A video of an altercation between an American Airlines flight attendant and a passenger went viral after the flight attendant reportedly grabbed the passenger’s stroller and nearly hit her baby in the process.
A different passenger approaches and asks the flight attendant’s name, presumably so he could file a complain about the man’s behavior towards the mother.
Nearly two minutes into the video this man has watched all he can as the woman cries. He gets up and intervenes. The flight attendant flails at him and orders “you stay out of this.”
American Airlines suspended the crew member, apologized publicly, and upgrade the woman and her family. Clearly the airline acted quickly to get out ahead of a video that’s spread virally across the world in the 24 hours since the incident.
Via David Koenig Association of Professional Flight Attendants President Bob Ross, representing flight attendants at the airline, put out a statement. And it’s deplorable.
The goal of our 26,000 members is to make every flight safe and secure for our passengers and crew. All passengers deserve to be treated with respect. We also must assure that our Flight Attendants are treated respectfully and safely on board.
Our dedicated Flight Attendants at American strive every day to make the passenger experience the best in the industry. However this has become more challenging due to tight schedules, overcrowded planes, shrinking seats, and limited overhead bin space. All of these factors are related to corporate decisions beyond the control of passengers and Flight Attendants.
There are really two stories here related to the incident aboard a San Francisco to Dallas flight. One, we don’t know all of the facts related to a passenger who became distraught while boarding a plane and therefore neither the company nor the public should rush to judgment.
Second, it appears another passenger may have threatened a Flight Attendant with violence, which is a violation of federal law and no small matter. Air rage has become a serious issue on our flights.
We must obtain the full facts surrounding these incidents. Our passengers and the Flight Attendants deserve nothing less.
The statement begins with the goal of union flight attendants to provide security, and not service. Any frequent flyer will tell you that a flight which begins with an announcement that flight attendants are there ‘primarily for your safety’ is going to be a Very. Long. Flight.
The concern then emphasizes the importance of better treatment for flight attendants, not customers.
The flight attendants union statement fails to even mention the passenger in the video until the 7th sentence — and only then does so in the passive voice describing her as becoming “distraught while boarding a plane” as though it simply ‘happened’ and the flight attendant in the video had nothing whatsoever to do with it.
He says flight attendants try to provide a good passenger experience, but if they don’t it’s the airline’s fault for myriad reasons — so don’t blame a flight attendant, apparently, no matter how a flight attendant treats a customer. Shameful.
In addition to the whole thing really being the airline’s fault, apparently the focus of our anger should be the passenger who tried to stick up for the crying mother because that’s a violation of federal law and air rage — once again turning customer service challenges into law enforcement problems, exactly what precipitated the United Airlines incident where the airline called Chicago Aviation Police who dragged a passenger off a plane and bloodied him.
I can only hope that the elected President of American’s flight attendants doesn’t actually represent their sentiment.
The proper response, it seems to me, is to say that ‘one bad apple’ in no way reflects the dedicated, professionalism, and service that American’s 26,000 flight attendants strive for day and in day out.
But he can’t do that without being seen as weak to his base, so not releasing any statement at all would have better.
Any “leader” who thinks a FA shouting “hit me, hit me” deserves to be defended in public (as opposed to maybe trying to get him anger management training in private as well as retraining as to his job) should think again.
So the FA union is trying to undo AA’s attempt to minimize the harm that the airline has done by admitting this was not okay and announcing that they had taken care of the passenger (rebooked, upgraded). Maybe if they are successful more FA will lose their jobs due to passengers booking away from the airline – exactly what AA management seemed to be trying to avoid by their prompt and respectful response.
Passenger like an idiot tries to bring a double wide stroller down the aisle. Case closed liked so many others before it. Bloggers continue generating garbage.
Outrageous. Of course, the Flight Attendant should be investigated for what appears to be an assault, and indicted if the facts hear that out, but I certainly hope that the flight attendants will realize that they are represented by a person who is unfit to do so, and call for the resignation of APFA President Bob Ross. Like Oscar Munoz, these people do not have the moral standing to lead their organizations. If I was a member of the APFA, I would certainly want the public to know that Bob Ross does not speak for me.
I’m sure the FA could’ve handled it better, but some fault has to be put on the passenger here.
The FA handles it poorly – he gets punished. The passenger violates the rules by bringing the stroller on board – she gets upgraded to international first class. That’s some imbalance.
@Mike – Sorry everyone doesn’t travel as much as you do and isn’t as smart. Grabbing the stroller, slinging it around and berating passengers still isn’t the proper response, even if she is as brilliant as you.
She’s a mom that has enough on her plate to have a double stroller. Cut her a break. My smart wife wasn’t 100% when she was traveling with our twins when they were stroller age either. And this woman might travel less than most. Evacuate, you know, she had two freakin’ kids in a stroller and might not know to check it.
@Mike, so please let us know how you decided that assault is the appropriate punishment for bringing a stroller on board? Apparently you think that punishment should be implemented by the FA without any sort of due process, but I’m wondering what training or expertise allows an FA to stand as judge and jury — over the passenger’s actions and their own? What other punishments should FA’s mete out for passenger errors? What do you think the appropriate punishment would be for ringing the call button too many times?
As a traveler, I know that stuff like this happens all the time, and FAs get away with all sorts of passenger abuses, large and small. Its way past time for the FAA and passengers to take away this license to abuse passengers. Flight attendants are not law enforcement officers — full stop — and should not have any such authority.
It does appear the unions are protecting some airlines’ staff so that they feel they can bully passengers without worry. They tend to nurse labor issues into grudges which encourages surliness and even threatening behavior. I don’t see this in the non-union environments where staff tends to be more of a team with the airline instead of an adversarial block. So this is a flaw in unions that needs to be dealt with so they can continue to help keep wages high which is what they are vitally needed for and without which you have slave-wage markets like the ignorant racist South has largely driven in this country. A slave-wage is any that doesn’t cover all basic living expenses and allow a decent standard of living. Almost all other modern nations now have better quality of life ratings than ours.
@Hao – Again, the offense didn’t require the response and anger. Jaywalking doesn’t allow the policeman to swing something around and threaten to fight bystanders.
On AA739 LIS-PHL Friday 4/21 the Captain announced that all passengers had boarded and we would be underway shortly. This announcement was 20 minutes before scheduled departure. A passenger immediately asked a flight attendant if the Captains announcement meant we would be leaving early? Her response, “We have very strict policies and procedures that we must follow.” All this with a surly puss on her face. Perhaps, a smile and “I don’t know but I sure hope so.” would have been better. Sadly, her grumpy response is indicative of the attitude of too many customer facing employees of US carriers. It is these unhappy employees that continue to make the simplest of situations grow into major confrontations.
As usual, whatever goes wrong is the passenger’s fault.
FA’s used to be famous for their ability and willingness to help families with children. Even if said family does something dumb like carry a large stroller on board. Making life harder for a mother with children should not have been an option anyone even dreamed of thinking about. Where was the old “how can I help” attitude???
Similarly, United screwed up in the Dao incident when they didn’t know how to get their crew to Louisville. United should have figured out how to get the crew where it needed to go in a discreet manner, so the passengers never heard about it. Getting a crew to the right place was United’s problem and should have remained so. Instead United made it the passengers’ problem. ANY idea of EVER making a passenger get off the plane to solve the airline’s own logistical issues is patently absurd.
In both these cases, the airline needlessly made an issue into a passenger problem. Both incidents should have been handled as problems for the airline.
But that philosophy went out the airplane window long ago.
Those comments are such BS. We never hear FA/GA power abuse issues from foreign airlines and they work under the same conditions of “tight schedules, shrinking seats, blah blah blah. That guy is completely out of touch. But I agree though that the passenger that tried sticking up for the lady may have used wrong type of language.
Heck, Etihad has ONBOARD NANNIES and American and United (along with Delta) are lobbying to try to limit the ability of Etihad to fly to the US — fewer choices and higher prices, less service and more this.
What I don’t understand is why this situation — and, frankly, many others — isn’t prevented at the check-in desk by more vigilant policing of passenger bags, strollers and other items that are not checked luggage.
Regardless, mothers get too much slack for their kids. For example, airlines shouldn’t allow parents to avoid paying for a seat by letting their baby or toddler sit on their lap. The same with animals. I hate dogs on a plane, but at least make the passenger pay for their pet.
@Gary Leff You hit the nail on the head. Customer abuse is directly related to the closed airline market in the United States. Americans have had enough abuse at the hands of the oligopolist US airline industry. Let’s open the US airline market up, so that US flyers can have a choice and avoid the abusive and entitled attitudes of the US airline industry and the US airline unions — I would rather fly with good natured foreigners who treat me like a valued customer than the thuggish martinets who too often operate US airlines.
When a culture of “do as I say, not as I do, or you will be forcibly removed, arrested and charged with a felony” persists in a customer driven industry such as air travel, one should expect uniformed bullies to provide limited customer service and provoke situations to their highest form of agitation.
I didn’t see anyone hit anyone with a stroller in the video? Did you all?
So basically you nimwits are commenting on hearsay. Get with the program.
Somewhere In the FA industry needs to be a big focus on service as well as security. It all starts from the beginning with training. The video does not provide enough information. Does the woman even speak and u sweat and English well. She looked more scared and confused than anything else. Why the FA would come out with that statements….ugh. If you can’t say something that can not be misconstrued then don’t say it at all!
Isn’t there supposed to be an FA at the door monitoring boarding? If one was there and doing their job, the stroller never would have entered the aircraft.
I wish for once a union would admit one of their members is wrong. Unions were needed decades ago, but they have outlived their usefulness.
This statement also shows they have another agenda by bringing in working conditions in to the equation. Totally inappropriate.
Horse crap, Bob Ross. The lady made a mistake, you don’t rip her stroller away forcefully, you don’t hit her, and when and real man defends the lady for your shifty service and and attitude you wave your finger and ask to be it. Did your mother and father teach you.to teat women this way. Yeah try and blame the man who defended the mom. I would have gladly knocked that SOB out and told Bob Ross and AA where to shove it.
So the flight attendants union acknowledges that there are a lot factors that make their job tough, but they don’t train their members on how to deal with those situations?
Isn’t the union just a representation of their members and shouldn’t the union want to the best job possible for the airline? A good trade union holds their members to a higher standard so that jack legs, that may be cheaper, also provide an inferior product.
Moreso than the airline, the union should have formal classes for members to deal with irate customers, as well as safety and security procedures. Union negotiations are much easier with a thriving employer instead of one struggling to salvage their brand name because the union membership doesn’t know how to handle predictable customer altercations. We know they are predictable because the union president enumerated the causes in his letter.
Wow is all I really got for most of these comments…..
Assault? Really? Assault?
Like I said in an earlier bloggers thread were creating a culture of all people just bucking the system hoping an airline employee already at their whits end tries to do their job and can be accused of assault. They can then sue get their 5 minutes and a grand.
The simple solution is the most likely. She was told at the gate it needed gate checked. She decided, for whatever reason, she shouldn’t need to do that. That’s self entitlement and carrying a baby around doesn’t make an entitlement case. It does, unfortunately, get sympthany votes.
So while she’s trying to bring it on an airline employee already stressed saysni it needs gate checked. A back and forth occurred at which time he had little choice but to grab the stroller. What’s he supposed to do. Call security? You all saw how that ended. Just let her on? Then everyone will see just press hard enough and they’ll give in.
In grabbing in he may have hit her. If she would have gate checked it to begin with it wouldn’t happen. But oh my it “almost” hit the baby. Well it didn’t and if the moms so concerned maybe follow the rules in place next time.
Then some random dude threatens the FA. I agree the FA attendNt didn’t handle it the best but what would most people do if some random person almost accosts you? His fight or flight probably kicked in and it is what it is. He made a mistake and is now paying for it. However everyone boo hoos this women and just how awful she was treated.
I find it odd she’s balling like a 5 year old in the video. I mean really. I highly doubt he swung it at her or sucker punched her. She’s probably balling because she travels once a year and didn’t realize gate check doesn’t equal a check to your final destination.
But what happens? She gets on another flight. Why? Gets upgraded and AA starts their mia culpa process due to United piss poor showing this week. All because she refused to follow the rules.
If I were AA I’d send the first class passenger a nice note saying he’s banned for life in AA for threatening a crew member.
@FNT Delta Diamond — “too much slack”?!
I think you need to stop drinking the tap water in your home town.
Do any of you guys actually fly? These aren’t robots. They’re flight attendants and if you fly as much as people say they do on here you would see just how awful many passengers are domestically. It’s appalling. Domestic airlines do often have curt and surly attendants. Having to put up with what I see I would be to. What a better experience? Treat people how you would want to be treated and not think “no my situation is different because it’s me”. Guess what? It’s not.
I admit to not knowing uniforms but isn’t the guy present in the video a captain or co-pilot? Aren’t they in charge of their planes? Why is he silent and not doing a thing to calm the situation? There seems to be no one in charge. Sum total: boarding chaos ensues with no one in charge. There is plenty of blame to go around in the situation. Not knowing what transpired before the video, I am not likely to make a lot of judgments until I know what the crying woman was told, how she was told, when she was told and why she is acting like someone died.
What a disgusting statement by the FA union. FA’s job is safety and service.
I’m not sure if AA does it, but a return to preboarding for families with young children could be useful.
Just in case anyone would like to know what happened before the filming started…. Here’s a post shared to me from a friend who saw it from another perspective.
I was on this flight directly across the isle from the woman filming the video. This is what I observed: 1.) woman gets on the plane pushing a car seat type stroller with one child in it, carrying a second child on her hip and dragging behind a very large folded stroller that was too big for the overhead bin or to go under a seat. 2.) the flight attendant shown in the video approached from the back of the plane and informed her in a calm manner that there was nowhere to store the stroller. The woman immediately escalated the situation and within about 30 seconds was screaming at him at the top of her lungs. 3.) the flight attendant evidently decided she was not fit to be on the flight (in my opinion the correct decision) and started to move her and her children towards the front of the plane. 4.) when they got to the from of the plane the woman decided she was not going any further. The flight attendant picked up the stroller and lifted it over his head to try and move past the woman. As he was doing this she pushed him and the stroller fell a bit and struck her in the face. She began crying loudly and dramatically. Shortly after this is where the video begins. 5.) The first class passenger then inserts himself into the drama with his faux chivalry but clearly has no idea what has transpired in the back of the plane since he was in a window seat in the first class section of the plane and could not have viewed the incident from his seat. 6.) after another 10 minutes or so the woman exits the plane only to be returned about 5 minutes later and taken to her seat. We wait another 30-40 minutes while various flight and ground crew come and go speaking to the woman. After about 40 minutes she deplanes again this time telling all of the passengers, who are now becoming vocal in support of the flight crew, that all she wanted was an apology from the flight attendant. Evidently that’s what the 40 minute delay was all about. Then we waited another 10 minutes for the ground crew to find and remove her luggage from the belly of the plane. 7.) the flight finally leaves and arrives in Dallas an hour or so late. American representatives are waiting at the gate to speak with the first class passenger who made the threats. What I heard was a very apologetic tone coming from two American employees, as if the airline had done something to upset the first class passenger. 8.) when I entered the bag claim area the first class passenger was right in front of me and as soon as he made it through the revolving door there was a camera crew waiting for him on the other side to interview him. That’s about as factual of an account as I can provide and I realize there may be other parts of this story that I do not know about or did not witness. From what I saw: a.) if anyone from American should have been punished it should be the ground crew who somehow letting this woman on board with a full size stroller. The flight attendant was put in a horrible situation by a passenger that most passengers in my immediate area thought seemed unstable. She escalated the situation, not him. b.) in my opinion, the first class passenger should have been removed. Had the flight been in progress he might very well have been arrested upon landing for threatening a crew member. Additionally, he could not have seen any of the back of the plane antics of the woman based on where he was seated. c.) I agree the flight attendant may have reacted too harshly in responding to the threatening customer in first class, but his actions with the woman in question were professional throughout the ordeal. I am disappointed American has chosen to punish him.
No, disrespects i feel that Americans airlines are using safety as a safety net.. other countries airlines do the same thing and they do it a lot better. No excuses should be given. We are only flying from one part of the country to another and we can not do it right. Think about other airlines that flying internationally, are their planes not set up, for safety? Not only are they set up for safety, their service are BETTER. Do you know why? Its called their job. Nobody wants to do their jobs no more in this country and always use an excuse to do less. Things will not change because of the attitude we have in this country. Things get out of hands and we play the blame game. The customer might be wrong but you do not make a big situation out of nothing. It’s a baby carriage. So now we have people taking sides who is right or wrong. Both parties are wrong, BUT situations can be RESOLVED. The flight attendants has authority but they are not police officers, even though they think they are. In both cases the flight attendants did not use judgement. We are all adults but the attitude in this country have diminished to being a kid.
Ryan – thanks for the facts 😉
However I would NEVER want to fly on a plane where a FA in response to provocation gets in the persons face and says “hit me”! Aren’t they supposed to de-escalate NOT escalate!
True. However, judging from the video it wasn’t the flight attendant getting in the passengers face. The passenger got out of his seat and got in the flight attendants face. After just threatening to lay him out. After the ordeal he was already dealing with, I’m sure adrenaline kicked in. Flight attendants are still people after all. People react to being personally threatened by going on the offense sometimes. Not saying it was the best way to respond. Just saying I understand why it happened.
It does not matter what happened before the flight. What matters is how the FA handled himself during a stressful situation. If one can’t handle the stress of being a FA get another job. I said this before all we need is another company like Amazon, Apple, or Tesla to get into the flying business. No unions! Look a what Tesla has accomplished with spaceX and solving traffic issues in LAX. I agree with Gary on his comments about the big 3.
Bob Ross shouldn’t blame anyone but the FA for his poor customer service. The FA should be arrested for assault if he did hit the woman with the stroller.
@Shawn — the only correct part of your statement is the existence of surly domestic FAs.
You say pax should treat others politely, well most do — and guess what — the surly FAs are surly to everybody.
There’s no excuse for surly FA. They’re paid and trained in customer service skills. If you lack empathy (which you admitted to, having admitted you can’t see individual circumstances), a short temper, zero people skills — you do you, it’s a free country. But a customer service position is definitely not right for you.
@damon G — yup. Sorry I basically just repeated what you said in my post above. I need to do a better job of reading the extant comments
Amen. On both counts.
How soon do we forget 911, go and listen to the tapes of what was happening in the cabin of the hijacked aircraft and the flight attendants trying to save the aircraft and their passengers only to have their throats cut or stabbed.
Todays passengers have NO respect for authority, it’s about ME. If I don’t get what I want I’ll sue or I’m going to write a letter and both are reward for bad behavior with free tickets or more frequent flyer miles. I watch passengers board and never respond to the flight attendant that greeted them with a good morning or evening or won’t look at a flight attendant when asked what beverage they would like. Good Manners go along way.
If that’s how the FA handles an agitated woman and a baby, God help anyone on a flight he’s working when there’s an emergency.
The union chief just emphasized how much power ego their members have these days.
U must stroke their ego, and bootlick them; if u bruised their ego a tiny bit, u have caused massive hurt to their members mental health, then u are a massive danger to everyone (because the cabin crew member is “hurt” and therefore u r dangerous), and you must not only take massive blame and be removed, buy possibly charged as well.
The very same attitude displayed that got David Dao walloped up, is found in the statement (it is always the customer’s fault, and never the cabin crew). The Union Chief of AA reminds everyone the power they have and the law is always with them. They have too much power and cannot tolerate any small or minor things that could hurt their ego.
Go ahead, encourage all your members to be rude and belligerent with your backing, while your rivals internationally work on de-escalating situations. Bring your company back to bankruptcy with this lousy attitude of yours while demanding higher pay. Good luck!
This is a peculiar situation. The flight attendant has to remove the passengers belongings after informing the passenger she and her family are evicted from the flight.?
Is anyone at the corporate office awake? No, because if they were, they would have improved the boarding process 20 years ago. No wonder so many people prefer Southwest with their free for all, no reserved seating policy, every family or group of travellers fend for yourself policy.
Anyway AA, if you want to be known for flying the friendly skies, you will need to revamp the boarding process. Please run it through the simulator and focus groups a few hundred times before asking your customers to try it out. Even though there are only a handful of complications that can develop, the timing of events, weather, tsa, po-po, air marshals, passengers, relatives, cell phones, deicing, dog on the runway, comfort pets, lost keys, ebola passengers, etc, etc, etc, should all be thrown into the simulator in various combinations, with FA responses analyzed to help develop procedures for categorizing standard responses. Hint: flight attendants that refuse to give their name or employee id upon simple request should fail the simulation phase. Hint: flight attendants that tell passengers to “hit me” or make equivalent statements should be removed and drug tested immediately. Is that an FAA violation?
Hint: passenger crying uncontrollably with giant backpack on and with two small children and demanding an apology, may be suffering from any one of many problems, including drama queen (or king if it is a male) syndrome, a form of ocd/autism/ aspergers; a headache; or thry may be having a stroke or migraine.
Based on the letter th e Union wrote, don’t expect too much from them.
Ugh. As a flight attendant we feel the pressure from both ends to please the company (don’t allow excess baggage) and our customers (can you allow my baggage please). It is a small metal tube. And we all got up early this morning. And a lot of us didn’t get enough rest last night. The pressure is literally overwhelming. Add to that everyone filming every move. The boiler pot is ready.
I can’t believe many FAs would side with the behavior of the fat guy yelling at multiple passengers, after he hit the super-stressed woman in the face with a baby stroller. I’m sure everything just went belly-up for him, but, like Oscar, he then proceeded to make it all worse. If that really seems like SOP, then maybe the folks represented by this union rep are in the wrong field. I can’t believe the FA was allowed back on the plane. I would have deplaned, because the crew was clearly barking mad.
Really? Than take my theee under six age kids. Pack them, drive them, unload them, check them in, run them through TSA, board them and see if you’re a drama queen/king. Remember that my kids have a dad that’s global entry, EXP and flies everyone first…and see how it goes for you. It sucks. If you can’t handle us being on your plane, fly private. God bless the non-elite people who have to interact with you, who don’t know how it works on a plane and are just trying to get somewhere.
Stupid Ross should have just kept his mouth shut.
He thinks he’s someone of importance, but the moron is just delusional.
He has no clue about PR management just like dumb old Oscar.
The root of the airline service problem is the union protecting the power tripping stewardess.
Good for AA for firing that baldie.
AA’s unionized workforce has always been at odds with their management. The FA was clearly wrong and doesn’t have a clue about customer service or de-escalating a situation before it spirals out of control. The pilot also clearly didn’t have a clue how to take control since it was his aircraft. If the passenger was in the wrong the most senior crew member should have calmly explained to the woman why they needed to check her stroller and assure her she would get it back at her destination. There was no need to grab it and hit her with it. It’s incredibly stressful traveling these days and a mom traveling with two small children should be cut some slack. I also blame AA’s management. Many of the things written by the union boss about management are true and it relates to all of the mainline carriers. They have made seats smaller, less comfortable with terrible slim line seats, not enough overhead bins and in some wide body aircraft like the 777-300 there are so many seats across an aisle the flight attendants can barely get a cart through the aisle. The airlines are creating this mess and it’s only going to get worse as they squeeze every penny out of every customer no matter the consequences.
Thank you Ryan for the facts.
I knew there was more to this and sounds like an entitled person wasn’t following instructions multiple times.
Flying solo with two kids is tough but no strollers on the plane is a pretty basic instruction to follow without creating a scene.
Yet another manipulator gets people doing their job looking bad on video.
As the FA said, we have no idea what the story is. I’ve viewed this video several times and each time it is my opinion that the woman with the babies is acting – over reacting on purpose to hopefully get something — who knows – a million dollar settlement, an upgrade, etc. The guy in the First Class cabin is clearly not a good samaritan, but a vigilante. Who does he think he is? With the Captain standing there WHO IS IN CHARGE OF THE PLANE, the man thinks he is in charge of the plane — judge, jury, and enforcer? He is clearly an aggressive person, trying to start a fight, with a short fuse, doing something that was none of his business. If the situation were different, i.e. no captain there, no other FA there, and he was witnessing IN REAL TIME then FA abusing the woman, then he might have been OK in what he did. Other than that, he was an escalator, a provocateur. The FA should not have said what he did, but even with all that training, who knows what I would have said after the LONG ordeal (sounds like about an hour and half with this woman from the eyewitness account below) with this woman and her strollers. Ryan posts what happened before and after the video. If it is true (and it will be born out by other witnesses), most of you guys were too quick to judge the overall situation. I’m glad none of you work for me. Here is what Ryan said happened:
“Just in case anyone would like to know what happened before the filming started…. Here’s a post shared to me from a friend who saw it from another perspective.
I was on this flight directly across the isle from the woman filming the video. This is what I observed: 1.) woman gets on the plane pushing a car seat type stroller with one child in it, carrying a second child on her hip and dragging behind a very large folded stroller that was too big for the overhead bin or to go under a seat. 2.) the flight attendant shown in the video approached from the back of the plane and informed her in a calm manner that there was nowhere to store the stroller. The woman immediately escalated the situation and within about 30 seconds was screaming at him at the top of her lungs. 3.) the flight attendant evidently decided she was not fit to be on the flight (in my opinion the correct decision) and started to move her and her children towards the front of the plane. 4.) when they got to the from of the plane the woman decided she was not going any further. The flight attendant picked up the stroller and lifted it over his head to try and move past the woman. As he was doing this she pushed him and the stroller fell a bit and struck her in the face. She began crying loudly and dramatically. Shortly after this is where the video begins. 5.) The first class passenger then inserts himself into the drama with his faux chivalry but clearly has no idea what has transpired in the back of the plane since he was in a window seat in the first class section of the plane and could not have viewed the incident from his seat. 6.) after another 10 minutes or so the woman exits the plane only to be returned about 5 minutes later and taken to her seat. We wait another 30-40 minutes while various flight and ground crew come and go speaking to the woman. After about 40 minutes she deplanes again this time telling all of the passengers, who are now becoming vocal in support of the flight crew, that all she wanted was an apology from the flight attendant. Evidently that’s what the 40 minute delay was all about. Then we waited another 10 minutes for the ground crew to find and remove her luggage from the belly of the plane. 7.) the flight finally leaves and arrives in Dallas an hour or so late. American representatives are waiting at the gate to speak with the first class passenger who made the threats. What I heard was a very apologetic tone coming from two American employees, as if the airline had done something to upset the first class passenger. 8.) when I entered the bag claim area the first class passenger was right in front of me and as soon as he made it through the revolving door there was a camera crew waiting for him on the other side to interview him. That’s about as factual of an account as I can provide and I realize there may be other parts of this story that I do not know about or did not witness. From what I saw: a.) if anyone from American should have been punished it should be the ground crew who somehow letting this woman on board with a full size stroller. The flight attendant was put in a horrible situation by a passenger that most passengers in my immediate area thought seemed unstable. She escalated the situation, not him. b.) in my opinion, the first class passenger should have been removed. Had the flight been in progress he might very well have been arrested upon landing for threatening a crew member. Additionally, he could not have seen any of the back of the plane antics of the woman based on where he was seated. c.) I agree the flight attendant may have reacted too harshly in responding to the threatening customer in first class, but his actions with the woman in question were professional throughout the ordeal. I am disappointed American has chosen to punish him.”
@don – absolutely my point. We are living in a society where everything is the flight crews fault. What would have happened if she gate checked it as I’m sure she was asked. She along with the FC pax which escalated it. I too see nothing wrong with what occurred in this video especially when I have no idea what went on beforehand.
I feel for people traveling with children. I have two young ones. But I don’t expect special treatment. Sure we can all say what this airline has vs this one but here and now domestic carriers don’t have nannies etc. You can’t put strollers overhead. It needs gate checked. You’re not special because you have a baby in tote. If the FA allowed it and while replanting in fell out if the overhead and hit an elderly person we’d be having a completely different discussion but it too would be the FAs fault.
Not to mention every wants caviar dreams on a McDonalds budget. You want a nanny, pursor lavatory attendant on every flight be ready to pay for it. Unfortunately we want to travel transcontinental for 399 pp.
@jason – everyone has special circumstances. Guess what FAs can’t be expected to cave in to them. There are rules. One of them is strollers can’t be placed in overhead bins.
The fact you feel like everyone’s special circumstances and needs should be catered too I believe is a bigger issue.
Hopefully you own a business. I’ll come work for you. My needs are to travel solely on AA twice a week and work 10 to 2 but get paid as 1 FTE. If the business is in customer service to also not put up with self entitled people either.
I’ve been flying Southwest much more lately for the direct flights and everyone is so nice. It’s like visiting a Chik-fil-a drive thru for 3 hours. Why aren’t they hostile? They put my kid in the captains seat to take a pic and sang us off the plane. What’s the big difference that has them so happy to be there and other airline flight attendants hating their jobs? (serious question, I don’t know. I assume they’re all unionized)
The real story: http://liveandletsfly.boardingarea.com/2017/04/23/passenger-blames-mother-aa-stroller-incident/
The problem with blogs is this don’t actually do any research, they only regurgitate dribble.