karenkay

I was on a flight once where someone was removed, and the general consensus of the people sitting around that person was that it was correct--it was a drunk guy in the days before everyone had a video camera on their cell phone.

In this case, it seems to me that the general consensus is that removal was not warranted. That makes me wonder if it was a rogue FA or if there is more that will come out about this. Will be interesting to see what happens over the next few days...In cases like this, I'm always curious if there was a FlyerTalker on the flight....?

Edit: daily mail picked up the story...

pa3lsvt

What I don't get is the need to tell FA#2 that FA#1 was rude. Or how FA#1 came to the decision that pax needed offloading.

So far, sounds to me that the wilting flower pax was butthurt by someone being assertive and the FA was butthurt by the tattle-tale.

Everyone involved probably needs to get over themselves a bit.

I would expect at least 25K miles when I emailed my complaint if I was the pax here.

greg99

Probably, but it's not the passenger's job to be pleasant to flight attendants.

And it's certainly not within the power of the passenger to demand the removal of a flight attendant under threat of action by law enforcement officers.

Greg

zombietooth

It has been posted in another blog that the pax used a anti-homosexual slur on the male FA.

A friend of mine witnessed the entire event and said that he heard no such thing. He did say that that girl used a snarky voice when she said something like, "excuse me" after the male FA raised his voice to her, but that she did immediately take her seat as requested, and did not interact with the him again.

Sounds like typical FA overreaction.

djibouti

A bit OT, but I was pretty put off by this story and the video makes it seem like the passenger is clearly in the right. I refrained from social media shaming AA but instead e-mailed to express my frustration about rude FAs and my hope that AA will make a full investigation and got the form response "We very much appreciate the time you took to send us your suggestion about our service. Your idea certainly has merit and it clearly reflects the thought that went into it."

Hah!

lobo411

I strongly disagree.

The human animal--especially the male version--has a tendency to assume that a crying female is a victim. I bet if you did an experiment where people were shown a crying female and not given any background info about the circumstances, almost all would assume that the woman is a victim just because she's crying.

ukyank

but the passengers in the vicinity were given background info about the circumstances and saw exactly why the woman was crying.

djibouti

So you think it's more likely that a dozen men are simply being emotional than that the passenger is in the right? Do not forget that these were witnesses to the actual event and not just random people without any background info.

The simplest and most likely explanation is that the passenger was actually in the right and the witnesses are being supportive for practical reasons rather than "oh noes, a crying woman!"

Exec_Plat

Emphasis mine, we now have eyewitness testimony


This 'Tim' needs to be publicly shamed. Pulling out the *** card... when no such thing was said.

JDiver

With the very fragmentary information available, I can't make heads or tails of it.

Dave Noble

I think it is more likely that the passenger did make a homosexual slur against the agent as mentioned as being reported elsewhere and that the agent simply was not prepared to accept any tolerance on it, than it is that the passenger did nothing wrong

If the passenger did make such a slur, I would support a zero tolerance on that

regardless, as it stands, the only thing that has been provided as fact is that the passenger was involuntarily offloaded. It may be that the agent had no grounds whatsoever , that is unknown

lobo411

No, that is not the simplest explanation. That explanation requires us to assume that the FA singled out the pax for no reason at all, and that the FA took an unjustifiable action knowing that they were going to have to justify it to other airline personnel with no skin in the game (other FAs, pilot, gate agent, possibly corporate). It's far more likely that the pax was singled out for some good reason, rather than for simply not getting out of the way fast enough.

It's often hard to hear/see/know what people are doing in the seat right next to you. It would be very easy to draw the wrong conclusions from the tiny fragments of information one can collect from what's going on even one row away.

lobo411

Well, you're telling us what your friend said he saw/heard go on between two other people. That makes it third-hand information. Ever play the children's game "telephone?"

Exec_Plat

So you are going with the 'homosexual slur', as 'RUMORED' 3rd or fourth hand ...against the very detailed second hand report above?

Airlines and airline employees cannot and do not ever make mistakes, eh? Not in your world. We could have a video tape of the entire event, and Id full expect you to claim "without tape from the moment both of them woke up this morning we cannot know that she didnt antagonize him".



And does a homosexual slur get you kicked off an airplane these days? Or diverted? What precisely IS the criteria for ejection?


Honestly if it turns out the report above of "snarky voice" is accurate, Id expect the AApologists to say "he acted appropriately as he felt threatened in a hostile workplace"

Exec_Plat

Dont play that game.

He didnt 'single her out for no reason'.

He singled her out for the snarky comment.


THEN It escalated; he abused his power. Pretty simple really.