonye Treated Mean By Frontier Airlines Denver, CO

I am a frequent flyer, but patronized by Frontier
Airlines on 6/16 for the very first time by any airline. I wish I was writing to
disclose excellent customer service, but it is to the contrary.

I was traveling with a colleague to Denver for the weekend utilizing a Buddy Pass. Traveling to Denver from San Jose was a pleasant experience. However, the return trip was a degrading, disgusting, and embarrassing experience. As a
frequent flyer, I have always experienced good customer service on the
airlines, and I expected the same from Frontier, especially after reviewing
your customer service statement which states "Frontier is committed
to providing each and every passenger with the best possible travel experience
both in the air and on the ground". To be more specific, below
is a synopsis of what happened:

On 6/16/06 a colleague and I traveled from
San Jose, CA to Denver, CO on a Buddy Pass, Frontier Flight 166. Our
attire was gaucho pants, t-shirts and flip flop sandals. The staff
was very pleasant and helpful, and we were not harassed about our attire
or disrespected because of our attire.

On our return flight on 6/18/2006, Flight 163, our attire was jeans, white t-shirts, and flip and flop sandals. However, this time, one of your employees refused to
give me a ticket wearing the very same shoes I received my ticket to Denver in. The agent at the desk advised my colleague and me to change into some more "business appropriate shoes". She proceeded to tell us that we were non-revenue generating customers saying we purchased our tickets for little to nothing. My colleague, Shavia Jones, changed into tennis shoes, and I had to borrow a pair of my colleague's shoes which were too small in order to proceed with our travel plans. When I received my ticket it had in big letters "Check dress code at desk"
written over it with a yellow marker. Once I received the ticket from the agent,
I put my flip flops back on to walk to Gate 24. As I approached the second ticket agent, and before I could change back into the shoes, which were too small, the agent said rudely to me "You can not get on the plane with those shoes, so don't try and change your shoes and get away with it, they've already called down here". At this point, I am wondering how the agent knew who I was, considering I had not even approached the desk, given her my ticket, ID, or anything else that would associate me with my encounter with the first agent. The only thing
I can assume was that the first agent described our ethnicity, and her
assumption that we were young children or teenagers. What your agents
did was racially profile me and my colleague, and it was very humiliating
and unprofessional. I was appalled at your agents' unprofessional behavior, and regret being treated like a child, and I wondered to myself, if your employees had known that I was a young professional engineer at IBM, would I have been treated with this same level of disrespect.
Karla Davinson, however, when we asked for her name, she laughed and said
"ha...what, a standby passenger wants my name because they didn't have
on the right shoes?" She then proceeds to scribe her name very sloppy on my ticket, and as we walked away she said “you must not ever want to fly with us again.” At this point we are livid, and even more embarrassed. We just wanted to get home, and away from the rudeness we had experienced in Denver. We proceeded to our seats to get comfortable for take-off, when another agent approached us on the plane when it was quiet and he stated "I'm going to let you fly this time, but you will never fly Frontier again. You need to learn respect
and not be so disrespectful." I start to ask him what the problem was since we never disrespected anyone, and he interrupted me asking "do you want to talk about this off the plane?" I felt harassed, and provoked at this point, so I told him no. He finished his harassment by saying "we need to learn to be more respectful and the person who gave you the buddy passes will be getting their flying privileges revoked, but I’m sure you don’t care. I have business casual attire, and don't have a problem wearing it, especially if there is a specific dress code, but what I do have a problem with is being treated with disrespect, being
racially profiled, harassed, and provoked while patronizing a particular
company. When we arrived in San Jose, we asked about the policy and was given the printed rules from an agent. That same agent explained that the dress code is enforced at the agents' discretion, and I believe this to be true since we departed from San Jose with no problem. The dress code was not defined on our Buddy Pass, and your employees in Denver did not take the time to educate us about the dress code. Instead, their tactics were racially profiling, harassment, embarrassment, provoking, and degrading.

My future travel plans will not include Frointer Airlines because of the horrible
customer service.

sorry you can't be thinkin clear darlin. this gal's not up fer yer dining pleasureListening For Change

Good to see you in these parts today, are you ready for PIRATES Friday?? Liza and I can't wait - not to hijack the thread but I thought of it because Johnny Depp so deliciously enjoys his lugubrious swishiness in his Jack Sparrow characterization. It wasn't even in the script, he created it thinking it was rebellion -- but the honchos went wild for it, and so did WE!

Now that he's a dad and his irrational anger at the world has eased into domestic playfulness, and that's whence it sprang, or so I read in Newsweek a couple of weeks back. Sorry, no link. But the world would be poor indeed if all we had was one skin to be stuck in snarling for our whole lives!

I really appreciated this whole blog story btw, thanks for getting it out there!

Later, JJ