josmul123

In my opinion, the male passenger's heart was in the right place, but his words and actions should have been more carefully chosen (i.e. he shouldn't have threatened to "knock him silly" and shouldn't have approached him the way he did. In Michigan, that action would be enough to constitute simple assault). Assuming things happened as described (Where this guy actually hit this woman with the stroller), I probably would have been standing in the aisle demanding for the police to be called, but I NEVER would have threatened anyone or approached in a threatening manner. This behavior only served to further intimidate the woman who you can hear become much more upset out of view in the galley as she cowered in fear that a fist fight was about to break out in a confined area where she was trapped with her children.

I'm very pleased with AA's public statement about this situation. They took full responsibility for their employee's actions and were very clear that his behavior was unacceptable. At the very least, I don't think the PR nightmare will be half as bad as UA's recent incident.

Silver Fox

Yes, the manner of it is sad, but perhaps some good might come out of this.

SSF556

I agree that flying has become a defensive situation in America...honestly the entire process has been elevated in my mind....I get a similar feeling when I go to the DMV or deal with the IRS.

FrenchMerican

People don't realize how much power we have over corporations with social media and collective action. I guarantee you that Captain was silently contemplating his career prospects if a quick billion got knocked off of AA's stock value in 24 hours. Guarantee airline employee and law enforcement training is about to change big time.

WebTraveler

Why? Because maybe, according to the pilot, the facts are right - the Flight Attendant was far out of line - and the Flight Attendant escalated and challenged the passenger. The pilot seems to have witnessed most of this, and he clearly removed the Flight Attendant from the flight and he allowed the passenger to fly. The pilot was there, and seemingly has witnessed the whole thing.

Airlines are backing themselves into a corner here now.....when the pressure is on and the whole world is watching and they continue to abuse and act in this manner....its just going to bite them.

At the same time we're all going to be wearing body cameras in a few years it seems.

Silver Fox

Ain't that the truth.

no2chem

Overall,

I think AA handled this pretty pretty well. I guess they must have learned from the United incident. I suspect that a few weeks ago they wouldn't have upgraded the woman to first class. They probably realized that the UA incident could have happened to them too. The result in people's mind will be: one bad apple at AA, but AA made the situation right, unlike UA.

American-based airlines have a service culture problem, that's for sure. I hope that the finally invest in training to eliminate these power trip employees...

nitzer

I do find it interesting one of two things didn't happen.

1) If the passenger was in the wrong why didn't they deplane her with the stroller in hand? If she's not following the rules why didn't they just remove her with everything in tow. No need to grab the stroller, she can keep it and be escorted off the plane and security or GA can take over from there. That's probably what should have happened. I mean cmon is there some training for flight attendants on forcefully removing strollers from passengers?

2) The threatening passenger. Threatened a crew member. Did he fly the rest of the flight? Why wasn't law enforcement called for beligerence and charged with disturbing the peace? If they left him on board then what was the reasoning behind that?

I will say this, rules and regulations aside, any situation where the crew possibly causes irreperable harm to a child will end badly for the airline. Trying to defend assaulting a child in court is a no win scenario. It will make Daos lawsuit look miniscule.

On a side note, are airline employees allowed to cover up there name tags? Is that normal policy now? That is a bad precedent. Asking for an airline employees name for filing a report out for the airline should be something they want for an incident like this.

FrenchMerican

I didn't see a threatening passenger. I saw a man standing up against a coward in defense of a mother who had been assaulted. The new normal is passengers calling out and challenging employees who are aggressive or have bad attitudes. Get used to it. The airline, flight crews, and LEOs will no longer have your backs.

IncyWincy

+1

+1

IncyWincy

The passenger did not threaten. It is the other way round.

The passenger said something along the lines of "If you did this to me I would..." He also explained why which was that he saw that the FA almost hitting the children with a stroller which would have caused serious damage (and already caused the mother to cry.) This was not refuted by the FA/AA, as it is not refutable. He was trying to halt the abuse levied by the FA on the mother and her children, at least coming to their aid.

He certainly did not do anything physical, from what we have seen/heard.

Instead, he was challenged and incited to "fight" from a totally out of line FA (!!!) but had the good sense to refuse. How was the passenger threatening?

The only violence we have heard is the FA "grabbing" the stroller, hitting the woman and nearly her children. Also the same FA challenging the passenger to a fight. What if the entire cabin stood up?

In any case, I do not believe that passengers are required to take whatever abuse hauled their way, however ridiculous lying down. This does not mean anyone should resort to violence or anything physical. But people can rise to the occasion and use words and their voices (in addition to cameras).

If it were your wife/girlfriend/mother travelling with babies, how would you feel?

Is being cowardly and ostrich-like the only expected and acceptable behaviour of passengers? Much like fellow prisioners in a corrupt jail?


Your use of "cover up" is great. Precisely what FA was trying to do and very illuminating of the fact that he knew he was wrong.

JonNYC

This will be the end of commercial air travel as we know it.

sannmann

Thank you, Dr. Dao!

george 3

As with many posted videos of confrontations, the initial part of the confrontation is not shown. Thus many versions of the truth will come out. The FA seemed to be pretty aggressive as was the passenger, although it appears that due to the belligerent behavior of the FA, the passenger standing up was appropriate. Fortunately it was not a profanity laced interaction. I can imagine why the woman was upset because from other pictures it appears she was traveling with twins. I don't know why she cried for so long but it's not for me to say. The captain appeared to be in control of what was going on and didn't see the passenger as one who would disrupt or cause problems on the flight. AA responded correctly and compliments to their media relations department.

Dave Noble

It doesn't matter how you feel, what matters is how you act