One of the more controversial aspects of flying is whether coach passengers should use the first class lavatory. American Airlines doesn’t have any rule against it on first class flights, but a woman of Middle Eastern and Latin descent Yazz Giraldo brought her three year old up from the bulkhead row of coach when he desperately had to go – and a flight attendant locked them into the lavatory. When she finally let them out she informed them they were responsible for a ‘terrorist incident’ and law enforcement met the plane.
This was all unfolding unbeknownst to the woman’s husband, also on the plane, a former FBI agent member of the Joint Terrorism Task Force. This is hardly the first time American Airlines has responded poorly to flight attendants accusing someone of being a terrorist because they thought the passenger was Muslim. Although some readers may think that a coach passenger using the first class lav is, itself, a terrorist act.
The incident occurred on board a flight from Fort Lauderdale to New York JFK in September, and is now coming to light because of a lawsuit filed last week against American Airlines. In it, the mother explains that she was initially told she couldn’t use the first class lavatory but went to use the one at the rear of the aircraft. But a second flight attendant at the rear galley told her it was fine to use the forward lav, “everybody else was using it,” and when her three year old child had to go and simply could not wait she decided to use the one closest to them which didn’t have a line.
It’s that original first class flight attendant who told them she couldn’t use the restroom up front who allegedly locked her in.
“I closed the door, when I’m inside the bathroom I start hearing the noise, ‘tick, tick, tick,’” she said of the sound of the door locking. “I freaked out. I was already under so much stress. … I started to panic, I banged on the door a few times and I said, ‘Let me out of here.’”
“She was punishing me for challenging her,” Giraldo, 36, a former television host who speaks three languages, said of the flight attendant, who was not identified in the lawsuit.
Here’s the accused terrorist family:
The woman and her husband spoke Farsi to their children early in the flight, flagging them for the suspicious flight attendant. The husband, by the way, is also a former Pennsylvania prosecutor. And their interrogation on the ground lasted only 15 minutes when the responding officers realized it was highly unlikely they were terrorists.
According to American Airlines,
American strives to provide a positive and welcoming experience to everyone who travels with us and we take allegations of discrimination very seriously. We are reviewing the details of the lawsuit.
An Italian University of Pennsylania economist was once kicked off an American flight because a passenger thought he looked Arabic and was doing math equations. Math symbols look foreign and scary because Americans are bad at math. The Economist at the time offered a helpful guide for determining if your seatmate is an economist or a terrorist (He refuses to listen to the safety announcement because “in the long run, we’re all dead”…).
Few things in this world are as dangerous as a fool put in a position of unaccountable power over their betters.
A very poor employee who needs to be let go.
This country is such a joke sometimes. People claim racism doesn’t exist any more, and then sh$t like this happens. Judging from those pictures, they couldn’t be much closer to the American ideal of a “perfect” family. Also, dad’s Christmas shirt is actually kinda funny, hah.
That’s one way to keep the kettle lice out of the first class cabin.
Locking the restroom door from the outside knowing someone is inside during a flight has to be a major violation in and of itself, worthy of serious disciplinary action against the FA. What if there would be turbulence or an emergency and a person couldn’t get out to their seat? American will be out, probably seven figures, in the settlement, and deservedly so. The FA should be dismissed.
You have got to be kidding me, this did not happen, this couldn’t have happened. What!!! It’s a new LOW for this airline. I hope they get sued to kingdom come, the whole situation is just horrifying!!!
Sky waitress needs to be jailed for unlawful imprisonment / kidnap, and the rest of the sky monkeys reminded of what their actual job is.
Regardless of any union agreements this FA needs to be fired and frankly should face criminal charges for false imprisonment and kidnapping (which can occur if someone is restrained in any way). AA will be paying dearly for it and likely is already negotiating a settlement. Bad enough it happened to anyone but to the wife of a former prosecutor and FBI agent assigned to a joint terrorism task force really compounds it. He not only knows all the legal issues (both civil and criminal) that could be filed agent AA and individually against this FA (and AA would provide her name and other info under discovery) but likely has the will and certainly the connections to pursue them. If this happened to my wife I would go scorched earth and do anything I was able to do to both get compensation and seek damages against the airline and the FA.
The comments here make me feel a little better. This FA needs some serious consequences and her peers need to see it.
Why is it so hard for the companies to tell power-tripping flight attendants at some of these airlines that they are NOT free to exercise their own judgment if it means doing something to a passenger that is outside of company passenger service specifications?
Surely, a quick call to the cockpit or even a call to a flight attendant supervisor – just about every plane has the ability for crew members to call ground-based supervisors – would prevent most of this stuff.
We have stories of flight attendants demanding that passengers clean up food, making determinations about terroristic behavior and other off-the-wall judgments.
Why can’t airlines tell flight attendants that if you do this kind of stuff and it is outside of customer service standards and you don’t get someone to back your actions and conclusions up, you will be fired? Locking someone up in the lav or delaying a plane in order to have it cleaned by a passenger provide enough time to ask someone for a second opinion.
Flight attendants are the real terrorists. (sometimes)
Did Boeing and other aircraft manufacturers design their aircraft lavatories so American Airlines flight attendants could use a washroom to deliberately imprison a three-year-old and their mother from the other passengers until landing? As aircraft lavatories do not have passenger seatbelts, and the industry’s best practice is “safety first,” is there an FAA Airworthiness Directive regarding imprisoning toddlers and their mothers in a toilet?
I remember when a Delta Airlines pilot got locked in the airplane bathroom, and a passenger “with a thick foreign accent” tried to help by knocking on the cockpit door. The co-pilot declared an emergency. Here is the video link to the CBS news story: https://youtu.be/P71QBpOSslA
Oh, dear. After my last flight, I forgot to email my airline and cc major news media that not only did I throw popcorn all over the cabin, but also that I am a self-aborbed mom with a minor and that I am married to someone who works for the U.S. federal government, and where is my compensatory lifetiime Global Services status?
No, I just buy my upper class reserved seat and quietly read my own book and eat my own granola bar and ask for hot tea if is offered. I guess that I don’t make any money for the entertainment industry nor for the legal industry.
Sadly and embarrassingly, this again is another example of a racist AA flight attendant showing the world how, despite its dogged efforts to change the narrative, American has a long ways to go in changing the culture of many of its frontline team members.
I dont know, American Airlines: Maybe a mother holding a baby desperately needing to pee isn’t a security issue? And, if I’m not mistaken, there’s TSA checks prior and procedure on board to secure the flight deck (i.e., locked cabin door). I hope Ms. Giraldo and her family enjoy owning a piece of American Airlines. 😉
Correcting my typo above,: I should have written Delta Air Lines, not Delta Airlines.
I’m sure once the whole story comes out it will not be what you think it is.
I didn’t know lavatories on aircraft…commercial at least.. could be locked from outside
Lavatories are locked from the outside as part of the routine protocol before takeoff and landing, so as to activate the “Occupied” lights as a further deterrent to passengers getting out of their seats during this time.
I sat with them in 8F. The father was eight or so rows back in the middle seat. I recall my heart strings getting pulled when I told the mother that I will be glad to help entertain her son but that I won’t sit ten rows back in the middle. She was wishing otherwise but she was kind in her disappointment and as a father of three I held up my end. I recognized neither the father nor the mother. As an aside, I am retired from 26 years in alphabet soup law enforcement. I recall there was a shout up front and the mom returned with the child and the mom was distressed. Later she was approached by a flight attendant while seated and shared in a muted and eventually heated exchange where apologies were demanded. After landing we were required to remain seated until law enforcement (LE) boarded. The uniformed officers appeared abruptly as I had the window seat and as their eyes scanned row 8 and they came to rest upon the mother, their expressions were rightly “really”? LE politely advised the mother to grab her belongings and join them with the adult male in her party. And the family did just that.
Over the years I’ve verbally scuffled with TSA and flight attendants and other folks exercising perceived yet fantastical authority. I have tried to be patient with folks whose job is the management of “guests” but having this first hand experience indicates to me a real disconnect between flight attendant responsibility, behavior, and their available course of action should they feel slighted in some manner. And of course, I’d be glad to testify if called regarding the 0 terror related indicators the mother demonstrated during her time next to me.
While the lavs can be locked from outside doesn’t that just do the same thing as locking from inside, thus permitting anyone within to exit normally?
And why is this just a civil lawsuit rather than the FA being in jail for kidnapping?
@Loren – suspect criminal charges have been discussed or may be in process. Also hopefully they sue the FA individually- her actions went way beyond any reasonable fun of her job. Also send her butt out to pasture. Not only does it get rid of a power mad FA w poor jut but hopefully sends a message to other FAs.
Name and shame and fire the FA.
The sooner we can put robots as flight attendants the better off the flying experience will be for the rest of us.
Per usual, an ignorant passenger trying to take advantage of a sensational airline story. People, think logically. What would the flight attendant have to gain from trying to “lock in” the passenger in the bathroom? The bathroom can very easily be unlocked from the person inside the bathroom… this is no detaining method. I bet you anything that the woman didn’t lock the door behind her (passengers never lock the bathroom door, don’t ask me why) and the flight attendant helped her out from being walked in on and locked the door for her from the outside – i’ve certainly done that for passengers. Why can’t you people think critically? The mental hoops one has to jump through to come to these conclusions is crazy.
Trina, per usual, babbling and automatically taking the sky waitresses side. Baaaaaah…
I once used a bathroom which was blocked by a drinks trolley. I am slim so managed to get round it. I got reamed by FA as unknown to me it was for business class. I was at the front of cattle class and on many airlines the toilet between the two areas can be used by either.
USA! USA! USA!
@ Steve… I certainly understand you not wanting to downgrade your seating from 8F to 10 rows back. In situations like this, I always wonder … did they ask dad’s seatmates whether they’d like to move up 10 rows, so mom and toddler could sit with dad?
I’ve seen racism in action over lavatory use on US airlines’ flights. Sometimes the very same FAs who would let a “white male” or “white female” to use the forward lavatory by themselves or with a child but would immediately thereafter prohibit “brown male” or “brown female” trying to do the same with the open lavatory even when trying to take along a small child in need of the lavatory. Shameful racism in action, and then sometimes the child seeks an explanation for why they were refused when the person who just came back had done the same without issue.
I wish this family all the luck in the world in their litigation and/or settlement against the airline.
Why are so many of these horror stories about AA? Am I imagining this??? I don’t fly AA, but might have to this summer. Ought I seriously, tho inconvenient, avoid AA altogether?
There has to be a unified message for flight attendants who think they are entitled to imprison people, act as law enforcement, make their own policies, have opinions, etc:
SHUT UP AND POUR THE DRINKS.
One voice, every time, until they get it.
I’m not sure many of you have ever flown in a plane. Unless the F/A threw herself on the floor in front of the lav door or put a cart in front of it, the door can easily be opened from the inside. Nutty story. I’m so glad all my flights are drama free and I actually get nice passengers to engage with across the oceans. A lot of you sound like 15 year old idiots in here that need to grow up.
Flyer1 – ok, bootlicker.
Where the hell is AA management?? From the CEO on down, management needs to be called out for the obvious lack of training. Using the Law Suit “No Comment” defense is nonsense. The F-A is an idiot but her bosses must also face action.
Multimillion Miler EP here. I dread flying AA now. The only time the smile or sound cheerful is when they are trying to get you to sign up for the Barclays AA card.
I hope that AA has to pay enough that it makes them reflect on their policies aimed at their customers.
@Fred, we get it. You hate flight attendants, your job, your life, your family. I’m glad you get to feel good every time you post something hateful. It must be so tiring being you. I’m exhausted just thinking about it. Hope you have a really nice day. There are a lot of kind people out here. If you’d just slow your roll you might notice a few.
This story is BS. So the passenger was sitting in the dark in a lav? The lights dont turn on till you lock the door. Yeah whatever. Even if the FA locked it, the pax just has to unlock it.
Flyer1 says:
April 23, 2023 at 6:34 pm
I’m not sure many of you have ever flown in a plane. Unless the F/A threw herself on the floor in front of the lav door or put a cart in front of it, the door can easily be opened from the inside. Nutty story. I’m so glad all my flights are drama free and I actually get nice passengers to engage with across the oceans. A lot of you sound like 15 year old idiots in here that need to grow up.
@Fred, we get it. You hate flight attendants, your job, your life, your family. I’m glad you get to feel good every time you post something hateful. It must be so tiring being you. I’m exhausted just thinking about it. Hope you have a really nice day. There are a lot of kind people out here. If you’d just slow your roll you might notice a
Here is flyer1 (AA FA) profiling everyone that makes a post as having as hating their job and life and discarding remarks. The posts over and over state what a wonderful person she is and every passenger on her plane as wonderful (like she has not had a bad passenger) and her family is perfect. The comments are passive aggressive, vile and full of hatred. Get a mental exam.
The person trolls those that make posts as horrible people yet Flyer1 visits and makes many posts like others.