Southwest Employee Mocks 5-Year-Old Girl With Unusual Name
A Southwest gate agent at John Wayne Airport is under fire for poking fun of a five-year-old girl's name after checking her boarding pass. Traci Redford claims that the employee mocked her daughter, Abcde (pronounced Ab-Si-Dee), when she laughed with her fellow employees in front of the young girl who happened to be preboarding due to being epileptic. If the public humiliation wasn't enough, the employee secretly snapped a photo of the boarding pass and shared it on Facebook.
The Southwest employee's Facebook post has now been deleted, but the mother took to the social media site to call out the rude behavior and the poor response from the airline. Redford became aware of the violating Facebook post after someone who had seen it online reached out to her and reported it to Southwest Airlines.
"We extend our sincere apology to the family. We take great pride in extending our Southwest Hospitality to all of our Customers, which includes living by the Golden Rule and treating every individual with respect, in person or online," Southwest Airlines said in a statement to ABC 7. "The post is not indicative of the care, respect, and civility we expect from all of our Employees. We have followed up with the Employee involved, and while we do not disclose personnel actions publicly, we are using this as an opportunity to reinforce our policies and emphasize our expectations for all Employees."
Redford said she is using the experience as a lesson for her daughter. When her daughter, Abcde, asked why people were laughing at her name, she responded, "not everyone is nice and not everyone is going to be nice and it's unfortunate.'"
