A $5,000 United ticket should have been enough to get this musician in an airplane, but the staff had other ideas

Musician Frankie Zulferino says he was denied boarding on a $5,000 United Airlines flight to Australia despite arriving at the gate with a valid boarding pass and seeing the aircraft still parked with its door open. Zulferino shared the incident in a viral video that has since fueled broader conversations about airline customer service.

According to BroBible, Zulferino, a frequent flyer, had already endured a two-hour maintenance delay on his connecting flight out of Newark before racing through the airport to reach his San Francisco gate. He says he arrived on time, boarding pass in hand, after sprinting through the terminal and experiencing chest pain in the process.

At the gate, Zulferino said the agent initially told him he was not “on the list.” After he showed his boarding pass, the explanation shifted to the aircraft being overweight. He said the reasoning was difficult to understand given that the flight was already delayed until 12:45 AM and he was standing at the gate around 11:00 PM asking to board.

The explanation only raised more questions

Zulferino said he spent nearly an hour on hold with customer service while the plane remained at the gate and other passengers were also denied boarding for the same reason. He recalled pleading for help while the gate agent declined to call anyone for assistance and continued to cite the weight issue, a lack of empathy that contradicted other widely shared airline incidents, such as when a flight attendant was handed a barf bag mid-flight and what she found inside left her in tears.

When additional airport staff arrived, Zulferino said they provided no new explanation beyond repeating that the plane was overweight. No one explained why the issue arose so late or why cargo could not be removed instead of passengers. Zulferino said the experience left him shocked by how he was treated.

The consequences were significant. Despite being a Platinum member who flies weekly for work, Zulferino was rebooked for a flight 24 hours later. He paid out of pocket for a hotel, new clothes, and meals, and missed a major event in Australia, making the expensive trip pointless.

While aircraft weight limits are a legitimate safety concern, airlines are expected to follow specific procedures when removing passengers. Standard policy requires staff to seek volunteers first, offering compensation before involuntarily bumping travelers.

Commenters questioned whether that protocol was followed here, a concern that fits into a larger pattern of customer frustration seen in recent airport and airline-related incidents, including chaotic scenes at airport restaurants, where a women was kicked out for asking a second drink. Under U.S. Department of Transportation rules, passengers who are involuntarily bumped may be entitled to compensation ranging from 200% to 400% of their one-way fare, depending on the length of the delay.