MSPeconomist

The airline has the information, but I would hope that some random FA who might be a buddy of the overly aggressive FA involved in this incident does not.

OT, but I think you have the history wrong. Seat belts started to become standard (and mandatory) on USA passenger vehicles in the 1960s, but antilock breaks didn't appear until the 1980s, when they were costly options on higher end vehicles. If they became mandatory, I'm not sure when that happened, but in the 1980s, the cost of this option could be thousands of dollars.

Many FAs and people posting here don't know the rules as we keep saying claims that no stroller of any type is allowed on board. This is wrong for the (small) umbrella style stroller.

I'm not convinced one way or the other whether there are sufficiently small umbrella strollers for twins sold somewhere in the world that fold to a size small enough to be brought on board.

We don't know if and how she might have been told the rules. If the out of control FA just grabbed the stroller and/or yelled at her and/or got in her face with aggressive hand movements, the response understandably will be very different than if the rule is nicely communicated and explained.

If the mother typically travels outside of the USA or uses other carriers, she might assume that she won't see the stroller again before baggage claim at her destination, which would be a "major pain" as a previous poster (who seems to have experience traveling with kids) describes the situation of long airport walks with one or more kids and all of their paraphernalia.

Based on what we saw of the FAs behavior in front of the captain, I'm going to hypothesize that the FA routinely behaves even worse to passengers when the captain isn't observing the interaction. Indeed, there have been reports that this FA has behaved badly on different days, on different flights, in different situations, and with different passengers.

Finkface

Oh for goodness sake, that is EXACTLY what he said. Did you even watch it? At 1:02 of the attached video, the female host asks him point blank "did she get hit by the stroller?" and Demetreo responds "She did not. She did not".
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/...cident-n750081

I don't know how much more unequivocal he can possibly be. Her child did not get hit by the stroller. She did not get hit by the stroller. Period.

rufflesinc

IANAL but I believe that's the point of a lawsuit.

DataPlumber

Annerk

Agree, it's a blue code of silence. The law is far too vague as far as what actually constitutes "interference with a flight crew."

Annerk

Given the obvious anger management issues that FA has, do you really think he was patiently trying to explain anything or in any way assist the woman? I sure don't.

Beckles

In the video I've seen I see a busy-body passenger threatening to 'knock him on his ...' to illicit his response. Of course he should have reacted more calmly, but he also shouldn't be threatened in such a manner by a passenger. I have not seen any evidence that leads me to believe the FA wasn't 'in any way trying to assist the woman' before the situation escalated.

pinniped

I tend to agree with this. AA has handled this situation fairly well and I don't really see any grounds for a huge-payday lawsuit. AA accepted responsibility, suspended the FA (hopefully that's code for "we're going to fire his ... as soon as we work it through the union"), and took good care of the passenger. No passenger was beaten, hospitalized, or blamed for the incident.

Far cry from cops beating the sh** out of a 69-year-old man and then the United CEO saying "he got what he deserved." Today's revelation of the police report, which reads like every other police report after cops have beaten the sh** out of someone (a mix of "he resisted" and "he fell and that's how he broke his face") does not help matters at all.

Annerk

[/LIST]I have personally seen that FA be abusive to a passenger, therefore I have no reason to think he was anything but abusive to her. Before the merger I used to regularly hand out US Above and Beyond cards. After the merger, not a single one.

judolphin

I'm not advocating torches and pitchforks, but think there is a pattern with the eyewitness accounts worth noticing:

(a.) There are no fewer than three confirmed eyewitness accounts of the incident, and to my knowledge they all seem to side with the mother and the man.
(b.) There is only "eyewitness account" that seems to side with AA flight crew.
(c.) The reason I used scare quotes for "eyewitness account", is because it is anonymous and unverified.
(d.) The confirmed eyewitnesses all seem to largely agree in their accounts, while the anonymous account contradict the verified ones (and even contradicts the video in some aspects).

This is a problem. This is not right.

94010flyer

+1

I have two observations.

1) I cannot imagine what kind of attitude a person might have after trying to get through checkin and security with two toddlers alone. Her stress level must have been in overdrive!

2) How did this alleged contact of the stroller on the head of the mother occur? She's holding two babies in her hands in the pictures, and the story is the agent grabbed the stroller and it almost hit her head? How was the mother holding on to the two kids and a folded up stroller such that it could hit her head, if she's got the two kids in her hands.

Something doesn't make sense. Who is the source of the story about the pax getting hit on the head that makes this all so sensational (in addition to the interloping male passenger, who just needed to stay in his seat and was not helpful in defusing anything, and certainly not needed with the captain presiding over the discussions).

I do note that on a LAS-SFO flight yesterday, an elderly guy was putting his metal cane into the overhead and accidentally popped the guy sitting below with the cane on the top of his head. Accidents do happen like that without any ill intent.

Carl Johnson

It doesn't read like every other police report after police abuse - it's worse (which I didn't think was possible). "I'm providing this report 'under duress,'" when he doesn't claim that anybody told him what to say or pressured him to say one thing or another, or anything except his own accurate recollections. He's only writing down what he claims to be the truth because he's being forced to.

MSPeconomist

I wonder what's going on here. The lawyer represents the mother, yet he seems to say on network TV that she has no case. Since he seems to be very smart, I suspect that there's something deeper at work here. [I hope the lawyer isn't selling out the mother in favor of Dr. Dao somehow, which I assume would be unethical.]

Segments

Perhaps PTSD resulting from AA failure to properly screen FA for anger management issues? I wouldn't fly with this FA, and I wasn't on the flight in question. (Yes, there are a few FAs on my personal "do not fly" list. I will off-load when they are crewed because I believe flying with them is unsafe)

The mother here may not be looking for a payout as much as altruistic resolution. Her objective could be to demonstrate that federal regulation is needed as her incident following the UA event shows a lack of customer service in the US airline industry to a level where the airlines are creating unsafe environments.

trajanc

I watched an excerpt on YouTube. Thanks for the full video. Interesting. If that's the case then I wonder what happened to her forehead?