OMAAT reader François reached out with an absolutely wild story of what happened to him on a recent Vueling flight, where he was forced to abandon his carry-on bag. Even when the pilot intervened, the ground staff wouldn’t budge, so the pilot ended up paying for the bag out of pocket. Let me explain…
In this post:
Vueling passenger in tough spot forced to abandon carry-on
On July 19, 2025, François was traveling on Vueling flight VY6935 from Ibiza (IBZ) to Paris (ORY). François’ wallet had been stolen the day before the flight, so he showed up at the airport with one blocked card, another card with a small remaining limit, and €30 in cash.
Not that this is directly relevant, but let me drop in that he’s a Flying Blue Ultimate member, which is Air France-KLM’s triple Platinum status. I simply mention this to point out that he’s a super frequent flyer, and also likely isn’t looking to scam an airline out of a small sum of money.
François says his bag was within Vueling’s size rules. Despite that, at the boarding gate, the agent “barely glanced” at his bag, and told him he had to pay €60. He asked if he could prove it fit in the sizer, but she refused to even entertain that.
He was told to step aside and wait for the rest of the passengers to board. Only when boarding was complete did the supervisor come over and say “€60 or the suitcase stays here.” He explained his situation, and offered to pay what he could with his €30 in cash, or try his card. They tried the payment with the card twice, but it declined.
The supervisor repeated, “no money, the luggage stays here.” They made it clear that there would be no gate checking of the bag, no lost and found procedure, and no paperwork — the bag would simply be left in the gate area. He had about 30 seconds to decide, and in shock and with no alternative, he boarded last, leaving his bag behind at the gate.
I asked him if he had considered just not boarding the flight so that he wouldn’t have to abandon his bag. He said he didn’t even consider it, as he absolutely needed to be back in France by noon that day. During the short period where he had to make the decision, he was mostly thinking of how to retrieve the suitcase afterwards.
As he walked down the jet bridge, François says his panic really set in — his suitcase contained everything, including his apartment and car keys. He was about to fly home with almost nothing but his phone.
Once he got on the plane, he explained everything to the flight attendants. At first, they reportedly thought that his suitcase had just been put in the cargo hold. He told them no, he had been forced to abandon it. The lead flight attendant was reportedly stunned, and moved him to the first empty row, so they could talk calmly.
The first officer overheard the conversation, and came out of the flight deck. So François recounted the situation, and the first officer said he would go and get the bag himself. After several minutes, the first officer still hadn’t returned, so the captain went to check what was going on. Around 10 minutes later, both pilots returned.
He explained that the ground staff had already left the gate, so the first officer had to call them to return. When they returned, he saw the suitcase sitting there unattended, but they wouldn’t allow him to take it back unless he paid the €60 fee personally.
So the first officer then paid the fee on his own card. The receipt showed it was paid at 9:51AM, one minute after the scheduled departure time.
This whole episode meant that the flight missed its initial takeoff slot, and ended up having to wait for another, resulting in a roughly 15-minute departure delay.
During the flight, the first officer came from the flight deck to speak to François, who was incredibly grateful, and offered to pay him via bank transfer upon landing. He told François that he comes from a business aviation background, so is used to going the extra mile for passengers.
So as soon as the plane landed, François sent him a bank transfer for that amount.
I don’t know what part of this story is wildest
I recognize that gate agents at ultra low cost carriers with high fee structures can’t simply listen to every sob story, and then waive fees at will. That would kind of defeat the point of the fees, because I’m sure everyone would have a story to tell — it’s like people with special occasions checking into hotels. However, there’s so much about this story that’s concerning:
- The gate agents wouldn’t even let the passenger prove that his carry-on fit in the sizer? What on earth?
- It’s not something I’ve ever thought about before, but is the process if someone doesn’t pay a fee really to just abandon the bag, and give them no chance to retrieve it in the future? Isn’t abandoning a bag at an airport a security concern in and of itself?
- It seems bonkers that gate agents won’t even let the captain and first officer of an aircraft have say over what goes onto “their” aircraft, literally forcing them to pay out of pocket
In his email to me, François concludes with the following:
This isn’t about the €60 – it’s about highlighting a wider problem with Vueling’s ground operations: aggressive upcharges, lack of accountability and serious breaches of security protocols. I do want to emphasize how exemplary the crew’s attitude was, both the cabin crew and the pilots throughout this flight.
To echo that point, huge kudos to the pilots for the level of customer service they showed. How lovely that the first officer was so proactive after overhearing this, and the extent to which he helped.
Bottom line
A traveler had his belongings stolen in Ibiza. Then when he prepared to take his Vueling flight home, the gate agents claimed his bag was too big, but refused to let him prove it wasn’t, using the sizer. They left him with no option but to pay the fee or abandon the bag. Since he couldn’t pay, he abandoned the bag.
The pilot kindly got involved, but ultimately the gate agents refused to even give the pilot the bag without paying the fee. What a world…
What do you make of this Vueling bag story?
Gate agents are far too empowered. The majority I've encountered and I limit that to the time after 9/11 all act as if they are the rulers of the sky. Will the airlines do anything about this? Doubtful.
They are trained by Miami based AA.
Well if any bad guy eber wanted to know how to plant a bomb in acterminal that is it. Refuse to pay and the bag just stays there. Absolutely ridiculous and against every safety rule.
Well if the bad guy was eber (sic) that dumb. Their bomb would be detected by acscanner in acterminal (sic).
If acscanner didn't detect it, we all have bigger problems than abandon bags.
I would not fly with a facist airline like Vueling that kicks out jewish children, employs people who were part of the 911 events and countless other problems. What a horrible airline
The pilot was not part of 9/11 nor is there any evidence to support they were removed for being Jewish, other than Israeli media and the pax claiming it. Don’t be ridiculous and make conclusions without evidence
This is one of the reasons why the EU is proposing free carry on bags! The news media in France is gonna hype his story up like crazy as one of the reasons why. IAG is fighting hard against free carry on bags, this story won’t help their argument either.
The French media hype that is covering restaurants treating Americans the way Americans expect and paying more for meeting such expectations?
I'm pretty sure the gate staff is getting fired.
I wonder if ground staff worked for Vueling or were contracted, like Menzies. When I worked ground staff for an airline, if a Captain told you to do something involving his flight, you did it. If they’re contracted ground staff, I wonder why they’d be so aggressive in collecting carry on fees, unless Vueling was paying them a commission for extra fees or something.
Yes its a known fact that ground staff gets paid for every extra they succeed to charge a customer in the gate
"wallet had been stolen the day before the flight, so he showed up at the airport with one blocked card, another card with a small remaining limit,"
This is the part I don't believe.
The blocked card is either in your lost wallet or not.
"He was about to fly home with almost nothing but his phone."
The same phone he could sent money to the FO but not the ground staff?
Not...
"wallet had been stolen the day before the flight, so he showed up at the airport with one blocked card, another card with a small remaining limit,"
This is the part I don't believe.
The blocked card is either in your lost wallet or not.
"He was about to fly home with almost nothing but his phone."
The same phone he could sent money to the FO but not the ground staff?
Not that it's impossible, just hard to believe.
And hard to believe story belongs in Reddit.
That being said, if his side of the story were true, we need to have more accountability for airline employees on power trips.
show us where Vueling accepts wire transfers for immediate payment of services.
Kudos to the pilots for putting their own finances on the line to do what rational ground staff should have done.
Tim, you gotta stop with your wacky thinking and twisting the wrong conclusions.
And I quote "sent money to the FO but not the ground staff"
At no point did I say transfer to the airline.
The context is pretty clear sending money to someone who can pay the airline for you.
But comprehensive reading isn't your strong point right?
Even you gave kudos to one airline employee for putting their own...
Tim, you gotta stop with your wacky thinking and twisting the wrong conclusions.
And I quote "sent money to the FO but not the ground staff"
At no point did I say transfer to the airline.
The context is pretty clear sending money to someone who can pay the airline for you.
But comprehensive reading isn't your strong point right?
Even you gave kudos to one airline employee for putting their own finances, you can't apply the same reasoning that ground staff can do it too.
Nowadays people might use their cards via their phones. So the physical card was in his stolen wallet. He could have used it to pay with his phone, but was forced to close the card because the physical card could have been used by the thief.
@Daniel from Finland
You make a valid point.
Much better reasoning than Timmy.
While possible, but one should have added few more cards, that is left at home, in their digital wallet as backup right?
It's the best practices that other people do it too right?
I was wondering why the pax didn't use his cell phone to find a way to unlock the credit card? Most CC companies allow you to lock/unlock the card via their app. Alternatively, call and speak with a CSR and ask for it to be unlocked? And before abandoning the suitcase, why didn't he remove his keys, etc.? Something about this whole story doesn't ring true, and we know how everyone who posts on Reddit always tell the truth. /s
Seems to be something recurrent in Ibiza airport - happened to me twice, was once forced to pay 60 euros for a bag (my mistake, tried my luck with cheapest ticket) and second time I fought back, as I paid for luggage and it was within dimensions. Took many minutes though. All agressive impolite Vueling ground staff. Their cabin personel is usually very nice.
Since the bag would’ve been abandoned in the secure area of the airport, it wouldn’t be classified in the same severity of an unattended bag before security.
Ben, this is not the biggest story involving a Vueling flight from Spain to France right now. They also kicked off a group of French Jewish kids for being Jewish and both the French and Israeli governments are demanding answers from the Spanish.
I did reqd this story, but have a hard time beliving this was the case. I do not say that there is no anti-semitism, but it's also interesting that whenever something like this happens, and people are jews, than it's because of them being jews.... I mean, come on, whoever kicked them out from that flight would be well aware that this would make the news and he/she would be prosecuted if they did it just because they are jews....
@Kor - Oh sorry, they were not kicked out for being Jews but for speaking (singing) in Hebrew. That's much better, isn't it? /s
Sounds pretty disruptive especially while on the ground an crew may be giving instructions on inflight safety. Actions taken against jews =/= anti-Semitism. And allegedly some of the passengers were tampering with safety equipment. I don't care what religion, background, socio-economic class, etc you are I probably wouldn't want you on my flight if someone was doing that.
The captain who kicked them out trained Mohammed Atta one of the 911 terrorists to fly. Other passengers say the children behaved completly calm and normal.
@Farah
Great logic.
Harvard trained Ted Kaczynski.
I believe Vueling also kicked 50 Jewish passengers off last week for singing in Hebrew. Or so it was reported
That was reported as part of the pax’s version of story but airline version of the story is that most of the 50 pax, which were children were tampering with safety equipments and obstructing safety demonstration, leading for the crew to call the captain, who removed them from the flight.
@eve - The airlines claim includes a claim that the kids were playing with oxygen masks. I don't even think it's possible to manually deploy the oxygen masks, even if you wanted to
But even if you can, the assertion that a group of 10 to 15-year-olds took off the ceiling boards and manually deployed oxygen masks is absurd
Except the other passengers not involved in this situatgion claimed the children acted fine and there was no tampering with equipment or obstructing the safety demonstration.
Yes, and several witnesses have come forward saying that the Jewish kids were completely respectful and compliant. The flight crew had made derogatory comments to the kids and then they were all forced to delete their photos and recordings of the incident.
If I'm ever in Spain, there is absolutely no way I'd ever fly this horrific excuse for an airline.
A lot of claims being made, please provide proof of your claims because I cannot see a single thing relating to your claims in any reputable media outlet.
And if François was Jewish, you'd be quick to conclude that he was charged €60 be cause he was a jew.
Not that both cases are conclusive.
If the 50 students were Mexican and singing in Spanish, or Americans singing in English the result would be the same.
Race card is very effective tool in this snowflake generation.
Who needs critical thinking when you're woke.
I kept advising insurance companies to target woke...
And if François was Jewish, you'd be quick to conclude that he was charged €60 be cause he was a jew.
Not that both cases are conclusive.
If the 50 students were Mexican and singing in Spanish, or Americans singing in English the result would be the same.
Race card is very effective tool in this snowflake generation.
Who needs critical thinking when you're woke.
I kept advising insurance companies to target woke people. They tend to pay more for CFAR. It's how their brains work.
If crew were right, why did they demand the passengers to delete the videos? Anytime someone does that, they're guilty until proven innocent in my eyes. If you're not doing anything wrong, you have no motive to hide what you're doing as long as you're in the official capacity (private life is different of course).
50 passengers singing on a plane in any language need to be kicked out.
I don’t care what they were singing. It would be annoying and I’d want them off the plane.