Outraged passenger at Charlotte Airport goes viral on TikTok after outburst on video
A Florida couple’s meltdown over a flight delay at Charlotte Douglas International Airport went viral this week after it was captured on TikTok.
The video shows a man shouting and frustrated about service at American Airlines gate B14 while his husband tries to calm him down. Media outlets identified the couple as Dustin Miller and Anthony Thorne.
“Hello everybody,” he said. “American Airlines just (expletive) us over,” Miller yelled while Thorne pulls on his arm, trying to get him to stop.
“I’m just trying to get home to the girls,” Thorne can be heard on the video referring to the couple’s dogs.
A woman in a wheelchair, with her dog besides her, asked them to step away and Miller yelled at her a couple of times using disparaging language.
A spokesperson at Charlotte Douglas International Airport declined to comment and directed The Charlotte Observer to contact American Airlines.
Representatives from American Airlines have not immediately responded to requests for comment on Friday.
The airport is one of the world’s busiest and is the second largest hub for American Airlines in the U.S. The Fort Worth-based company accounts for about 90% of all flights out of CLT.
About 3.5 million customers have flown American across more than 32,000 flights at all airports with service since the start of the holiday period, which began Dec. 20 for the airline, spokeswoman Bri Harper reported on Wednesday.
American Airlines reported that on-time departures are more than 18% higher than this same period in 2022, with on-time arrivals up nearly 18%. The cancel rate declined by 98%, Harper said.
Charlotte ranked as the seventh-busiest airport worldwide for arrivals and departures, according to the Airport Council International’s preliminary rankings for 2022. Last year, the airport handled 505,589 arrivals and departures and had more than 47 million passengers.
Airport officials said 1.6 million local and connecting passengers were expected to depart from Charlotte Douglas between Dec. 14 through Jan. 3. For those 21 days, that would be a 13% increase from last year and 9% above 2019.
As always, the airport encourages passengers to be inside the airport at least two hours before a domestic flight and three hours before an international flight.
This story was originally published December 29, 2023 at 3:29 PM.
