Vermin at New York LaGuardia Are The Passengers' Fault, Says Airline Employee

Sunday, June 11, 2006, New York LaGuardia Airport - About 8pm, as I was waiting for my connecting flight on American Eagle, I noticed 2 mice scurrying around gate C7. When I pointed out to an American Airlines gate agent at C8 that these were disease-carrying vermin, she said:

“Oh yes, there are hundreds of them living here at LaGuardia. We see them all the time, day and night. They’ve become bold and unafraid of people. You know, it’s the passengers’ fault. We get thousands of people through here every day, and they are filthy. People don’t put their filthy food in the trash, and that’s what attracts the mice and gives them plenty to live on. If customers weren’t so filthy, we would not have mice.”

I was stunned. I told her that I traveled all over the world and to every airport, large and small, through the United States, and had done so for over 30 years, and that I could not recall seeing vermin loose in an airport, not even in Malaysia, Botswana, or Ecuador. Why, I wonder, didn’t the Port Authority in the supposed greatest city in the world keep things clean like every other airport on earth and exterminate the mice? To which she darkened, and said:

“The Port Authority tries to trap them, but it’s not their fault. It’s the customers who are to blame because of their filth.”

When I asked her if all American Airlines employees felt that the customer was to blame, she said, “Absolutely!”

And there you have it. The problem is you and me, the filthy customers. That’s the modern so-called airline service ethic as succinctly put as one could wish for.

What’s next? Airline employees blaming us for thunderstorms and mechanical problems? I can hear them now:

“Well, sir, there wouldn’t BE any delays if you filthy passengers didn’t keep buying tickets. Maybe THEN we would have time to FIX our planes. But, no, we HAVE to keep FLYING them DAY AND NIGHT because of YOU. Just don’t blame US when they break down, because it’s YOUR fault—just like the filthy vermin YOU’VE caused to thrive in our once-beautiful airports!”