Savannah Chrisley was denied boarding a Southwest Airline flight from New York back to her home in Tennessee last Thursday.
After being denied passage, she immediately took to her Instagram Story while still in LaGuardia airport to detail the heated exchange between herself and the boarding attendant that had just occurred.
“So I went to board my flight, to get on, and [the attendant] told me that he had to check my bag,” she recalled in the video. “I was like, ‘OK. If you wouldn’t mind, I’m gonna take my bag on the flight, see if I can’t make it fit and if not, I’ll check it.’ His exact words were, ‘No. That’s not happening.’”
According to her, she continued, “I was like, ‘OK? Um, let’s go ahead and put a tag on it in case I have to check it because I would love to see if there’s any room for it.’ And he goes, ‘You’re being an unruly passenger.’”
As the argument grew both in tension and volume, Chrisley says the pilot of her initially planned flight attempted to intervene.
“[The pilot] told the Southwest attendant that he needs to calm down and that he was going to find a place for my bag,” she explained, claiming the attendant told the pilot to “stay out of it” while saying to Chrisley, “Ma’am, you’re not flying on this flight.”
Savannah said she was trying to get home to her niece Chloe, whom she was recently appointed as guardian for following the arrest of her parents, Todd and Julie Chrisley.
“When this Southwest attendant told the pilot to calm down, I told him that there was no need for him to be an a–hole today, and then he threw me off the flight,” she continued. “I also stated that had a 10-year-old that I had to absolutely get home to tonight and well, the Southwest attendant said, ‘I don’t care.’”
Savannah was eventually transferred to a different flight later Thursday night.
Since the video’s viral spread across the Internet, Southwest Airlines has also issued a statement regarding the incident. A rep for the airline spoke with E! News, saying, “We’re aware of the video and our initial reports indicate a different story than the one from the Customer’s account.”
“[Chrisley] arrived at the gate late in the boarding process and was asked to gate-check her bag due to the overhead bins being full and to avoid delaying the more than 100 passengers already onboard the aircraft,” they continued. “She loudly and repeatedly insulted several Employees and as a result, the Customer was denied boarding on her original flight, and traveled on a later flight the same day.”
The airline’s rep informed People that they are “looking into the situation” further.
Sources:
https://people.com/travel/southwest-says-savannah-chrisley-told-different-story-about-flight-mishap/
