It’s really sad when I’m siding with an ultra low cost carrier that has a bunch of punitive fees over a traveler, but that’s exactly how I feel here. I don’t get why people can’t understand that laws and social norms differ around the globe… especially from an experienced traveler who proudly claims that she has visited 185 of 195 countries.
Volotea staff abandon desk after traveler refuses to stop recording
PYOK flags how a vlogger with the username Escape with Emily has posted a video on YouTube about her experience traveling to Spain. This woman seems to have a lot of drama when she travels.
Don’t waste 30+ minutes of your time, but the relevant part is the last eight minutes of the below video. On June 4, 2026, she was supposed to fly on ultra low cost carrier Volotea, from Oviedo, Spain (OVD), to Paris, France (ORY).
As is common with ultra low cost carriers, there are some punitive policies in place. For example, you need to print your boarding pass online, and if you need to have your boarding pass printed by an employee at the airport, you have to pay a fee of €30.
Long story short, this traveler claims that she tried to check in online, and didn’t receive her boarding pass. I can’t speak to that, but I tend to think that when an airline carries 10+ million passengers per year, issues with boarding passes typically come down to user error. It later comes out that the boarding pass may have gone to a different email. Her retort is that this means she’s still checked in. To be clear, the fee isn’t for checking in, it’s for the boarding pass, which she didn’t have.
That brings us to the issue at hand — while at the Volotea ticketing office, she was wearing Meta AI glasses, which record everything, and you can tell based on the flashing light. The Volotea employees notice this, and ask her to stop recording. The station manager even gets involved.
I have to say, they remain calm and respectful, and repeatedly say that they’ll only help her if she stops recording. They even threaten to call the police if she posts this on social media. She keeps ignoring that request, and just keeps standing there. They inform her the only way to get a boarding pass is to pay.
When she just keeps standing there, the agents eventually get up and leave the office. She then follows them to the check-in counter and keeps recording them.
She finishes the video by saying the following:
“This is something that happens in a third world country, you guys, I would honestly never expect this to happen in a European country, but like, you know, here we are. So two thumbs down for Spain, you did not restore my hope unfortunately, you just confirmed what I thought about Spain before I came here, and I will try to never go again.”
As a follow-up to this, she took to X to inform her 21 followers of the fact that when she complained to Volotea, they focused on how she was recording employees against their consent, rather than addressing her complaint. They offered her the opportunity to share her side of the story.
This traveler was completely out of line, shame on her
I always try to see both sides of the story, but here I side with the airline 100%. Look, Volotea’s fee for printing a boarding pass is no doubt frustrating, I get that. And if there was some glitch that caused her to not get her boarding pass, she can take that up after the fact with the airline, file a credit card dispute, etc.
But the way she treated employees here was unacceptable:
- Virtually everywhere in the world, it’s against airline rules to record staff without their permission; furthermore, legally many European countries have much stricter privacy laws, when it comes to recording others without their consent, and Spain has especially tight laws in that regard, so staff were within their rights to refuse to help
- The station manager was actually polite with her, and I’d say they did a great job deescalating, simply ignoring her rather than actually calling the police; heck, I couldn’t believe that at the end of that, they were still willing to give her the opportunity to pay the fee
- It’s pathetic that she has decided that she’s not going to return to Spain because she booked a flight on an airline that has a boarding pass fee; honey, don’t go anywhere close to Europe again then, because this policy is virtually identical to what you’ll find on Ryanair
- These employees did nothing wrong — if she had an issue with the company’s policy, she should take it up that way, rather than harassing these poor people; that’s also why it’s unacceptable to record these people, since it’s not like she was documenting some terrible behavior, as they were just enforcing company policy
Honestly, this person’s behavior is what I’d expect from someone who has never left the United States, and not someone has reportedly been to all but 10 countries in the world.
Also, not to be too woke, but I love how after complaining about Volotea, she’s now taking to X to complain about TSA at JFK, using an AI picture of monkeys working at security. Classy.
Bottom line
A very experienced American traveler booked a ticket on ultra low cost carrier Volotea, which requires passengers to get their boarding pass online, or else pay a fee at the airport. While she claims she checked in, she didn’t have the boarding pass, so the Volotea ground staff in Spain enforced the rules, and asked her to pay.
She recorded the whole interaction with her Meta AI glasses, and they asked her to stop, but she refused. So they then stepped away from the counter, since she wouldn’t take “no” for an answer. Her conclusion was that this is “third world” behavior, and that she’s never traveling to Spain again. What a way to live…
What do you make of this Volotea incident?