On Thursday, American Airlines flight 950 from São Paulo to New York JFK was delayed 30 minutes by weather. As the Boeing 787-9 began taxiing out to runway 28R, a business class passenger got up from her seat and confronted a flight attendant at the rear galley. There was a heated exchange – shouting and insults – as the woman questioned the flight attendant over the delay.
The crewmember alerted the captain about a woman who wouldn’t stay seated during taxi. They returned to the gate to remove the woman. The u-turn angered her, and when she realized this was about her, she rose from her seat again, approached the front of the cabin, and as one of the pilot exited the lavatory, she went off on him about the delay.
This was treated as an attempt to breach the cockpit, and the woman was restrained by crew – pinning her to the floor of the cabin. She can be heard in a passenger’s video shouting in Portuguese, “Aren’t you ashamed? I’ll kick you in the balls.”
Mais confusão em um voo da American Airlines!
Desta vez, uma passageira brasileira foi até a cabine do voo AA950, que partiria de Guarulhos para o JFK, e cobrou o piloto sobre o atraso
Ela foi contida por um dos comissários e, posteriormente, proferiu ofensas homofóbicas. pic.twitter.com/HNfHXrvr0L
— AEROIN (@aero_in) April 28, 2025
A passenger seated in 1D intervened, calling out to someone identified as Caio to stop restraining the woman while simultaneously urging her to calm down. The restrained passenger continued directing insults and using explicit and homophobic language towards flight attendants including
You son of a bitch, disgusting, you can’t touch me, you don’t know who you’re talking to, you’re going to get screwed. I went to ask why I was late and this faggot threw me out.
American Airlines Concept D Business Class
Ultimately, the woman and the male passenger from seat 1D, along with their companions, were taken off the plane by authorities. The April 24 flight was ultimately delayed about two and a half hours.
One reader who shared this to me wrote, “Another Karen, this time on AA GRU-JFK trying to invade” the cockpit.
I watched the video on OMAT. She deserved to be tackled. She should be arrested and put on a permanent No Fly List. Next time let her take a slow boat to South America.
What a idiot. She thinks what the pilots control the weather? The bit$$ was sitting in business class. Like sitting in a lie flat seat for 30 minutes is some kind of crime against humanity.
@George N Romey — You forgot to include your typical reference to Cluster B personality disorders. It’s sad. I presume this lady just needs help. So many undiagnosed psychological issues. While it is tempting to immediately go to the n-th degree (Burn her! She’s a witch! Deport her! No fly list!), I urge a little more understanding and patience. This person is not a literal terrorist. Let’s turn down the temperature, please.
This could have been much worse. An aggressive rude passenger got a salsa style dip to the floor.
Slightly off topic but it seems like the term “Karen” is beginning to lose its central meaning, which hopefully means it will soon fizzle out as a pejorative.
Some people are just crazy and stupid, but one has to consider that this is more likely to be related to taking a benzodiazapine based drug to help sleep on an overnight flight.
It wasn’t so long ago that JFK-GRU was AA’s single most profitable route. Now it’s been down-gauged to a 787 while AA is flying 777s to leisure destinations from PHL? How did AA let that happen?
Yeah, pretty sure she was decidedly *not* “another Karen.”
Ah the good old USA where the ignoratti are encouraged to behave in a truly classless fashion by a crazy rude cruel president. Make America Gross Again.
There is another crime here that wasn’t reported – after “Karen” and her traveling companions were ejected those business class seats went empty for remainder of the fright.
@Mak — Speaking of ‘down-gaging,’ one of those 787s now flies PHL-DOH, which used to be covered by OW partner, QR, sometimes with Q-Suite in Business Class. Can you imagine the disappointment of expecting/hoping to experience the worlds best airline, then just getting American Airlines lackluster ‘service’ (both hard and soft products are objectively inferior to QR).
Once this gets to the USA gov she will be turned right back around at jfk deported and banned! She really done messed up for good here! This administration is not playing around at all.
Why are we having so many badly-behaving (and worse) people where we aren’t used to see them, from heads of state down?
@Rozellevm — Do you even read the articles before you comment? I’ll help you. Gary wrote: “Ultimately, the woman and the male passenger from seat 1D, along with their companions, were taken off the plane by authorities.” They never flew to JFK. Also, ‘deportation’ for this incident would probably be considered ‘cruel and unusual’ if not ‘arbitrary’ punishment. As I said above: Folks. Please Turn. Down. The. Temp. Please. Stop the brinksmanship. We don’t need to ‘burn the witch.’
Came for the comments; was not disappointed!
@1990 “cluster B personality disorder” also known as parents didn’t tell you “no” often enough and now you have the mind of an eight year old in the body of a grownup.
Pretty much?
Ah, the ugly people in the expensive seats that are often catered to.
Speaking of lack of class, did anyone notice the barefoot passenger at the beginning of the video who was watching from part way in the aisle?
“Mike Judge was unavailable for comment.”
AA FAs often see passengers as a “necessary annoyance” and rarely put in professional effort on their job, but in this case, they were spot on in neutralizing the aggressive, entitled lady.
Homophobic language, the “you don’t know who you’re talking to” part, traveling in business class…
100% sure that Karen is an empowered “Bolsonarista”, the equivalent to a MAGA in the US. Unbearable People!
@1990 You seem to want to give a pass to adults that think toddler behavior is perfectly acceptable. If she has mental health issues that’s up to her to get help. That’s what an adult is about-making adult decisions. And yes she’s a total Cluster B. In her world she was the only passenger on that flight that mattered.
In my carryon I have a piece of piano wire connected to two rings on each end. When some nutcaee goes off, you just flip it over and around their neck and pull tight. They’ll calm right down.
I was held hostage once for 12 hours on a flight from Chicago to New York. For roughly 6 of those hours, the aircraft was powered down with no air conditioning. And who hasn’t had a “20 minutes delay” drag on-15 minutes at a time-for hours? Airlines don’t control the weather,but sometimes the way passengers are treated is inexcusable.
Who is Caio???? People want to know!!!
DFWSteve: “In my carryon I have a piece of piano wire connected to two rings on each end. When some nutcaee [sic] goes off, you just flip it over and around their neck and pull tight. They’ll calm right down.”
Nutcase says what?
JimC2: “cluster B personality disorder” also known as parents didn’t tell you “no” often enough and now you have the mind of an eight year old in the body of a grownup. Pretty much?
Pretty much no.
Who’s the guy with no foot coverings? That’s gross…
@1990 – Every day, fighting the good fight.
Barefoot guy (presumably crazy woman’s husband) showed an enormous amount of uncouthness here. As recently as the 80s you would never see a guy like that, acting like a farm animal, on a plane, let alone up front.
Even, or perhaps especially, in business class you can find gross people. Let’s speculate – if she had found out what caused the delay what was she going to do about it? Demand another drink? Sheesh.
@Steve. Many of us very frequent travelers have run out of patience for loutish and often dangerous behavior on commercial aircraft. We desire others to to as we do: be patient, quiet and respectful of others. But when the abusive behavior gets intolerable, extraordinary measures will be taken. The perp asked for it. So he gets it.
this behavior should not be tolerated. massive civil fines.at least.
it’s really time to put a stop to this insanity justifying it by saying “they didn’t get the
help they needed”. I agree. next time it’s the banana boat to Brazil. or wherever….