N830MH

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/l...308-story.html

What a stupid move! The man is complaining about $12 blanket, but he was refused to pay for a blanket. That's make sense! No reason to be charge a blanket. Unacceptable! They should be free.

Shame on you!!!

skywardhunter

Came here after seeing the BBC article. Never heard of a blanket heeling charged for. Ridiculous!!

As is the interpretation of his comment as a threat, come on. Oversensitive much?

miamiflyer8

Norwegian Air charges for blankets, common LCC and ULCC thing.

But Hawaiian Air isn't exactly one so I think it's bad to charge for it.

Not to mention Norwegian charges about $5 for it.

chrisny2

Yup, it's right here (though apparently it's $10.): https://www.hawaiianairlines.com/our...hana-snack-bar

I don't think it's that uncommon (jetblue: https://www.jetblue.com/flying-on-jetblue/shut-eye/ ) and I'd rather have the option of purchasing one than have them just unavailable, like on AA (and DL and UA?)

skywardhunter

Or free like the rest of the world?

chrisny2

One can only dream that U.S. airlines would provide world-class service ;-)

MY-OTHER-BROTHER-"TED"

IMO, it really doesn't matter if an airline wants to charge for something, even a blanket. The problem here is that, AGAIN, a f/a dropped the "Interfering With A Flight Crew" card when a pax became pissed about what they thought was a rip off, which it just possibly might be. Diverting, possibly dumping fuel, and inconveniencing hundreds of pax's over $10 or $12 is just plain stupid. Give him the damn blanket and continue on your merry way. No need to make a BIG DEAL out of this and quite frankly embarrass the entire airline over a petty charge. The captain should have to explain to his supers why he decided to take the route that he did, and if the f/a embellished her story to him causing him to decide to divert she should be reprimanded/retrained also.

As of late looking at an airline employee cross-eyed gets you an interview with the FBI. If they can't handle an upset customer without making a federal case out of something then they need to go into a different line of work.

chrisny2

"So he asked to speak with the airline’s corporate office. During an in-flight call with company representatives, the man allegedly said, “I would like to take someone behind the woodshed for this.”"

Maybe the corporate office ordered the flight diverted...

obscure2k

One pax was quoted as saying: "“First of all, it costs $12,000 for them to land here, and it’s a $12 blanket.”
Bad publicity for HA. Also, this incident caused the flight to arrive 4 hours late in HNL. Ridiculous waste of time and money.

Grog

^ Every word of this. I have a choice in airlines coming up. It WILL NOT be Hawaiian Airlines.

MY-OTHER-BROTHER-"TED"

...and maybe they didn't! The quote that I have is from the Review Journal in Las Vegas, "The flight, which was on its way to Honolulu from Las Vegas, was diverted to LAX about 10:20 a.m. after the man told the flight crew “he needed to take someone behind the woodshed” for the blanket fee.

I don't subscribe to the L.A. Times, so perhaps you know something else, like the crew allowed him to call corporate HQ from the aircraft so they could explain their "Take No Prisoner's" position. I highly doubt any crew member hooked him up to Mr. Big, and then told the captain to GO FED, on this guy.

All this over a $12.00 BLANKEE?

Ber2dca

The problem is how do you penalize crews for unreasonable diversions without creating the talking point that your company 'culture' discourages crews from taking security risks seriously. Because if say a crew doesn't divert and then something happens, you'll be on the hook.

I mean aside from giving the dude his blanket to make him go away, the cabin temperature isn't exactly something beyond the crew's control. If it is freezing on there, turn up the heat a bit. You're going to Hawaii!

chrisny2

You could just click the link in the original post. I don't subscribe either.

But their reporting is from an LAPD spokesperson.

Anyway "all this over a $12 blankee" should probably be directed at the dude on the plane who couldn't just calm down.

maggersmagoo

The blankets on Hawaiian are available for purchase, it's not just a rental fee. (They are actually pretty nice, I use mine almost every time I fly.) Is it really fair or reasonable that the crew should have just given him one because he's making a scene? If this guy didn't want to pay for a blanket on the plane, he should have brought a sweater. Have you been on a plane before? Sometimes they're hot, a lot of times they are cold. Yeah, it's annoying that airlines don't give us everything for free anymore, but that's just the way it is. At least Hawaiian still provides free meals in coach, with a free glass of wine to go with it.

Also, if he was being this unruly over a blanket an hour into the flight, who knows what he might have done a few hours later when the plane is in the middle of the ocean and now would have to be diverted even further out of the way.

STS-134

Ever hear of using common sense? In this particular case, I don't think it made sense to dump fuel and divert and inconvenience so many other people.