Background: Frontier Airlines jets sit at gates at Denver International Airport on Sept. 22, 2019, in Denver, Colo. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski, File). Inset: Frontier Airlines gate agent (WSB Atlanta).
A man trying to board a Frontier Airlines flight from Georgia back to his military base says he was almost derailed by a couple of greedy gate agents.
Demonta Roach, who serves in the U.S. Navy, told his story to WSB, a local ABC affiliate in Atlanta and shared the video he took of the unnamed gate agents who allegedly tried to shake him down for a few extra bucks. Roach said that on Monday — which happened to be Veteran’s Day — his flight out of Atlanta was delayed, so he got something to eat near the gate where his flight to Los Angeles was set to board. But when he was a little bit late getting back, the gate agents took advantage of his situation.
As Roach told it, one of the gate agents — neither of whom are named — said to him, “I don’t give a damn what you’re in, as long as you have my damn money.” He said the woman told him to give her $50, a “military discount” from the $100 she said they “normally” charge.
While Roach admitted that he was the last passenger to board the plane, he told WSB that he was there before the final boarding call. Every airline is different, but Frontier Airlines rules state that gate agents are to close the doors 20 minutes before departure.
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When Roach got to the gate, one of the agents closed the door and said, “I don’t care who you report to. If you want to get back on this plane, you have to pay me.” That was the moment Roach took out his phone and started recording the confrontation. During that time, one of the agents said Roach could pay using CashApp, which they even tried to do themselves using Roach’s phone. When he refused to pay them, one of the agents can be heard saying, “You trying to get home or you trying to get left?”
Roach also said he asked the agents if this was how they got their money. One of the agents responded, “No, but this is how I get my weed money.” The agents also said they would use the money to get their nails done.
But the outlandish alleged behavior by the agents didn’t end there. They also threatened to have Roach “flagged” and removed from the flight altogether, warning him, “When we deplane and they flag you, I don’t want to hear nothing.”
Roach told WSB that the agents should be fired. When the station contacted Frontier Airlines for a comment, representatives said in a statement that they “take claims like this seriously, and our team is in the process of investigating the situation to determine what happened.”
The airline also gave Roach a $150 voucher as a “customer service gesture.”
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