dayone

I suspect that a "confession" would "suffice" but I believe that you are missing his point.

dayone

In my eyes, this touch of DYKWIA colors the situation just a wee bit.

emma dog

True enough. However, there are enough threads where someone is looking for help, to understand something better, or to give people a heads up about something that make it worthwhile. It's the complaining and the "-est" threads that are killing me right now. For whatever reason we've been inundated with newbies that want to start threads about roads well traveled. As LoneStarMike points out, there's at least 3 other ACTIVE threads about this incident and there's been at least 2 other threads on the AA forum that have been locked.


Thanks a lot for the link!

I do agree with you that there is some discussion value in the PR failure aspect. However, even there there's not a whole lot to discuss since either AA had a flight attendant have a psychotic break during the flight or she had a severe customer relations issue. Either way, I don't know that AA is really at liberty to say a whole lot publicly about it for a whole variety of reasons. As much as I believe the passengers in the story, we don't know (and will never know) both sides. This aspect makes the discussions about Helen's actions fruitless, IMO.

tom911

I wouldn't be surprised if the F/A just walks in and quits now that she's been identified (at least by first name) and will likely be the target of criticism if she continues to fly. Give it a few days and see if that doesn't happen.

FWAAA

I wouldn't be too sure. An active AA FA has said on a different forum that this may the same FA who has been fired twice for telling passengers to go **** themselves. Both times, the FA union has been successful in getting the FA reinstated. Normal people might quit in shame. Psychotics, not so much.

tom911

The Newsstand thread contains the original thread posted on the AA forum. It was merged into a thread started on the same topic in that forum.

freeupgrade

Wow....

First, I would like to sincerely thank all of the hard-working AA FAs. I always fly First Class, and I would say that 95% (at least) of the FAs are very nice.

As far as this incident, I do not know all of the facts. Having said that, I would have to say that I believe every word of the pax story.

Especially since at least 4 other pax came to his defense and (some) even missed their connections to speak to the CSM.

Also, there is no way someone from AA Mgmt. in Exec Office is going to personally call multiple pax to apologize if there was no issue.

This FA really needs to rethink her career, and probably should not be flying at all.

SocietyFlyGirl

I've been noticing a lot of exasperation among FT regulars and you remarked that "threads that are killing me right now." Maybe you and the others who are experiencing the high level of frustration need to take a break from FT or just avoid those threads. Hey, you can often see from the title that it's going to boil your blood, so just say "no."

We all know that this is the time of year when more newbies tend to join and post in FT and that newbies tend to post what are old stories to us, because it's new to them.

Back to the investigation, I find it discussion-worthy purely for the PR-handling aspects. There was a recent article where AA mentioned that it avoids some of the bad PR like UA's guitar guy, because AA monitors and deals with Internet blog posts before they've reached the infamy of UA's broken guitar.

ilovetofly

Unfortunate PR event for AA.

Is the captain who has the authority to issue the warning? It seems that the captain issued the warning by only taking the FA's account.

NYC96

Touche'.
I agree. Two wrongs dont make it right.

Blumie

Is the captain supposed to convene a kangaroo court mid flight?

emma dog

Maybe a crewmember can speak up to this. It doesn't seem like the Captain has the time and ability to investigate this mid-air. For all they know, this is a diversion attempt to get the pilots to step out of the cockpit and take control of the plane. It seems to me that giving out a "detention notice" is a way for AA to escalate the situation and put it in black and white for a passenger to truly understand that they're going to be in big trouble in a minute if things keep up. Somewhere between a verbal warning and the airplane diverting unnecessarily.

MM983

Good to hear that AA is looking into this. If the events are 100% true, I hope Helen never sees the inside of AA aircraft again.

With that said, I hope the captain gets his hand slapped (maybe even suspended for a little while) as well. It sounds like giving out one of these pieces of paper is a serious thing. As such, he should have done something to investigate or get more information. It sounds like he just wrote it and was done with it. Not good.

AAnimeGuy

The articles clearly state that AA service rep was there when the flight landed to take statements. AA is investigating the incident so I do not think this was a PR failure in fact it shows the system is working.

MM983

I still think it's a PR failure. The AA rep was probably only there because it seems like this piece of paper is a serious deal. They (AA) are probably required by the FAA to ensure nothing serious happened on board the aircraft. AA originally blew it off until people stepped up and started saying "..Wait a minute.."