Unacceptable Service at Roanoke Airport

The United Airlines representative at the departure gate was extremely unhelpful and rude to me and my boyfriend. We checked in at the Roanoke Municipal Airport 45 minutes before our flight. It is an extremely small airport and the security line was steps away from our departure gate. The line was long, but we thought we still had time to make the flight. We heard a garbled announcement about some flight, but we could not make out what it said. Concerned it might be about our flight, we asked others in line if they heard the announcement. No one understood it. A couple minutes later, we heard another announcement about a gate closing, so we panicked thinking it was ours. We asked if the people in front of us would let us go ahead of them because we were missing our flight. They agreed, but security personnel would not let us change our place in line. When we finally got through, our gate had closed. The representative said we just missed it by a minute. We pleaded with him to let us on because it was still at least 15 minutes before the flight was scheduled to leave. He was unsympathetic and rude saying we should have heard the announcement. No one heard that announcement! Why couldn't the representative have waited the one minute for us, especially since we were so close to the gate and he could see us in the security line rushing to get through? How could he knowingly shut us out of a flight when it was not supposed to leave for another 15 minutes? I have never heard of a plane leaving early when the crew knew it was missing several people who had already checked in (there were 4 other people that also got shut out).

Despite our agitated state, the representative made us sit down and wait until he could reschedule us. Then another latecomer, a woman, came up and discovered she missed her flight. She immediately asked the representative to reschedule her even though there was clearly a line of people before her. The representative attended to her needs before ours. I was outraged and asked why he made us wait until he finished helping her even though we were before her. He gave a lame excuse that my boyfriend and I were talking to each other and he didn't want to interrupt us. What?!?! We were just waiting for him to call us up like he said he would when he was ready to help us. He was clearly biased towards the woman, who was white and whom he found attractive, whereas my boyfriend and I are minorities that stick out like a sore thumbs in that rural, white-bred town. I thought United Airlines representives were supposed to be friendly and helpful to everyone instead of picking and choosing who they will and will not assist.

On top of it all, while waiting hours in the airport for our new flight, we noticed that no other flight left early or even on-time. They all left late, including our new flight which left 45 minutes late.

This was the worst airline experience I have ever had!