SkyWest Airlines has contracts with United Airlines and Delta Airlines to operate as United Express and Delta Connection respectively. Many of the planes are painted in United or Delta colors/schemes, but some are actually painted in the SkyWest theme. These aircraft are said to be "cross-utilized", that is, they can be used for both Delta Connection and United Express flights. Well, we were boarding one of these cross-utilized aircraft for a United Express flight to Los Angeles, and a female passenger refused to board the aircraft because it said "SkyWest Airlines" on the side. She was adamant about the fact that she did not buy tickets to fly on SkyWest, and that her tickets were to fly on United Express.
After countless attempts to explain the situation to the passenger, the gate agent finally gave up. Finally, the aircraft door closed and the aircrew started the #2 engine. When they started the #1 engine, the passenger demanded that she be allowed to board the plane. The gate agent politely refused, explaining that the flight could not be held, and tried to explain to the passenger that she had refused to board when called previously. At this point, the passenger became loud and very rude. She's lucky she was not denied boarding for the rest of the day. The gate agent would have been well within her right to do so, but if given the chance to fly on SkyWest Airlines, I think you'll find that they have exceptional service!
Yep, I really miss those days as a ramp agent. I later became an aircraft mechanic for SkyWest and, thus, never experienced these ridiculous situations again. Well, sort of. I once had a pilot write up some logo lights (shine on the tail to display the company logo) that were inoperative. The signoff was, quite literally, "logo lights not installed on this aircraft." On a different occasion, a pilot called me over and said that he was performing a fire sensing system check and that he was not getting the correct indications. I asked him to perform the check again, and when he was all through, I showed him the correct switch to flip to perform the check! Of course it checked good.
