Savannah Chrisley is clarifying a few things about her experience being “thrown off” a Southwest flight in April.
The Chrisley Knows Best star documented the incident on her Instagram Stories on April 20, and has now opened up about the experience at length on her podcast, Unlocked With Savannah Chrisley.
According to Chrisley’s original account of the incident, she was attempting to board a flight at New York’s LaGuardia airport to return home to Tennessee, when she says an airline attendant refused her boarding after she would not agree to gate check her carry-on bag. Now Chrisley is sharing a lot more details about her experience.
Shortly after her posts went viral, Southwest Airlines issued a statement about the incident on April 23 indicating Chrisley’s report of what happened was not entirely accurate.
A representative for Southwest told PEOPLE: “Our initial reports indicate a different story than the one from the Customer’s account, as she arrived at the gate late in the boarding process and repeatedly insulted our Employee after being asked to gate-check her bag. As a result, the Customer was denied boarding on her original flight, and we booked her on a later flight the same day.”
On her podcast, Chrisley went into more detail about what led to the showdown at the gate and acknowledged some wrong doing.
“I was literally going for business meetings all day in New York City then flying right back home so I could be home by 8:30 at night to put [my niece] Chloe to bed and to go to school the next morning,” Chrisley said. “It was a really long day. Then I get to the airport and I go to get on the flight. The attendant was immediately rude.”
She recounts the incident as she’d previously done on Instagram, claiming the agent informed her she had to check her bag and she insisted on trying to see if there was room for it in the cabin.
Passengers are required to comply with airline crew members regarding checked bags when boarding a flight, and space for carry-ons in the overhead bins is not typically guaranteed.
Chrisley also repeated her claim that the pilot of the plane came to her defense, saying he would try and fit the bag on board, but the employee working at the gate refused.
“The attendant goes, ‘No you won’t. Stay out of it,'” Chrisley alleges. “When he said that to the pilot, something in me just flipped. At that point, I was already on edge. I’ve been up for almost 24 hours. [But] I’m not going off. I’m not hostile. Maybe I wasn’t my most patient self. So that is when I had choice words, and I said, ‘Dude, come on. There’s no need to be an a–hole.'”
“At that point, oh gosh, you would have thought I threatened to bomb the place,” she added. “He was not having it. He was like, ‘Ma’am, what did you say?’ I was like, ‘There’s no need to be an a–hole.’ And he goes, ‘You’re off. You’re off. Let’s go.'”
Chrisley accepted some fault, acknowledging, “I will say I did board late. So that makes the baggage thing more understandable.”
After being booted, she also decided to comply with the crew member’s initial request. “I told the attendant, ‘You know what? We all have tough days. Clearly, you’re in a mood. I’m in a mood. I apologize. I should not have called you an a–hole. Let’s check my bag.'”
Southwest Airlines Says Savannah Chrisley Told a ‘Different Story’ About Recent Flight Mishap
But Chrisley wasn’t her “most patient self” once again after the flight attendant allegedly dismissed her concern about getting home to Chloe. “The guy looks at me and goes, ‘I don’t care,'” she claims. “That was what was the most infuriating thing that led me to call him an a–hole again. Granted, I could have used a little classier language.”
Despite asking for an exception to be made for her bag, the reality star said, “I do not think I’m better than anyone else. I do not think I’m better than to not have to check my bags. All I asked was let me see if there’s room because we’ve all been on a plane before [where] some people just don’t play Tetris that well, and there’s a lot of wasted space.”
“Should I have called him an a–hole? Probably could have steered away from that. But it is what it is,” she added. “At the end of the day, Southwest, you won. You won because I ended up on a connecting flight going home till 3am.”
Chrisley also reiterated her message for the pilot she says came to her defense: “You were very attractive and you were very kind for standing up for me.” Of her missed connection she notes, “I didn’t catch his name. It was a very sad moment. I wonder if there’s a way I can find his name.”