An Air Canada flight from Casablanca to Montreal was cancelled on Friday after a flight attendant went berserk on a passenger who asked for a blanket. The cabin for flight 73 was cold, and video shows the purser responding aggressively.
The crewmember yells in French and in English, “You will behave or we will get off!” and “I don’t want no bullying against my crew.” She also yells at passengers who were recording her rant. The blanket offender asks for the captain, and the flight attendant refuses.
The confrontation continued as the plane taxied out. Local police were called to remove the passenger. Other passengers got off in solidarity.
Air Canada flight canceled after employee went on a crazy power trip over people asking for blankets due to the cold atmosphere in the plane… pic.twitter.com/faGUPtu5O1
— Ankush sharma (@Aku_700) July 28, 2024
The flight was cancelled, and a new flight AC2073 was operated Saturday with different crew. According to the airline,
We are taking this incident very seriously. It is under review, and we will take appropriate action. We apologize to our customers and deeply regret that their experience today fell far short of what they have come to expect when flying with Air Canada.
Paddle Your Own Kanoo suggests there must be more to this story. Maybe! But Air Canada is apologizing to passengers and compensating them, and is far more passenger-friendly in their comment than usual. And sometimes crew do break down, just as passengers do. They aren’t immune!
LMAO , I wish they would give Tasers to FAs already!!
Hmmm… There are a million things that can cause any one of us to have a bad day, and clearly this FA is having one in the video. As an older and wiser boss once said to me: “All of us have good days and bad days: The key to life is to have vastly more of the former than the latter”.
Oh, Canada! Rarely does a flight crew member wake up on the wrong side of the floor.
Of course, she was absolutely in the wrong, but if you’ve ever been on YUL to either Casablanca or Algiers, and see how men behave towards women, you have some context as to why she was so unreasonably triggered. People step onto the plane in Montreal and instantly begin acting as if they’ve already arrived back home and pretenses towards Canadian liberalism are instantly abandoned.
Fly AC once a few years back on a long haul flight. This was the gate announcement. “We’re sorry ladies and gentlemen but it appears we have no plane. We’re not sure why but this happens all the time. Please come back tomorrow and hopefully one will show up. There are cards here to apply for compensation but don’t get your hopes up. They will likely blame weather and deny compensation.”
The one and only time I will ever fly them. Just imagiyhow happy Canadians would be if they weren’t stuck with them as a national airline.
@Mak, read twice before writing, that was a flight FROM Casablanca ; and anyway, FAs are used to deal with various behaviors without getting mad. That woman must be fired.
laughing, not at all difficult to imagine the identical happening on a certain American airline.
Hi Gary, why are you repeatedly covering behavioral incidents like this?
These are not travel news! Maybe a phycaetry blog material but doesn’t belong in Boarding area. Please concentrate on real travel topics, not gossiping about people behaviors.
Thanks
She needs to be banned from flying.
I like the dude with the neck pillow backwards, he’s my hero
The skanky flight attendant would fit right over at American Airlines.
This is what happens when you give flying waitresses and waiters any power,
@Theona
You beat me to it
There HAS to be more to this story. Likely we’ll never hear the rest of it.
Why was the passenger kicked off, why not the FA? I guess it’s just an extension of the already dismal state of how most airlines trat their customers.
I thought I would add my two cents into this and say here that the fault falls onto the female flight attendant because her behaviour on the flight was an Absolute disgrace and as she being a flight attendant on a flight,she should of acted in a more mature/ respectfull manner and she didn’t do that at all. She literally chose to blow a childish hissy fit toward a travelling customer over a small trivial thing ! I’m sorry, but to me she was Absolutely out of line and she should be the one who gets punished,not the customer
if the action happened as reported, the F/A should be heavily penalised. In customer service, esp. in a small confined space such as a 160 foot long tube, every day has to be a good day. No room for exhibiting bad days. Even if the male pax are “I’m in charge of everything” types they have paid a lot of money to be there. Imagine the cost of cancelling the flight, hotels, new crew, terminal parking and the inconvenience to the other passengers. In the airline where I worked she would be looking for a new job and/or a new career!
Always exude calm in a difficult situation, one thing I’ve learned as a 35-year purser at AA, even though our reputation proceeds us nowadays. I cringe at the behavior of some of my co-workers. Once she became shrill and pointing her finger at people, she lost all control of the situation. Fatigue can make you get agitated easier than under normal circumstances, but you just have to take a deep breath before you go speak to a passenger, and it’s harder for a passenger to escalate a situation f you maintain your decorum.
I asked for a pillow on a U.S.AIR flight in 1993. I’m still waiting.
I see several comments regarding how poorly AC treats passengers and their operational performance, should this airline be avoided like BA?
It could not have been so cold that people couldn’t wait until the flight got in the air and the crew had completed all of their tasks and even meal service before asking for a blanket. It was probably 100 degrees outside in Morocco. A cool plane must have felt nice. Flight crews need to secure the cabin, do the safety briefing, and help get things off on time. Asking for a blanket is not helpful. If you get cold easily, plan ahead and bring a blanket or coat. It’s not like the thin airline blankets provide much warmth anyway. I’m with the FA.
@Marcus
AC is abysmal. Read articles about them in the Canadian media. The US government had the threaten them when they cancelled flights and refused refunds. The Canadians onboard said that what we experienced was normal AC so I was one and done. I’ve not flown them but they said WestJet was the same. I’ve flown a lot over the years and that’s the only time I’ve been told the plane didn’t show up and they didn’t know why to try again tomorrow.
I wouldn’t trust a FA like that in an emergency situation. Passengers should be able to have a vote of no confidence and have crew members removed. For when crew members abuse their power.
sorry but I will think twice about flying to Calgary or YVR on Air Canada. this flight attendant is from hades
I never have flown AC. Given their bad reputation, and this bad story, I’m unlikely to choose AC. This passenger should be put on the no-fly list just for the bad behavior of actually choosing to fly AC. Why didn’t the passenger choose RAM? As a side note, during the Golden Age of Travel, aircraft air temperature was on the cool side, which was fine because passengers dressed up. But for years now, air temperatures are kept a balmy warm temperature, and actually too warm for me, yet I still observe passengers from torrid zones wearing layers of traditional costumes and hoods and robes and birkas plus western anoraks and parkas and still complaining that the air is too cold and demanding extra service. I see a lot of passengers in the video wearing bulky winter coats. Regardless, choosing to fly to Canada in the first place, much less on the sad carrier AC, means that there are a lot of weird untold facts in this story.
The FA probably got an offer to work at Delta for her Premium Meltdown skills.
I disagree with the argument that the timing could wait. It is better to have this person ranting on the ground rather than in the air. Most Asian airlines have a pillow and a packaged blanket on every seat. For airlines that don’t do that, there is usually a shortage of blankets compared to those requesting them. Asking while boarding is still going on is the best way to be assured to have one. I usually travel with a heavy jacket to have as a backup in case of not having a way to keep warm with a blanket. One time on an overnight bus in Thailand, having a heavy jacket was extremely useful because the air conditioning was pushed to the extreme. I may have been the only comfortable passenger on that bus and I may have been the only foreigner. I slept soundly. I have occasionally used my jacket on airplanes to stay warm.
I’ll be sure to ask for a blanket on my upcoming AC flight from LAX to YUL. Maybe you’ll read all about it here. They better not cancel the flight because I have a wedding in Montreal.
“It’s how they are.”
Another article about sky-waiter/waitresses abusing power they have no business holding. Kidding obviously about the sky waiter part, so not kidding about mixing ‘keeping people in line’ with service-industry level hiring requirements. Cross check yourself before you wreck yourself
I flew to Thailand on Air Canada once. Once. The business class “filet” was apparently crafted from shoe leather, and successive gate agents lied to me after a schedule change about when I would get a boarding pass for my final leg, leaving me to deal with some angry jumped-up martinets in big hats at the Hong Kong airport at 5 AM. Worst of all, their local codeshare is United Airlines, which put me through 3 weeks of lost luggage hell. Never again.
Dont most economy international flights have blankets?
“Bravo l’attitude!” says it all – no swear words or ugly gestures even though the F/A clearly was provocative. Beau style.