FA of the Decade - very poor experience, threats to disembark
 

My wife and I were returning from a cruise on Feb 2 through LHB on a flight AA5896 to PHX.
This was a small regional jet, 4 rows in first, 1-2 configuration. My wife was in 3a, me in 1D.
The FA was getting boarding time drinks for us. The couple behind me in 2D-F were coming back from the same cruise. The gentleman asked for irish coffee. She said that she hadn't heated it up yet, so it would be a couple minutes.
About 3 minutes later she came back and said that she couldn't serve the coffee. He asked why (btw, it was a nice, not a rude "why?").
She came unglued. voice raised - "Because the FAA won't let us serve hot beverages on the ground. Are you going to have a problem with that?" Politely he responded, "No, Are you having a good day?" She responded with something along the lines of, "I have to get everyone boarded, and you aren't my priority. You are holding up boarding. Do you think I'm being combative or simply trying to do my assigned job?" He continued to backpedal, asking if she was having a good day and apologizing.
She continued to escalate. "If you don't settle down, I'll have you taken care of. I'm going to speak to the captain now."
She did. After about 5 minutes in the cockpit (as boarding continued), she came back and said, "Are you going to cause problems? if you are, I'll have the captain come back and take care of you." He assured her there was no problem. She continued to brow beat him, now including his wife (sitting next to him) in the tirade.
Finally, my wife, having had enough, said, "You appear to be a little combative. Is there a problem?" at that point, the FA included her in the tirade.
The FA apparently had had enough and returned to the captain. Since I was sitting in 1d, I had full view and could hear the conversation. After about 10 Seconds, the captain said, "let's take this outside". As they exited the cockpit, the FA said, "it's the two in row 2 and the woman in 3a". We were seriously concerned that the crazy lady was going to get us kicked off the flight.
They went outside and conferred with the ground supervisor for a couple minutes. He then came inside and spoke to the people and my wife, asking if there was going to be a problem. They all assured him that there never was a problem and that the escalation was totally one sided. As he left, I added that the FA was way out of line on this and there was absolutely no reason for her actions.
He spend another 3-4 minutes in the galley with her, then cleared the plane for push back.
During the safety announcement, the FA turned her name badge over so it wouldn't be seen. During the flight, she spent all but the last 10 minutes of the flight in the galley. She did come out to collect garbage.
BTW, the other FA serviced the entire plane, both first and coach. During boarding he took care of drinks in first, got people settled in coach, and handled it all without any help from the crazy lady. He was a gem, very personable, very efficient, and very easy to deal with.
I'm not sure who or what triggered her. My wife and I have speculated about it for the last couple days. There was simply no excuse for the way she acted. It really felt like she was looking for a fight and determined to make it happen. There was no response, by anyone what could deescalate her.
We filed a complaint with AA. I think there was a pilot deadheading in first class too. This was definitely the most out of control FA I've ever had the displeasure to be involved with. A serious blackmark for AA from the platinum elite fliers in first.
I'm very sorry I didn't have the presence of mind to turn on a recorder.

Where's Tara when you need her?

Guy should have asked her for an OJ at this point :D

Write a short report for AA. If she’s having problems, they can get her assistance through the AA Employee Assistance Program. If she’s like this often, AA can initiate corrective action or even discipline up to and including termination. But they need data in every case.

As an employee of a non-owned regional carrier, would she indeed be eligible to participate in the AA Employee Assistance Program and/or would AA pass the information onto the regional carrier for discipline?

For anyone else wondering, OP meant LGB not LHB. :)

Sound like someone not cut out for the job. As noted she's not actually an AA employee. Probably asking her if she was not having a good day wasn't a good thing to do. Sometimes you've got to just let it go.

In theory, the information is passed on to the regional carrier. In this particular case, I would send a copy of the complain letter directly to the region carrier and possibly the DOT (since she seemingly needs some serious counseling help). AA also keeps track of the overall complaint rate for each regional carrier.​​​​​​

I don’t understand what difference this makes. Did the OP go to envoy.com to book the flight? No. AA for everything. Did the flight attendant have an Envoy uniform on?

I hope this nut job gets immediately terminated.

Why not (calmly) ask to speak to the captain, and say nothing else to her?

While that’s common sense to you and I, it would probably only add fuel to this miserable sod’s fire and cause more strife. These self policing authoritative flight attendants these days need to go.

I would send a letter to the big cheese's office.

I think the issue here is AA isn't going to discipline her.
I would contact both AA and Envoy. This person might cause issues with other customers, and even if they aren't kicked off, it is not very good will for Envoy or AA
Edit: Or AA and/or Mesa, whichever the operating carrier is. I would also consider a DOT complaint. This was more than just a rude FA, it was an FA trying to remove 3 passengers from the aircraft.

FWIW, I believe it's Mesa and not MQ, but it makes a difference because AA can't discipline (or offer assistance to) someone that's not their employee AFAIK.

What he said. I do know that posting about this on FT and getting various others to say "wow, that's awful" and "you were in the right" will. not. solve. the. problem.