Flavor Flav Suits Up As Southwest Flight Attendant—Passengers Get Snacks And Hype With Every Bite

by Gary Leff

Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Famer and founding member of Public Enemy Flavor Flav handed out snacks on a Southwest Airlines flight. He says he ran into some flight attendants in Paris during the Olympics and they invited him to do it – along with making the landing announcement – on his next flight. Well, they were crew on a trip he was taking and why not?

Yeah, boyeeeeee!

It Flav’s way to Fight The Power, since he was likely violating the TWU Local 556 scope clause with the airline. And it wasn’t the first time. He handed out snacks on the carrier in 2015, too, declaring at the time that “Today the back of the plane is 1st class!!!!” as he played Southwest Airlines Robin Hood. And since he was also recorded passing out snacks inflight last year, he likely has done this several other times as well.

Two years ago he became a public enemy of Spirit Airlines after he missed boarding a flight while in the gate area in Las Vegas. The incident went viral, and Spirit refunded his ticket and gave him Gold status in the Free Spirit program.

There was misreporting at the time that he was also given free flights for life on Southwest Airlines (and that both Delta and American made offers to him as well). I believe that media had a simple misunderstanding of Flav’s Southwest Airlines Companion Pass.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  3. Some technical questions are what come up for me:
    – Did he get returned to his original departure point on the same aircraft, or was he deposited at the destination point of the flight. If the latter, was he a ticketed passenger and were airport fees and “security” fees taxes on that ticket?
    – Was he credentialed as a SWA employee, and if so, how did SWA conduct a search for that position that doesn’t conflict with current employment law?
    – Did he enter the sterile area with Known Crewmember credentials or through normie lines?
    – Did he enter the cabin with the cabin crew or as a passenger in a boarding group?

    I do get it that “it’s cool” to have someone famous handing out pretzels, and if it were someone I admired that would be even cooler, but I wonder how many of the oh-so-vaunted “Security For Your Protection Rules” were flouted to make this happen.

  4. Priority fast track immigration ought to be only for the crew , disabled , blind , unaccompanied children with their airline escorts , and elderly . Good on Thailand for finally doing the right thing .

    Same with TSA in the States : priority fast track only for the crew , disabled , blind , unacconpanied children with their airline escorts , and elderly .

    Everyone else : the regular lines .

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