While an American Airlines flight was pushing back and flight attendants performed the safety demonstration, a middle seat passenger told a flight attendant to “shut up,” continued to use their phone and told the crewmember she “couldn’t hear” the safety instructions when everyone else in the cabin confirmed they could hear the announcements clearly.
The flight attendant made clear this wasn’t going to be acceptable. Either they were going to comply and follow crewmember instructions, or they were going to be off the flight. And as for not hearing, “You’re not on my list as someone who can’t hear.” They couldn’t hear the safety briefing because they were talking through it.
Then you see the woman exit the plane – and the ending caption on the video is “empty middle seat is a win for me.”
The standard reaction to this video seems to be, “what happened to sit down, buckle up, fly?” As a passenger on the plane, my reaciton would be “sit down and shut up I don’t want to be late or miss my connection.” Please don’t do this to your fellow passengers. It never ends well. There’s literally zero upside.
Now, many comments across Instagram and Threads argue that the flight attendant shouldn’t put up with this because they aren’t paid on the ground. They shouldn’t put up with it, but that’s not a reason.
- Their pay has always been calculated to cover work on the ground
- But the American Airlines flight attendant contract now explciitly pays this time (rather than just paying higher wages for actual block time). Boarding pay has been in place for five months.
The recording begins with the ‘shut up’. The behavior was bad enough before that to trigger the passenger beside them to record.
“They”? I think there was just one person. We’re not doing that anymore, Gary. We don’t actually have to pretend cutting off healthy breasts is anything but a demonic illness.
She. It’s she.
@Not Scott, it sounded like a man but looked like a woman.
Kinda a like the old Irish Spring (soap) commercial.
“Strong enough for a man, but I like it too”. (Voiced by a woman)
In Europe, this isn’t difficult. Americans are so utterly retarded.
Imagine being so thirsty after praise and showing your peers you’re bEtTeR than them that you think talking tranny speak is a virtue.
Gary: you’re still fat.
@ not scott. Why so triggered? It’s an unspecified pronoun, not the hill to fight upon. Back on topic, people can be jerks.
@Not Scott – read Gary’s blurb again. He uses “she” and “they” interchangeably. Not for political correctness, but for variation in wording and less repetition.
In an instance where we would know the pssenger’s name we would intersperse “she” with “Karen” (or whatever the name might be). Otherwise we might end up with a sentence like this: “She sat in her seat and buckled up, then she took out her phone and she called her mother while she yelled at the flight attendant when she began to talk and her voice was too loud….”
What I would like to mention is the number of typos in Gary’s copy. He should take a minute or two to proofread before hitting Send.
I LOVE the FA’s actions here. This person needs to just grow up, and stop with the attention seeking / entitled nonsense.
If you’re incapable of that basic decency, you’ll get no grace from me, and thankfully not from that FA. Enough is enough.
The FA handled this in a very professional manner and should be commended.
in the article, the writer notes “she”..blah blah and then “they” blah blah…”woman” blah blah. What’s with switching from a singular noun to a plural noun to a concrete noun, back and forth? Why not just say “it” which covers just about anything?
I’m shocked that this person would cause any kind of disturbance onboard an aircraft. This will be more common on AA, UA and DL once Spirit finally pulls the plug. As a passenger, don’t book short connections….instead build enough time in your schedule to allow for a return to the gate to kick Neanderthals off.
While I am sympathetic of the FA, simply being a jerk passenger is not a safety hazard. The FA’s response resulted in significant costs on her airline and potentially huge negative impacts on passengers with connections. What airlines need to do in such cases is let the jerk fly, but then when they land *publicly* give them formal airline documents indicating they are banned for life.
Bumping jerk passengers and then rescheduling them on a later flight (which is what often seems to be the case) as if they got stuck in traffic on the way to the airport, is insufficient to get some people to behave.
Rude, Idiotic person. Should have been removed for being a nuisance to the crew and other passengers. Bravo!
Clearly, the FA was racist.
“simply being a jerk passenger is not a safety hazard.”
No. It is exactly that.
They have failed socialization 101, and belive that people should bow to their whims.
In a pressurized metal tube flying a 300 mph.
F them. They are out and everyone has a better day.
Have them re-take preschool again if they want to sit in another plane.
good for the FA. People do not seem to understand bad behavior and attitude in general put EVERYONE at risk because Safety is of the utmost concern. In an emergency an idiot like this may decide to ignore FA directives and be uncooperative making the behavior a safety risk. Maybe passengers should be given a safety test before boarding, or be able to be certified as a safe flyer prior to departures good for a period of time.
I totally agree with Zebritis. The safety briefings are a mandatory item on all airlines all the time. Why? Because on passenger not knowing what to do in an emergency can kill everyone on board, not just themselves. I don’t care if someone has heard the safety information a million times. It MUST be heard and understood.
People that speak over the safety demo are morons. You don’t have to listen to it, I don’t, but I don’t try to speak over it. By then the a/c is getting ready to pushback and phones should cease anyway.
“They “ is plural, but it was only one person misbehaving.
I find it fascinating that the majority of comments to an article about kicking a jackass off a flight focus on Gary’s use of “they”
In this case the Air Police was right
Not understanding at all the discussion about pronouns. Life is too short.
Seriously though, do we all need to sit through the umteenth safety briefing? Most passengers could give the briefing themselves. The passenger is a jerk but quietly reading a magazine (after checking where the nearest exit is) isn’t much different attention-wise to talking on a mobile device.
If I then had to wait half an hour to deplane an unruly jerk passenger, I’d probably have a fit.
I see the snowflakes have been triggered – by a simple word. Typical.
I’m glad the person was kicked off the flight. Hopefully they are banned from flying.
I think airlines should be required to share disruptive passenger data with other airlines, airports and TSA
Listening to and obeying safety instructions could save your life in an emergency. If you don’t believe an emergency could happen to you, think again and search the internet. Talking during announcements is preventing yourself and others hearing the instructions. Arguing with the flight attendants and failing to obey their instructions is a road to the no fly list. Disregard for your fellow passengers and the flight attendants is a good reason to deplane the passenger(s) to prevent further altercations in the air. Some people should not be confined in a metal tube with wings – it isn’t compatible with their behaviour; but then that probably applies to them wherever they are.
“simply being a jerk passenger is not a safety hazard.”
But failure to follow a flight attendant’s instructions is a violation of FEDERAL LAW–as the FAs note in every safety briefing I’ve ever sat thru (at least post-covid).
It’s a civil case, unless the FAA. turns it over to the FBI. FAA penalties for failing to follow FA instructions range from $1000 to 16000 per incident.
The argument over gender is more immature than the passenger in question.
Any person dying to be a ‘wise guy’ should be barred from any part of public transportation!!! Having been both “at sea” a.w.a.” in the air”, my stace was, is and will alŵays be. Trying to be a proverbial “a-hole” must have consequences. (It is not you we care about, but everyone around you !!!)
The bigoted snowflakes rupturing disgustingly ignorant and vile opinions on the use of “they,” need to revisit their long forgotten grade school grammar textbooks. There, they will discover its use is widespread and common as a necessarily efficient pronoun choice when specifying a gender is irrelevant. This typical usage has been around for centuries, deployed by such woke writers as Dickens and Shakespeare. The stupidification of America has been militarized into a zombie hate cult.