JetBlue Passenger Caught Stealing Charging Cable in Viral Video: Social Media Star Scrambles to Go Private After Backlash

It appears that a woman flying JetBlue stole another passenger’s charging cable, claimed she had simply borrowed it (without asking) and also that maybe she had just found it and was trying to reconnect it with its owner?

The reported thief has made her social media accounts private, which is significant because she had quite the following.

Passengers had all deplaned the aircraft and it appears they’d been required to leave their belongings on board. She may have seen the cable as she came forward a few rows and taken it with her.

In video, the blonde passenger is confronted by a man asking if she’d taken his charging cable. She says that she did, and he wants it back.

@rcrelated1 #CapCut ♬ original sound – RcRelated

Chargers are pretty non-descript. Borrowing permanently is something I think many people feel comfortable with. Most call it stealing. If you want to protect your charger in this situation, it should probably look like this, it’ll be really obvious when somebody takes and uses it and there’s no way two people on the same flight just happened to have the same one:

The most common inflight theft is from the overhead bin especially on overnight flights where people are sleeping. I don’t think I’ve heard of charging cable theft before.

(HT: Live and Let’s Fly)

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

  1. Sorry, charging cables are disposable equipment, like pens. You buy some, you lose some, you find some, if you don’t want yours wandering off you need to keep it in your immediate control.

    (Did not watch video.)

  2. Charging cable and charger theft has taken off in the last 15 -20 years. And if you willingly loan your cable or chargers out to someone else, don’t be surprised if you end up dealing with a petty thief who fails to return the borrowed instruments or even does a shady swap and “return” of a faulty or cheap substitute product.

    For whatever reasons, I have run into this issue mostly when flying KLM flights out of the UK and ending up with overnight misconnections at AMS.

  3. Seriously, Christopher Raehl? Seriously? What other stuff is it OK to steal? How about your wallet? Cell phone? Car?

  4. @Christopher – Taking something that you know doesn’t belong to you is called stealing. The fact that she’s stealing a $10 item isn’t relevant except to determine severity of the theft.

  5. It looks like she has way too much cabin luggage so she is possibly stealing space from another passenger or two or three. Maybe theft is her normal action. While a charger and cable are not too much money, the theft of them could cause the victim the loss of use of his or her phone during a crucial time. If the phone is being used for in flight entertainment, there could be that loss, too. I’m glad she was caught and ended up returning the items. Of course, being TikTok, the video could be a skit.

  6. She self identifies as an honest person so it is just not politically correct to call her a thief. The owner of the charging cable needs DEI and sensitivity training and may face a defamation suit.

  7. Calling these entitled brats “social media stars” only reinforces their warped perception of their importance. Stop giving them the attention/likes/views they so desperately crave.

  8. Looking at the video, the charger was an Apple charger, not one of the knock-offs. They are $20 and the cable could also cost that much and more. This was theft, pure and simple but instead of owning up to it, she played the victim.

  9. Aside from taking the cable, there are a few other mistakes. First, all the girl had to do was apologize and she she’ll return the cable as soon as she’s sitting down, instead she keeps yapping away. Second, while the dude got the girl to accept her theft, he should have stopped recording and he definitely should not have recorded the girl next to him. It’s actually against B6 policy (as well as other carriers) to record inside a plane without approval.

  10. Maybe I just lose a lot more cables than anyone else, but I travel with a bunch. And a charger/cable for an android phone are a few dollars on Amazon or eBay… If you’re carrying around a $20 cable for your phone you’re doing it wrong. And if you’re only carrying one cable on a plane, also doing it wrong.

    I’m not advocating stealing, I’m advocating that if you worry about someone grabbing your phone charger, you spent too much for it.

  11. @Dims – If that’s some obscure childish political joke it’s pretty sad. Sure, our last president drools, stammers, and cackles when he attacks (usually defenseless) people in something that has only a vague reference to a complete sentence but that’s not relevant here unless you’re implying that the privileged influencer is somehow a political figure. If that’s not the case, leave politics aside unless you’re trying to look bad.

  12. Good phone chargers and cables that work well for higher power devices too while being a lower fire hazard risk? Those tend to be more expensive than the much cheaper chargers and cables. The flying thieves are probably more likely to grab the chargers and cables that seem superior to the super beat up or cheap ones.

    Now time for me to get some more black electrical tape.

  13. “Borrowing permanently is something I think many people feel comfortable with.” – who feel comfortable with this? Criminals???

    The guy filming was out of control though. He was basically starting a fight with the other guy. Girl said she was gonna give it back. In fact she admitted she took it the second he asked her. Is she in the wrong? Absolutely. The article says passengers all deplaned and were required to leave their belongings. Except that makes no sense since you see all these passengers boarding with their bags. So obviously that didn’t happen. In the end there was no reason for this guy to keep escalating the situation. She said she was giving it back. Uploading it to the internet just shows he is a punk.

  14. I’m confused. When did she take the charger if she was just boarding the plane? She wasn’t even sitting next to him.

  15. Somewhat similar: my wife brought a blanket on a flight to Europe. She woke up mid flight feeling chilly. The woman next to her was asleep, covered by my wife’s blanket. My wife didn’t want to wake her by grabbing it back. Near the end of the flight, the other woman woke up and returned the blanket. Couples sharing a blanket might pull it over for more warmth, but a pulling it off a stranger is rude.

  16. “Passengers had all deplaned the aircraft and it appears they’d been required to leave their belongings on board. She may have seen the cable as she came forward a few rows and taken it with her.”

    What? This makes no sense.
    Why would passengers leave their belongings on board after deplaning.
    Also she is getting on board in the video WITH her bags and she isn’t even sitting next to the person recording her. So when did she steal it. Something is missing here and doesn’t add up.

  17. I can’t believe that almost half of the commentary are against the guy whose charger it was. I don’t care if it’s a toothpick. Don’t take stuff that doesn’t belong to you!

  18. Christopher Raehl, what is the next flight that you’ll be taking? I’d like a list of your personal possessions that its alright for me to steal.

    Thank you.

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