Chronic understaffing had a way of turning management shortcuts into operational chaos.

So when management insisted one cargo company always came first, one ramp agent watched routine flights grind to a halt in real time.

You’ll want to read on for this one!

Cargo gets priority? You got it boss!

I work as a ramp agent in a regional airport in Europe.

We’ve been suffering a worker shortage for years now, but it has finally become critical. We no longer have the personnel to operate all the flights.

The airport’s pickiest customer is also their most demanding.

Our most paying customer is a famous cargo company who is really picky about rules and such. Plus, they want a very specific amount of workers assigned to their flight.

So the boss instructs them to just do as the cargo company says.

In order to cover for that, our boss told us, “If you are called for the cargo, just drop what you are doing and run to the cargo! They are our top customers, we have to give them priority.”

You got it, boss!

But big consequences soon follow.

Today we have some sickness, so we had to pull everybody from all the other flights.

The flight I’m currently assigned to could have been finished in three minutes, and now it will be delayed by I don’t know how long.

Have fun with all the complaints from the other companies!

Looks like the real turbulence was outside the plane.

What did Reddit think?

Any unsafe labor should definitely be reported.

Favoring one customer just isn’t sustainable.

This company sounds like it’s run much better.

The boss got his wish, and consequences soon followed.

Turns out you can’t short-staff reality.

If you liked that post, check out this post about a rude cusfacetomer who got exactly what they wanted in their pizza.