A woman is demanding payment from American Airlines after a hellish experience where an employee allegedly used her as a translator and left her to take care of a group of other customers.
In a four-and-a-half-minute video with over 2.2 million views, content creator Laura Picadillo (@laurapicadillo) accuses the airline of terrible customer service and makes it clear she expects a check for her labor.
“Hey, American Airlines, I’m kindly requesting that you pay me the wages you owe me for the services I provided last night,” Picadillo begins in the video.
She first says she wasn’t let off her plane for over an hour and a half, causing her to miss her connecting flight. Then, she says the airline put her up in a hotel, and while she was waiting for the 24/7 shuttle to pick her up from the airport, she was approached by an American Airlines employee with a group of people in tow.
After strangely taking her water bottle and drinking the rest of it, the employee reportedly asks Picadillo, “So you got them?” referring to the group of people.
Picadillo says the employee told her he was personally tasked with helping the group of customers, who also missed their connecting flights, through the airport; however, they only spoke Spanish, and he did not. After confirming that Picadillo spoke Spanish, the employee reportedly walked away and left her with them.
“At this point, I assume my new role as American Airlines Translator and Hotel & Transportation Coordinator,” Picadillo quips, adding that she helped the group of people communicate with their respective hotels and provided information about their transportation.
As far as her own transportation, Picadillo says the shuttle did not come in 10 minutes as promised. “I called for the shuttle at 9:32pm; it finally arrived at 11:14pm,” she says.
Picadillo says when it did arrive, the driver was already familiar with her thanks to the nine phone calls her family made to the hotel about her whereabouts.
“He goes, ‘Your parents have called the hotel nine times. You need to come in this van with me right now. Your mom said she was going to peel off my skin and wear it as a coat,’” Picadillo says.
Picadillo says when she arrived at her hotel, the driver told her he’d go to the airport to pick up “her people” and be back in 15 minutes. She says she checked in, dropped off her bags, and came down from her room to wait for her group and help them check in. However, she says she called it a night after three vans came and went without “her people” being on them.
“I deemed missing persons above my pay grade,” she adds.
“Now, I don’t know what your reimbursement rates look like, American Airlines, but I think I deserve more than a $12 meal voucher and being put up in a hotel that’s making me check out seven hours before my flight,” Picadillo argues.
“But it looks like you’re already having trouble paying your employees fairly if they’re just passing off their work to random strangers in the road when their shift ends.”
As the video ends, Picadillo admits that she’s not getting her hopes up but tells American Airlines directly, “Pay me. Pay me.”
@laurapicadillo @American Airlines wtf was that
In the comments section, viewers share their own customer service experiences with American Airlines and support Picadillo in her quest to be reimbursed by the company, worth $9.11 billion as of April 2024.
“Laura, send them an invoice to accounts payable, with your hourly rate, the work you did (translator and guide), and replacement water costs. Seriously,” one viewer suggested.
“This video is bringing awareness to a real issue. Companies not paying employees fairly creates bad work ethic and airlines are not immune to this. People in charge of our safety don’t care,” a second viewer expressed.
“Never flying American Airlines [again], how can they be worse than Spirit?” a third viewer pressed.
“I still can’t get over him drinking your water,” another viewer wrote.
In an update video, Picadillo says she hasn’t heard from American Airlines despite her TikTok going viral and her numerous emails.
“I’ve accepted that probably nothing is going to come from this, which is expected from such a garbage company … So if even a tenth of you decide to never fly that airline again, I’m happy, and we can leave it at that,” she says.
The Daily Dot has reached out to Picadillo via Instagram direct message and American Airlines via email for more information.
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*First Published: Apr 30, 2024, 9:00 pm CDT
