The Customer Service Survival Kit

CHAPTER 16

Just Plane Terrible

YOU ARE A GATE AGENT for Good Time Airlines. But tonight, you are not having a good time. Why? Because of the long line of angry-looking people who have been queuing up in front of your podium.

You see, telling one or two people that they aren’t going to get where they want to go is no fun. Telling the two hundred people who just disembarked from the Boeing 767 at your gate is even less fun. And worst of all, these people have been on and off this plane for hours during this winter storm—taxiing out, waiting for the plane to be deiced, waiting too long to take off, and coming back to the gate again. Now weather conditions have finally shut down the airport for the evening.

Your job is to tell these two hundred people: ...