Not Sure How to Classify This
 

Flying ATL-GRR a couple of weeks ago in F - seat 1C on an Airbus 320. About an hour into the 110 minute flight, a pax from coach stumbles up into the first class galley, helps himself to some snacks (the in-flight lead is in the back chatting with the other FAs). The pax then goes into the F lav. About five minutes later, the guy stumbles out and I stood up so that I could take my turn in the lav. The guy fell into me, knocking my head against the overhead bin. He reeked of alcohol and smelled like vomit. Uninjured, I pushed him away and he made his way back to coach. I opened the lav door and it, too, reeked of vomit.

Disgusted, I went to the back of the plane, passing the in-flight lead on his way back up front. I told him that I wanted to chat when I got back to my seat. After having taken care of business in the rear lav, I headed back up to my seat and rang the FA call button as I sat down. The in-flight lead approached and I explained to him what had happened. He became very defensive and walked back to the galley.

I rang the call button again and this time, the FA waited until another flight attendant came up to F. The in-flight lead then explained to me that he did not feel comfortable dealing with this situation and informed those of us in F that the other flight attendant would be completing our service. I asked the new FA if a report would be prepared to document the situation. She also was very defensive and refused to engage me in any conversation.

Once the flight terminated, two police officers and a sergeant met the flight and one of the officers and the sergeant escorted me from the plane and attempted to question me about disrupting the flight. I didn't answer any questions and within five minutes, I was told that I was free to go.

Now, I'm not new to this rodeo, but this behavior seems pretty extreme to me. It seems as though the FAs were maybe worried about being accused of over-serving the coach pax and decided to make the issue about me instead, but I am confident that I did nothing that could even be remotely described as disrupting the flight. However, I have seen situations where FAs behaving badly have pulled this kind of shena in order to deflect blame from their own missteps. My experience is only anecdotal, but I have seen this kind of thing happen maybe five times in as many years. I know flight crews have a lot of leeway these days in how they treat people, but false reporting behavior as criminal to avoid scrutiny for their own actions seems way over the line. I would hope there would be controls in place to prevent these situations. Anyone else see this kind of thing happening?

Too bad you don't have a blog to hawk. You could have manufactured a lot of hits with a story like this.

Another theory is that the drunk was a non-rev and the flight attendants were trying to protect their coworker. Did you send in a complaint to Delta?

Any chance that there might be another side to this story? IBTL

I would write a concise letter to DL, outlining what exactly happened.

I would point out that the police did not detain you and that this is a strong indication that they, too, felt that the FA's response was overblown.

I would say that I expect that this incident will be fully investigated, and that I feel a formal apology from DL is warranted (mention the unnecessary embarrassment of having been escorted off the plane my law enforcement).

I would conclude by pointing out that I do not expect any repercussions with regard to how I am treated by DL in the future and that I would appropriately respond if I have reason to believe that I have received any inappropriate treatment.

[Oh, by the way, prepare to be flamed by folks who will assert that you are making this all up.]

I believe the OP, but I could see a few things that might have caused the lead FA to get the wrong idea.

Any chance the OP smelled of vomit/alcohol from the adventure as he met the FA?

Any chance the OP was a bit agitated and did not communicate clearly?

It is hard to believe the FA would have acted as they did with the correct understanding of the full facts.

That would be the last thing for a rouge FA to do.

If they wanted to protect the non-rev, then say they will keep the drunk under control, plead mea-culpa, give out SMs, anything to placate the OP. Not escalate an issue.

What exactly was your goal in talking with the FA?

Not sure about the OP's goal but mine might have been:

1. Alert the flight crew that there was drunk on board stumbling around who may cause injury to others.

2. Alert the flight crew that there was drunk on board who may cause an issue when they need to puke again.

3. Alert the flight crew that there was drunk on board whom just puked in the FC lav making it unusable for other PAX.

4. Alert the flight crew that there was drunk on board stealing food from the FC cabin.

Since the cops were called I would have to assume the crew had to file some paperwork with DL. So, there crew's side of the story should already be documented.

Because of that I think it's worthwhile for OP to contact DL. The incident has likely gone onto the OPs "permeant record" and could create a nasty surprise of being refused transport at a future date.

I don't know how the OP handled the crew and what might have happened when he gave them an earful about playing Chatty Cathy in the aft section, however, he did the exact correct thing when dealing with the cops. ^

These flight attendants should have to reimburse the airport authority/city of Grand Rapids for wasting police services. I still say it could have have been a non-rev. Why would the flight attendants protect a drunk passenger and send a concerned passenger off to deal with the police? A non-rev also is far more likely to know where the snacks are stored in the galley.

Sorry, this story is missing a lot of information.

A flight attendant isn't going to have police pull you off a flight because you report a drunk passenger. Sorry, not buying it.

Reading between the lines, I'm guessing you went over the top trying to tell the FA they weren't doing their job, etc.

So do you agree with the BS rule of "you must obey all flight crew instructions" which gives the flight attendants the power to do anything they please?

Actually I find it very easy to believe. I have seen something similar when a passenger made a complaint. I expect that the only reason there was not something like the police escort was that there were a couple of us complaining. The FA working First basically said "no one disrupted the flight but you" after the woman next to me was groped by a drunk " FA refused to deal with the drunk but did at least quit going off to visit with her friends. (It was a cross country flight, the FA team has spent the entire time gossiping in the aft galley after a quick service. Due to flight departure time there was no meal service....)

In our case the FA said "well you must have given him a reason to grab you" That's when some of the other passengers jumped in and gave him "you know what" The female actually did ask for the police to meet the plane so she could file a complaint. At that point the FA suddenly got "religion" LOL! (I think the female passenger did file a complaint, I have no idea what happened, I had given her my name and number)

So the "protect myself" feature is alive and well with some FAs. If it looks like it's going to cause them problems they play the "shoot the messenger" game.

This is at least a plausible explanation. Though, the only times I have ever seen police meet a flight and detain someone was when the FAs felt they were threatened and their safety was in jeopardy which does, in fact, make me wonder if the OP's complaints, gestures, etc. were misconstrued.