A passenger takes “unnecessary” action to avoid $89 luggage checking fee has the internet talking. A pro-skater and his family were boarding a flight recently when the gate attendants heckled the passengers as they boarded the plane.
We’ve all experienced those flights. The crew is in all in their feels and is taking it out on passengers. Stories of gate attendants telling fliers that the overhead bins are full. When the passenger boards, they show a video of the multitude of empty bins. This story follows the same trend.
Pro-skater, Shaun Hover watched his family board as he gave the gate attendant his boarding pass. Hover told Newsweek, “We were at the gate when I was suddenly stopped and told, ‘You have to pay for that carry- on.”
Hover looked down at his carry- on, a skateboard he carried onto planes many times before. No one seemed to care. But today, they did. They wanted Hover to pay $89 for his skateboard because it was larger than the carry-on dimensions. But instead, this passenger takes what the flight attendant called “unnecessary” action to avoid the ludacris luggage fee.
Other passenger complaints:
He wasn’t alone in this treatment. Other passengers were being harassed and told to pay the $89 fee as well. Quite a few people actually pulled out their wallets and paid the fee before boarding. Two options were presented at the moment. Pay for it. Or, change his travel itinerary and miss the flight his family was already on.
The solution:
Low on time, Hover did something drastic. Literally one minute before the boarding doors closed, he made a snap decision. “At first I was thinking I had two options; either cough up the money or leave the board behind. Then I realized it would be most economical and funny to snap my board down the middle and fold it in half, thus making it ‘fit the dimensions’ of a free personal item.”
The result:
So, he did. He broke his board right in half, just before the doors closed.
“Once I did it one of the agents said, ‘That was unnecessary, sir.’ Another agent looked at me, looked at the other staff, shrugged his shoulders and said, ‘We’ll, it fits.’ And they let me on the plane without paying the fee.”