'I've got to go on my break'

Melissa Evans and Michael Golaszewski

A couple is distraught after they say a United Airlines ticket agent refused to help them – even while a woman tried desperately to be with her mother as she lay dying.

But the ticketing agent would not help the distressed customer because it was time for her break.

"I was just hoping and praying that she could hang on until we got there," Melissa Evans told San Francisco's CBS 5.

Evans was trying to purchase a flight from San Francisco to Portland, Ore., where her mother was nearing death.

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"Her dad called me and said get my baby girl home," said her boyfriend, Michael Golaszewski.

Other passengers kindly allowed Evans and her boyfriend to the front of the line, and the couple told the only available ticket agent that they had an emergency.

"I said we need to get a ticket we've got a flight at 7:50 p.m., you know her mother's in the hospital she's close to death can you know just try to hurry us along," Golaszewski said.

But, to his shock, the woman refused.

"She looked at me dead in the eye she handed me the ticket back and she said I've got to go on my break. I wasn't quite sure that I heard her correctly."

Evans said she was dumbfounded and speechless when the woman turned to her and retorted, "Look, I'm going on my break and you know if you have a problem with it you know you need to talk to my supervisor; that's the policy."

Melissa Evans' father and mother

In a letter to United Airline CEO Glenn Tilton, Golaszewski wrote, "When the employees of large companies discard compassion, respect, and common human decency and instead place their own interests in front of those they are chartered to serve, then they are no longer deserving of the public's trust."

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He continued, "I was absolutely horrified. The only person at the United counter who had the ability to ticket passengers felt that it was more important to go grab a soda than to give me a decent chance at making a flight to be with a dying relative."

Even the customers standing in line voiced their concerns about the way Evans and Golaszewski were being treated.

The couple was too late to board their 7:50 p.m. flight. Another agent booked them on a later one – almost three hours after the first one departed.

The United agent told Evans and Golaszewski the behavior of the first ticketing agent was understandable because "management really makes us work some unreasonable schedules."

"My girlfriend's mother passed away at 2:50 AM, shortly after we arrived in Portland," Golaszewski wrote. "We will, of course, never know what we might have been able to share with her in the two and a half hours we burned sitting at a gate at SFO.

"I certainly hope your agent's break was worth that price."

United apologized to the couple for the incident and said employees should "... provide excellent and professional customer service at all times" and that its staff can do "... a far better job than your letter indicates."

There has been no word of whether the ticketing agent was disciplined.

According to the report, United Airlines has changed its customer complaint process and is refusing to take phone complaints – opting instead to handle them by e-mail and regular mail.

The couple has filed a complaint with the Department of Transportation.