http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/ap...WS01/512100348

"Personally I'm upset that they left this guy with a weapon in his hand for so long," Jean-Francois said. "We're quite upset with how they handled it. If he really wanted to do something, he could have done a lot of things."

He could have done so without giving any indication of malicious intent, you moron. Weapon indeed.

At least this guy didn't end up dead.

There seems to be too many nutcases traveling nowadays. Perhaps, it's because it's the holidays.

Why would "nutcases traveling" be different now than in the past?

Perhaps it seems that way to some because some such people just pay more attention and because many others have become hypersensitive to anything to do with even a tangential connection to aviation.

Watched a guy get escorted off the SLC to LGA flight last night ... Plan landed and parked at the gate but the seatbelt light never turned off ... next thing we know 2 unformed officers were on the plane and escorting someone off with his hands behind his back ...

Do people not realize that if you screw with an FA you are just not going to win that battle?

No surprise. What did he allegedly do or what was the exact situation that transpired?

In any event (at least other ones), FAs and others -- in positions of "authority" -- have just become more hypersensitive and quicker to shoot first and ask questions later these last few years. No surprise.

At the same time, accountability has decreased -- unless you are a subject.

What holidays, exactly, do Dec. 7th and Dec. 10th correspond to? I fail to see how two unrelated pax incidents in early Dec. correlate to anything on which to draw any sort of reasonable conclusion ...

Very clever satire. Pretty funny, too. ^

I'm going to take a wild stab at it and simply guess that they mean, rightly or wrongly, that there are likely many more rookie pax, perhaps under stress as the holiday season approaches.

Mark

I am glad Airline Crew have decided to be more active in cabin management. I've seen plenty of examples of situation where a PAX is acting irrationally and FAs have done nothing except "sir, we're going to have to ask you to take your seat, etc." When that doesn't work, what other choice do they have?

Because you are dealing with a sensitive piece of equipment (airplane) and the safety of 100s of people, there has to be a pretty severe "or else" to maintain order. Whether the PAX is drunk, disturbed or just plain mean is pretty much beside the point. If they're out of line, I hope they get called on it. The safety of me and my fellow passengers is on the line.

FAs have an extraordinarily difficult job - I'm glad they have the tools to sanction troublemakers.

At least he didn't yell "bomb".

.... but FAs (and other members of the flight crew) sometimes sanction non-troublemakers with impunity.

...in the context of domestic airline FA's, care to give an example(s) of an actual situation to illustrate the sanctioning of non-troublemakers with impunity ?

Flight scheduled to go from A to B became a flight going from A to C to D to B and passengers going from A to B were not informed until after boarding and additional passengers were loaded. Upon finding this out, a passenger simply makes a light-hearted comment and, to that effect, asked the FA something akin to: "if the plane was going to stop at multiple places (where before it was non-stop) then should he expect that they would be stopping at X, Y, and Z too?" [The tone was not even sarcastic as he was smiling and had a light chuckle when he said it.]

A few minutes later, the FA got the pilot who then came out and yelled at the passenger and told him to shut-up and not bother "[his] crew". And at that time the pilot had him moved to the back. Passenger complied and kept quiet. A few minutes later the pilot came back and kicked him off the flight. The passenger wisely kept his mouth shut and complied fully.

I hope he wrote a nice little letter to NW and got something for it.

Yeah- I hope he did too. That was just WRONG. An integral part of a flight crew member's job is to handle authority responsibly and within the confines of the context in which it is granted. Obviously, not all handle it properly.

Just as a side note- in reference to your comment "accountability has decreased"- in regards to commercial airline security in general- I agree. However, some companies are more sensitive to maintaining proper limits than others- for example- at mine- if I take "action" against a passenger- I've got explaining to do- and reports to fill out. and I better have a really relevant and sound reason. Or things will get very uncomfortable for me. (Thankfully- I have never had to give this policy a whirl-)