Chick-fil-A Run Costs NY Politician His American Airlines Flight—And A Shot at Running The Airport – View from the Wing

A New York politician demanded ‘don’t you know who I am?’ when being denied boarding from an American Airlines flight. But the gate agent didn’t know, and didn’t care.

Albany County Executive Dan McCoy was headed to the Democratic National Convention, but missed his flight when he left the gate area to grab a Chick-fil-A sandwich. He returned with the boarding doors to his flight closed.

That’s when he “dropped his name several times” but “the American Airlines person didn’t care or know who he was.” He said “he was county executive and that he was going to see the president (and Vice President Kamala) Harris, and that he was in charge of the airport.”

The agent simply said, “You shouldn’t have gone and gotten food; you would have made your flight.”

McCoy and the staffer accompanying him booked another flight to Chicago on a different airline, though it’s not clear whether that was United to O’Hare or Southwest to Midway airport. His spokesperson doesn’t deny the incident (“I can’t speak to what happened or didn’t happen at the airport”).

In his role as County Executive, McCoy appoints 3 of the 7 airport authority board members. He ousted the long-serving airport director, and is rumored to be interested in the job himself. But while that gives him clout over the facility,

Albany airport’s board doesn’t have the same leverage over an airline that, say, the Port Authority of New York New Jersey has. Hence former United CEO Jeff Smisek being taken down in a bribery scandal as part of Bridgegate, providing a convenient flight for the authority’s chairman in exchange for favorable action on their agenda benefiting the carrier at its Newark hub.
A given gate agent isn’t going to be aligned with their airline’s political interests, even if the county executive had the sort of clout that now-convicted felon David Samson once did.

Amidst scandal, McCoy says he’s ruling out the airport job.