Y pax demanded to be upgraded (CX Secrets)
 

Just saw this on CX Secrets.

Wow.

i would want to know
(i) who Mr and Ms CX DM and where they work.

Name and shame and ban them both from flying.

Now does Mr/Mrs DM need to fly CX for work? imagine when you cant get a CX flight (sorry been blacklisted). haha.

Poor ISM. Stuck between a rock and a hard place. Should
(i) the olice have intervened (remember David Dao) and
(ii) cant CX press charges post the incident?
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Post #9105

"Dear All,

Hope this email finds you well.
I’m writing to inform you of my incident on ground in Taipei.
39D Ms X travelling with her baby was very upset as she boarded the a/c & immediately wants to speak with ISM. She was travelling with husband Mr X.
Mr X was upgraded to 21D.
Ms X swapped with the husband & seated straight away in 21D with her baby.
As I approach Ms X, she complained why she was not upgraded. She claims it’s discrimination as she knows it’s because of her baby that she’s not upgraded.
Accdg to her, CX is discriminating her because she has a baby hence no upgrade for her. She was very upset at this point & was ordering me to upgrade her.
I referred the problem to the G/S. I insisted the G/S to talk to pax ASAP.
But when the G/S came to speak to her, Ms X verbally abused the G/S XYZ with all foul languages.
G/S didn’t do anything at this point.
Ms X asked again to speak to me & this time she threatened me that I’ll lose my job & said you’re gonna regret it, I’m gonna make your life miserable.
At this point, I gave her a verbal warning saying that I will not tolerate any verbal abuse from her. She didn’t stop.
I informed my captain re this incident.
Mr X approach me in L1 & asked me just to let her stay in JCL with their baby. He claims that his wife is very tired taking care of the baby.
I told Mr X that his wife is very abusive & was harassing me. I’m sure he knows as he was just seated in 39D just behind 21D. But he pretended he didn’t hear anything.
JCL pax around the area all heard the harassment I got from Ms X.
Mr X was insisting just to let her stay & telling me they’re influential people, will let the media & the world knows about this discrimination re CX policy of not upgrading DM with baby. He was like his wife threatening me.
So I decided to tell my captain & G/S, I’m offloading these paxs.
Mr X took my name & my SP’s name & told us if I touch them, “I’ll make your life a living hell” & all of you will be affected including your pilots, you will all lose your job
It was again verbal harassment.
I felt so threatened for my life at this time.
I decided to call for security/police & demanded G/S to offload them & informed my captain I’m offloading them.
FYI both pax were taking a video of all these things happening.
It took awhile for the police to come & when they came onboard, they couldn’t do much as Ms X was shouting in the cabin, touch me & my baby, do what United Airlines did to the pax & you will never see the end of it. She was unruly, abusive & was using her baby as an excuse for the police not to touch them.
Ms Y 20A even shouted, stop using your baby as an excuse. Just leave the a/c.
The incident dragged for so long, nearly an hour without any actions neither from the police nor G/S. Taipei police were very gentle & soft spoken.
Captain made the announcement to inform pax of the delay.
Other pax were becoming agitated, worried about their tight flt connections in HKG.
Some vented their safety concerns as well especially 11GK paxs.
21D Ms Z, DM wrote me a letter on how well I handled the situation & even offered her seat for the husband so they will stop all these commotions & was willing to testify on our behalf.
20D Ms W approach me in L1 & told me to take pax instead as she heard the husband talking to the police & was sorry about it & to consider moving on as it was quite a long delay by now.
I had to re evaluate my decision. The delay is taking a toll on other paxs & it’s unfair that because of these 2 paxs actions, 257 other paxs are affected.
Still no actions from police & G/S. They were just merely standing in front of the pax.
I decided to speak to Mr X. He promised they won’t do anything drastic inflight. I warned him that should there be any form of harassment or any abusive languages thrown to my crew, I will make sure the Hkg police meets them on arrival.
I was very disappointed with the results as I was not able to offload these unruly paxs, considering the trauma they caused me & I had doubts as well with regards to their behaviour inflt, but I had to rule out my emotions & do what’s best for the rest of my paxs.
We finally departed with these paxs.
FYI, they were so behaved inflt & had no interaction with crew but Ms X was continuously taking videos of the crew.

FYI, according to the G/S, this was the second time it happened. Exactly the same incidents, Ms X demanding for an upgrade, again travelling with her baby.

Queries:
Accdg to the G/S this is the second incident. Why do we allow to let it happen again ?
Issues with upgrade. Do not separate a family as it will usually create a problem for crew. Regardless they agree on ground, in flight it will usually create a problem for crew.
How far can we wait? I asked G/S & eventually asked for police to intervene but still no actions done.
At this point, everyone was just waiting for me to reverse my decision. Could I have done it differently? I had my other 257 paxs in mind.
CX does not tolerate harassment at workplace. These 2 paxs were unruly, verbally abusive & threatened my job & my life causing severe trauma on my part as well as to my crew.
I recommend CX to take actions & blacklist these 2 DM in all CX & KA flights.
JCL pax are willing to give statements , just contact them particularly pax at 11G, 11K, 21G & 20D They all told me verbally to contact them should they need to testify.
I request a reply from mgt & actions on this incident the soonest."

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They should not have left with them 2 onboard. Abuse on ground already means a high chance of disruptive behaviour in the air. The fact that the 2 were abusive, threatening and disruptive is a major security risk. The flight deck needs to stand their ground offloading the pax.

They should've made everyone leave the cabin, that way, the 2 can be separated at the gate area. And what is it with HKG and TPE airport police? Just wave a gun around and demand them to surrender. Their behaviour was already threatening and warrants using a gun as a prop.

These 2 DM needs to be blacklisted, but with the current management, that will never happen. They sound like a pair of over entitled Hong Kong couple.

Lewd and disorderly behaviour? Posing a threat to aviation security and safety? Surely they can be offloaded with these reasons.

Can the loss outweigh the potential threat of the woman lashing out even worse once in the air?

From the Terms & Conditions of Carriage:

the pilot didnt hold firm to unload them?

i mean the pax presumably did not want to buckle up and take their seat? that in itself is a safety violation. And is not obeying the lawful instructions of air-crew also an offence and grounds for arrest? And if they don't want to go, resisting arrest is another crime? think its different from the david dao incident presumably because they have the court of public opinion on the ISM's side (but obviously with social media these days, it could well be this turns out different).

Best way is for CX to request HKG police to press charges and haul them up to court. Let the law deal with it.. even better if they get a criminal record or get onto a no-fly list.

This is a difficult one. As someone who lives in HK and flies CX, yes, these passengers do exist. But in Asia the whole US approach ("pull out a gun / drag people off the plane / ban people from flying) kind of thing does not have much traction. On balance, I'm happy about that. It seems like living hell flying in the US with all those crazy rules and too many FA and security staff deciding that they can cause passengers hell whenever they like. In this case, I side with the ISM, but wouldn't want police responses to become the norm.

I had a similar but opposite experience on a Sri Lankan flight out of BKK last year. Flying (paid) business class. On board, plenty of open seats and I noticed that my assigned seat had no space under the footrest so nowhere to put my small bag. Asked to move. Was moved. All sorted... or so I thought. Then the ISM (a man) comes along and ask's what's wrong. I point out that the seat didn't have any room under the footrest, this one does, all good. He then tells me I'm wrong. That all the seats are identical. So I say something like "well, if you look over here....." (just trying to point it out) At which point the guy becomes really abusive and says I'm causing trouble and he's going to throw me off the plane. Seriously crazy. The ground staff came on board and (from what I could see) mostly tried to calm the bloke down. The other FA's (all ladies) looked sympathetic and were really nice to me the whole flight. Eventually we pushed back and took off. I have no idea what was wrong with the bloke, but I suspect it was being "questioned" by a woman. This is the risk we face if we make the ISM all-powerful. The lady in the OP clearly was fine and doing her best (and I have never comes across anything on Cathay even remotely like this experience on Sri Lankan). But not all airlines staff are equally well trained (or balanced, it would seem).

i dont think cx would give a crap. nor would the police.
not unless the video of the incident get out. (hopefully shes in the union so will get backing in case cx penalize her) even then the police wont do anything. and then, cx might...

CX and police (in TPE or HKG) could careless. What would work is another pax taking a video of all this and making it viral (especially if Mr/Mrs X claims that they are influential people).

How could CX and the police care less? They seem pretty blasé already.

not really. cy leung had a load of those wrt his family (the other CYs), nothing really happened to them except the scrapegoat at avseco
i think the only one who got in sh!t was the DYKWIA CX managerial guy

Disappointing that the FA's colleagues didn't support her. CX should back their staff when faced with pax like this.

Upgrading a husband but not a wife is just asking for unhappy pax. CX has done that to me on check in, and I just either politely refuse or ask if they can give to the wife and not me. I don't expect them to upgrade me + my wife simply because they offer me an upgrade, but it does leave me less impressed with CX when they pull this.

maybe they booked seperately. i think cx should just not upgrade couples if they can only upgrade 1 not 2. pick someone else. (im saying this as a owe who may miss out too, but it'd limit the disturbance to everyone).