Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins of the supergroup TLC took to her social media on November 5 to vent about her feelings towards American Airlines, following a very unsatisfactory experience flying with the company.
What happened? Tionne and her children, daughter Chase and her 2 year old son, Chance, were boarding a first class flight to head back to their home in LA.
First class entitled them to board with two bags per person on the flight. They were stopped and accused of having one bag too many, so Chase put her laptop into one of the bags, leaving them with the right amount of bags on the flight within the rules.
However, the manager decided to be difficult after hearing Tionne tell Chase she could get her laptop out of the bag later on. Another lady intervened and told them it was against the rules to take it out the bag.
Tionne vents on Twitter about the incident
Tionne reminded them it was fine for people to get things out their bags whilst on the flight, but the manager got an attitude and demanded they check their bags in or they would not be flying that day!
An uninformed woman tried to give misinformed advice and told the manager to call the police when Tionne caught the lady’s bad attitude and told her to shut up!
The manager continued to make Tionne’s experience difficult, making her measure the bags she wanted on the flight. After consolidating the bags to fit the requirements the manager still refused to comply.
Tionne’s children Chase and Chance
Tionne stated that the manager threatened her and said “if you don’t check your bags you’re not flying today and I’ll make it to where you can’t ever fly American [Airlines] again”.
She told him he was doing way too much. He lies to her and tells them the flight is full and they can’t take their bags on the flight, despite the air attendants telling her the bags could fit on board!
“So I said to him ‘you just wanna use your LITTLE POWER‘”, Tionne continues. “Little?”, he replies. “Yeah” (with two little fingers), “LITTLE!”
“He said there’s 1 minute and 45 seconds left if you want to board. He made us stand there and wouldn’t let us on, I’m like, what do you mean?“, Tionne explains.
“Because he didn’t like my comment and his lil’ ego was bruised and he wanted to by all means, even though we adhered to the rules, made me check in my fragile [oxygen] machine just so that he can show his power, which is ridiculous because I wasn’t even talking to him and it’s NOT against the law to get your computer out of a bag”.
Tionne complied and checked her bags in as requested. As a result, Chase’s make-up was broken and Tionne’s $2800 concentrator for her oxygen machine is also broken, because they were forced to check them in instead of keep them as hand luggage on the flight.
To add insult to injury, Tionne says “then he admitted it and said ‘well, if you didn’t have an attitude you wouldn’t have to check your bags’, like, really? Dude had an attitude with me“.
Terrible customer service. Hopefully Tionne will be fully compensated.
American Airlines have reached out and said they would be investigating the matter.
