4 Misconceptions people have about Airline Employees

Now am quite sure a lot of Airline Employees can relate to this. Do you sometimes wonder why some close friends and family members who are aware of your affinity to the airport environment, by virtue of your job naturally assume that you have the Airport, Airline staff and security personnel at your beck and call? Needless to say they have formed an impression that you hold the magic wand in the aviation industry. Sadly, this is not true. Whilst we may have built relationships overtime with colleagues in various airlines that does not translate to overall easy access to all Airline staff and general operational activities just by the snap of a finger. Rather Airline Employees are guided by standard procedures.

Below are 4 Misconceptions people have about Airline Employees
1. They have Control over Immigration matters
Last month a family friend called me in desperation. “Joy am handing over my phone, please talk to these people here, they wouldn’t allow me travel”. I was wondering who he was referring to. “Which people” i asked? “The security people attached to an Airline” He replied. I’ll rather not mention the Airline. “What precisely is the problem and where are you?” I queried. Am here at the International Airport, am supposed to be travelling to Germany tonight. “Ok, can you calm down and explain why they aren’t allowing you to travel?” I demanded. “They said my visa is expiring tomorrow. I have to travel tonight, talk to them please…” Ok!, here is a tough one, I thought to myself. “Is your visa expiring tomorrow?” He said yes. To cut a long story short, i asked him why he waited for his visa’s validity to get to that threshold. He told me he lost his mum and being the first son, he needed to be around to fix things up. Now,the issue here was that he wanted to travel with a visa that would have expired before he arrived destination. Well, i took time to explain to him the reasons why he won’t be allowed to travel that night. And why there was nothing i could do about it. Obviously he had a misconception about my role as an aviator, not realizing that i had my boundaries. A nice to know fact is that, the immigration rules are clear and does not exempt Airline employees.
2. They are exempted from Baggage rules

Personally, as an aviator, this is one of the scenarios i have consistently had to deal with. Some years back when airlines were gracious with baggage allowance of 32kg x2pcs luggage, I had travelled with my son to London. Ask me who sent me to let anybody know i was in town. Guess what happened. Everybody wanted me to carry some items for them, a situation which was laughable. Anyway i was generous enough to use my son’s baggage allowance to assist. They wanted me to carry more. I had to explain that i didn’t want to exceed my allowable weight. I agreed to carry excess if they were willing to pay for it. It wouldn’t have made sense for me to carry extra luggage for someone and then pay with my money. Anyways, it was long talk trying to explain to their understanding. They just didn’t get it. The impression they had was that because i work at the airport, there was no restrictions or limit as to what i could carry. This is a wrong impression. As airline passenger, we are entitled to the same allowable weight limit. Even as a Crew, we have allowable limit.
3. They can buy Ticket on Credit
It is stressful enough to do a ticket reservation for people because you have to keep explaining why ticket fares are not fixed. That is one question that keeps recurring. Time is spent educating them on the variables: Booking on time, seat availability, Class of ticket which makes it impossible to have a fixed ticket price. it is now worse when you have eventually made the reservation and despite letting them know it will cancel out after a given time, just at the nick of time they call to plead with you to pay with your money first or speak to the ticketing staff to issue it for them to pay later. This is a wrong impression. Tickets can only be issued after payment. Being an Airline employee does not mean you will get tickets issued for you on credit basis.
4. They can delay a flight for you
Have you ever received a call from someone you assisted to get a ticket, requesting you to talk to the people at the check in counter or boarding gate to delay the flight because they are running late?  Truth is if you arrive late and miss the check in time and check in counter closes, then you have automatically missed the flight. There is nothing your Airline employee friend can do about it. Remember that is why Airlines have flight departure times; because you are not the only passenger, there are others who are equally travelling on same flight. The only time this is done is when the flight is a charter.