porciuscato

Yes, it apparently seems that way to United mgmt. too, which is why UAL has some of the crappiest service in the business. If one of my employees acted that way to a customer, they would be gone in a heartbeat. I'm sure managers at the good airlines (SIA, etc.) feel the same way.

ani90

If it is then even worse as I would imagine the airline does not rely on passenger outlets to keep them charged for the flight...besides I doubt of company issued it would be separated from it's person to the degree that the FA doesn't know where it is and the colleague couldn't recognize it.

A Little Cow

This is flyertalk...

I would've assumed it was left by a previous customer and handed it over to the FA to deal with as well. Sounds like the OP did the right thing. I've never encountered FAs charging their phones on the cabin seats before, but I guess it make some sense.

diburning

OP mentioned that this was on an E175, which meant that there's definitely a power outlet in the aft lav (as well as the front one). Couldn't the FA just have plugged it into the outlet in the aft lav and then locked the door from the outside, for an even more secure spot than just leaving it on a seat?

fumje

Yep, eating seems most common. An automated alert for the crew seems like a great idea!

honest_abe

IMHO, the OP should have asked the nice (original) attendant for the name of the offender and told her that if the offender did not come and courteously apologize for her behavior, a letter to the company president would soon follow. This would give the offender a good dose of humility and a reminder that the fault was hers while not taking it further, but if she didn't do it, there would be repercussions for her behavior.

ATLflyer2017

This seems like a ridiculous overreaction. Perhaps the FAs had a long sit in between flights and were just killing time sitting in one of the first class seats. They probably forgot about it and got up to do their preflight duties.

I am also going to assume that the way the flight attendant asked, "what did you do with my phone?" was a more playful question rather than confrontational. But even if it was, perhaps they were a bit panicked realizing their phone was no longer there.

jimg20

My concern would be that the phone belongs to the PX who got off at that airport. If so, they would be grateful that their phone did not fly on to the next city.

JimInOhio

Absolutley agree. If the attitude is to be vindictive toward this FA then that passenger is acting just as poorly. Besides, different people can come to different conclusions about the tone of the discussion and we've only heard one version. This whole thing is a classic first world problem.

hawkswin

Same thing sorta happened to me but with a passenger...after boarding a little late, I sat and saw an ipad next to my empty seat. Assuming that the cleaners missed it and it belonged to a passenger who disembarked, I gave it to the flight attendant who passed it to the gate agent. Turns out the passenger next to me went to the bathroom and got livid I did that. He got it back before pushing off but acted upset still. I've left an ipad on flights that were forever lost so just wanted someone not to have same loss I did.

CApreppie

The other side of the coin, you did board late though and didn't know if someone was sitting there already. You could have asked the FA is a passenger was sitting in the seat and if it was their iPad.

DeeKayGee

Well - ChinaShrek seems to be the only rational person responding to this thread.... !
#1 - The seat does NOT "belong" to the assigned passenger.
#2 - The phone's owner erred in not telling her colleague that she was using the charge port. The 1st class F/A was a bit hasty to assume that the phone had been left by a prior passenger.
#4 - Flight crew do not need "permission" to use any aircraft cabin facility. The tone described of the phone's owner may have been much less aggressive than reported by the OP

st530

I don't fault the OP for doing as described, but it seems to me the underlying assumption that a charging phone visible on a seat at boarding was left behind by a disembarking passenger seems extraordinarily unlikely. It would have to have been missed by (1) the disembarking passenger, (2) all the other disembarking passengers who walked past it, (3) the entire disembarking crew, (4) the cleaning crew, and (5) the incoming crew pre-boarding. If nothing else, this thread has taught me that if I ever see a device on a seat at boarding, it probably belongs to someone on board.

emcampbe

Note: the numbering scheme I've used is exactly as above:

#1 - correct.
#2 - first part is correct, but given that, second part is not (unless they somehow knew it was indeed the other FAs phone). Should F FA have assumed it was the other FAs phone? Why? I'd ask what was the more likely situation, and my guess would always be it was a better chance of a pax leaving it onboard then another FA (for the record - I lost an iPod (yeah....back in the day), when I left in on a NW plane (yeah..back in the day) in MSP. Despite realizing it not too long after I left security, I was unable to get it back, so would have appreciated something similar to what the OP did). Maybe she could have asked her, but again, think that would be the more long shot situation. At best, in hindsight, maybe they could have made an announcement asking if someone had left a charging phone in seat [insert seat #], but again, likelihood is mostly pretty small.
#4 - agreed - and very difficult to know the tone of the FA, both because of personal bias of OP likely being upset at the time, and the difficulty of assessing actual tone through any online forum.

thbe

United promises their guests „Disinfecting high-touch areas, like tray tables and armrests, before boarding“ and „Ensuring aircraft cleaning standards meet or exceed CDC guidelines“. If a FA uses a passenger‘s seat like the FA did, these promises are broken.

But it’s not only about covid. I‘m sure that the FA broke some more rules of United‘s guidelines including safety rules. And the FA have to follow these guidelines and not to invent their own ones.