Tales From the Airport: How a 'Super Shiny' Soccer Coach Tried to Outplay the Airline Rules
If you’ve ever worked in hospitality—or just been within a penalty kick’s distance of a youth soccer tournament—you know that travel season is when the real game begins. But while the kids are usually dreaming of goals and Gatorade, it’s the adults who often steal the show. Enter our protagonist from r/TalesFromTheFrontDesk, whose airport encounter with a “Super Shiny” soccer coach is everything you’d expect from travel season: equal parts comedy, chaos, and customer service jujitsu.
Picture this: a bustling airport, a line of anxious passengers, and our humble narrator, armed only with a computer, a sharp wit, and a Sharpie. What could possibly go wrong? Well, as anyone who’s ever checked in a team of youth athletes will tell you—plenty.
Let’s set the stage: Youth soccer season is in full swing, and teams are crisscrossing the country, filling hotel lobbies and, in this case, airport ticket counters. The kids? Polite, quiet, and surprisingly low-maintenance. The adults? Well, that depends—especially if you’re dealing with a coach who thinks his “Super Shiny” airline status comes with a cape and unlimited privileges.
Meet Cranky Coach (CC), who lumbers up to the counter with a suitcase so overstuffed it could double as a portable goal. Our narrator, Yours Truly (YT), weighs the bag: five pounds overweight. Cue the first whistle.
YT, ever diplomatic, offers the two options: lighten the load or pay the overweight fee. But CC isn’t just any traveler—he’s a Super Shiny Member with an alliance airline, and, by golly, the rules don’t apply to him! (Spoiler: they do.) After a brief, grumpy negotiation, CC begrudgingly trims his bag, and our hero waives the standard bag fee—because sometimes, you just don’t have the energy for a full-on penalty shootout at the check-in desk.
But CC is just warming up. He demands a Priority tag—never mind that the computer says he’s as special as any other passenger in Zone D. YT, channeling every veteran customer service worker, slaps on a Priority tag with all the gravitas of a participation trophy, knowing full well it’s about as meaningful as a “World’s Okayest Coach” mug.
The pièce de résistance? Boarding passes. CC wants Zone A treatment, not the lowly Zone D the system has assigned him. Out comes the Sharpie—voilà—Zone A, courtesy of YT’s artistic flair. (Pro tip: if you ever want to feel like you’re backstage at a magic show, work at an airline desk during team travel season.)
But wait—the kid trailing behind CC? He gets a Zone E boarding pass, which means while CC strides onto the plane first, the kid will be lucky to find an overhead bin that isn’t already stuffed with shin guards and snack bags. CC doesn’t seem to notice—or care. Perhaps he’s too busy plotting his next power play at 35,000 feet.
As CC and his silent sidekick march off to security, our narrator can only hope that the chaos now falls to a coworker, one whose patience is as thin as the complimentary airline pretzels. Predictably, boarding becomes a comedy of errors, with carry-ons getting gate-checked and confusion reigning supreme.
What’s the moral of the story? In the hospitality and travel world, it’s rarely the kids who cause chaos—it’s the grown-ups who forget that status (real or imagined) doesn’t exempt you from the rules. For every well-behaved youth team, there’s a coach convinced he’s the Lionel Messi of air travel, dribbling around policies with the subtlety of a red card tackle.
So here’s to the unsung heroes of airports and hotels everywhere, bracing for the onslaught of youth sports season. May your scanners be swift, your patience infinite, and your Sharpies ever at the ready.
Have a wild travel story, or tips for surviving soccer season? Share your best (or worst) tales in the comments—and remember: it’s just a game, but customer service is the real championship.
What’s your wildest travel season experience? Drop your story below and let’s commiserate!
Original Reddit Post: In which your humble narrator pisses off a youth soccer coach