A lawyer delayed a flight for almost an hour after discovering that airline Avianca had overbooked his seat.
The passenger, who identified himself as Juan Manuel in a recent video chat with the TikToker who filmed the incident, had purchased a round-trip ticket from Bogotá, Colombia, to Los Angeles before being shocked to discover that there was a child sitting in his seat.
Manuel recalled arriving two and a half hours early at El Dorado International Airport for the first leg of his trip, before making a connection in El Salvador.
Although he was on the list with group three to enter the plane, he decided to wait for the boarding process to finish while the other passengers filed in front of him.
Once he saw that there were about 10 passengers left, Manuel walked up to the counter, showed his boarding pass and was told, in an allegedly rude manner, to step aside. After waiting 15 minutes, he was allowed to board the plane.
However, his trip took a turn when he reached his row and was surprised to find a child sitting in the window seat that had been assigned to him on the ticket.
Juan Manuel, a Colombian lawyer, had to abandon his recent flight to Los Angeles with a connection in El Salvador because Avianca had overbooked his seat. The lawyer revealed that he had purchased his ticket three months ago for a meeting in Los Angeles with attorneys representing three imprisoned Colombian citizens and that he missed the appointment.
Manuel told a TikToker who filmed the plane incident that Avianca gave him a meal voucher for 26,000 Colombian pesos, up to just over $6, and then gave him an $80 flight voucher after they overbooked his flight.
After comparing boarding passes with the woman, an Avianca agent approached Manuel and told him he had to leave the plane.
‘She tells me: ‘Oh, Juan Manuel, it turns out that they resold your ticket; Get off, get off the plane, do me a favor,'” she recalled.
He followed the agent’s instructions until he reached the exit door near the cockpit and lost his cool, as seen in the now viral video.
—Let a policeman come. I hope the prosecutors come. Because I will report you for not being serious. You can’t be playing with people’s agendas,’ the Avianca worker is heard saying.
‘What if I had arrived late? I don’t give a damn about your options,’ he continued.
He noticed that a passenger was filming the incident and turned around and said: ‘And if you want, record it,’ before confronting the officer and saying: ‘Your options don’t interest me at all. I have to take this flight. I don’t have to work with you.
During the tense discussion, a passenger approached Juan Manuel to tell him that he was traveling to El Salvador for an urgent medical appointment.
Later, a passenger told him there were children on the plane, and a woman told the Avianca agent that she had no problem flying with her daughter on her lap if it meant he could take the seat.
After assessing the situation, Manuel told the passengers that he was disembarking because of them and not the airline’s.
Although he was scheduled to board the flight with group three, Manuel decided to wait because he was not in a hurry, but upon arriving at his seat he discovered that a child was occupying his seat next to the window, which sparked the viral confrontation with an Avianca agent.
An Avianca agent (right) asked Manuel to get off the flight to Los Angeles with a connection in El Salvador because his airline was overbooked on the trip. What followed was a heated argument that was captured on video.
Avianca rebooked Juan Manuel on a different flight to Miami, where he connected with Chicago. Once in the Windy City, he waited nearly five hours due to a delay and landed in Los Angeles around 10 p.m.
The airline gave him a meal voucher for 26,000 Colombian pesos, just over 6 dollars, and a flight voucher of 80 dollars.
The seat mix-up caused Juan Manuel to miss a meeting with the Los Angeles lawyers, with whom we were going to meet to discuss the legal situation of three Colombians who are detained.
DailyMail.com has contacted Avianca for comment.
