alfa164 wrote:

So... you were there? How do you know "This guy had no idea what the story was"? It looks like he was seated two rows away; it also looks like everybody at the front of the plane could see "what the whole story was".

For decades, we have denigrated society for the "loss of chivalry"; this man - albeit in a misplaced situation - stands up to defend a woman, and the this-airline-can-do-no-wrong is crying "foul". It may be misplaced on his part, but his intentions appear to be well-meaning. And as long as the Captain was just standing by, maybe someone felt the need to stand up.

By all accounts the woman had dragged the stroller to the rear of the plane. From the video this man was sitting in the first 3 or 4 rows of the plane. So you can get off your high horse, there is no way he had any idea what happened when the FA first attempted to take the stroller for gate checking. He simply jumped into a situation that did not concern him, lamely attempting to be a tough guy. He is quite lucky that the captain did not have him removed from the flight or that another passenger did not give him a smackdown.

I looked at the video a few times and there are a few things quite obvious:

1. The woman with the baby was totally faking it. Not only because of her very fake wailing but also because her baby was quite calm throughout. I have seen many cases when the mother is genuinely distraught (not faking it) the baby is very distraught as well. Not in this case.

2. The "white knight" guy was aggressive and he threatened the gate agent with violence. Not to mention disruptive, arrogant and totally out of line. Too bad he wasn't booted off that flight and charged for assault.

3. The gate agent ordered the "white knight" dude to stay out of it.

4. The "white knight" guy attacked the gate agent and aggressively entered his personal space. Again he should be charged for that.

While I was very negatively impacted from the video that made all the news at United, watching this over and over again actually I can't really blame the gate agent for anything but standing up for himself. And since it's easier today for the airline to throw a gate agent under the bus and throw money at people for good publicity that's how it will happen. I wouldn't be surprised if more people in service jobs start looking for a different career. After all that's happened being a gate agent is worse than a toilet cleaner with all the crap people are willing to pull on you just to get a pay-out.

ZeeZoo wrote:

Do Americans have some sort of a deficiency in manners and common sense? Utterly pathetic the past few weeks and tarnishing the reputation of airliners.

Maybe. Are Europeans any better?

http://www.aol.co.uk/travel/2013/08/05/ ... -to-ibiza/

http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/648 ... ed-landing

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/ry ... ng-9036055

http://www.tenerifenews.com/2017/03/com ... -arrested/

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-37386554

http://abcnews.go.com/Travel/story?id=118826&page=1

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/pa ... ts-7634497

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/dr ... ge-8442368

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/travel/tr ... 2891989477

Maybe the last one isn't so bad. But plenty of examples of Europeans getting on airplanes and behaving like animals.

Jo8338 wrote:

The real problem is the 321. They replaced the 757 which had a second closet. AA needs to makes it a more close replacement to the 75 and bring F to the second door with another closet.

It's the airplane's fault. That's a new one. Pretty silly, really.

sofianec wrote:

I looked at the video a few times and there are a few things quite obvious:

1. The woman with the baby was totally faking it. Not only because of her very fake wailing but also because her baby was quite calm throughout. I have seen many cases when the mother is genuinely distraught (not faking it) the baby is very distraught as well. Not in this case.

2. The "white knight" guy was aggressive and he threatened the gate agent with violence. Not to mention disruptive, arrogant and totally out of line. Too bad he wasn't booted off that flight and charged for assault.

3. The gate agent ordered the "white knight" dude to stay out of it.

4. The "white knight" guy attacked the gate agent and aggressively entered his personal space. Again he should be charged for that.

While I was very negatively impacted from the video that made all the news at United, watching this over and over again actually I can't really blame the gate agent for anything but standing up for himself. And since it's easier today for the airline to throw a gate agent under the bus and throw money at people for good publicity that's how it will happen. I wouldn't be surprised if more people in service jobs start looking for a different career. After all that's happened being a gate agent is worse than a toilet cleaner with all the crap people are willing to pull on you just to get a pay-out.

i've been a flight attendant, reservationist, ticket agent, baggage agent and gate agent. i took the most abuse as a reservationist people
can be so mean when they are not facing you. in person they are a lot better but sometimes things go sideways, and i always prided myself
in getting people to calm down. however 've i seem way too many fellow employee's lose their cool and lose their job. so no this job is not for everybody. You won't last long if you are not a people person. that said, we all have bad days and there have been a lot of bad days recently
do to bad weather, and all you can do is hope that the good days outnumber the bad ones.. i was once punched in the stomach by a customer.
and i had a dear friend knocked out when she told a passenger his flight was cancelled. however, those aren't important enough to post on fb
since we are only employee's.

Did they hire that a-hole out of prison? Someone give me his name and phone number please. Needs to be fired and a one-way ticket to a mental hospital.

I usually am the one defending flight crews from the general public but this "man" needs to be run over by a tug.

DLFREEBIRD wrote:

my thoughts are that this couldn't possibly be about what the article is alleging. look at the video she had twin babies and she was traveling alone.. We do know that she was denied boarding and was waiting for them to retrieve her stroller. that had apparently been gate checked by the agent earlier. There is a FAA rule that if you have twin babies, you can't sit both on your lap.

A witness mentioned that she was holding one baby while the other was in a car seat.

flyguychi wrote:

[photoid][/photoid]

ZeeZoo wrote:

Do Americans have some sort of a deficiency in manners and common sense? Utterly pathetic the past few weeks and tarnishing the reputation of airliners.

No, 99% of passengers are quite pleasant and most employees do their job well. Unfortunately we have an obsession with the 1% of negativity and shock news.

Social Media does not define an entire population.

bgm wrote:

Have these incidents been happening for a while, or is it due to the fact everyone has a smartphone and can record this airline BS now?

The US carriers' biggest liability sadly is their own employees. They can make or break the customer experience.

This is not really anything new. I was recalling the incident some years back where a toddler ran down a jetway, the gate agent tried to stop the dad from running down after him, and the dad picked up the gate agent and slammed him down on his head.

So many of these stories start off with an employee perhaps needing to approach something different, and it just escalates from there.

kpotennis wrote:

Bottom line it's the breakdown of our society period!!!

Nobody treats anybody with respect anymore. This doesn't matter if your an employee or customer for the most part and people are sue happy, trying to make a quick $$$ in a lot of these cases. Wish the travel industry in the USA would go back in time to the 70's and 80's, people were nicer to one another. Ugh, tired of it all!!!

There's a lot of truth in there, though obviously it isn't all bad. I just traveled to SoCal and was ready to experience the lack of respect - I've certainly seen some really deplorable service over the years. However, I can honestly say that from the AA gate agent in SEA to the Compass F/A's to the Starbucks baristas to the servers at restaurants to the hotel staff to the rental car shuttle drivers to the LAX Terminal 6 TSA agents that virtually everyone we encountered was friendly, professional, and sometimes even outstanding. It was awesome. Now if we could just do something about rental car employees and DL gate agents, we'd be in business.

commavia wrote:

And for airlines, when you have tens of thousands of employees, there are bound to be some bad ones - and they should be fired. But let's keep some perspective here, and not needlessly inflate this into some bigger morality tale that it isn't. There are customer service failures and breakdowns all the time, at all airlines, and indeed at all companies. The world keeps spinning.

Very true. We sometimes act like the CEO personally instructs the front line employee to assault the customers.

WaywardMemphian wrote:

bmacleod wrote:

UA now AA and don't forget DL computer meltdowns....future of U.S. air travel looks pretty dark unless big changes are enacted.

I'm predicting more high-speed rail projects will just keep getting green-lighted. Many airline travelers are simply fed-up.

Some high speed rail makes sense, Dallas to Little Rock to Memphis to Nashville would one of those considering the enormous traffic counts on I-30 and I-40.

Lol I love trains, and I appreciate your optimism, but I can't imagine that happening in our lifetimes.

IPFreely wrote:

By all accounts the woman had dragged the stroller to the rear of the plane. From the video this man was sitting in the first 3 or 4 rows of the plane. So you can get off your high horse, there is no way he had any idea what happened when the FA first attempted to take the stroller for gate checking. He simply jumped into a situation that did not concern him, lamely attempting to be a tough guy. He is quite lucky that the captain did not have him removed from the flight or that another passenger did not give him a smackdown.

Not true. By no accounts the woman had dragged the stroller to the rear of the place. That was the issue: she had a double-wide stroller, and it would not go down the aisle. It was at the front of the plane where the FA grabbed the stroller - almost hitting the baby in the woman's arms - and it is there that the incident occurred. And it was there that everyone near the front of the aircraft saw what happened.

Do you just make up your "facts" as you go along?

sofianec wrote:

I looked at the video a few times and there are a few things quite obvious:
1. The woman with the baby was totally faking it. Not only because of her very fake wailing but also because her baby was quite calm throughout. I have seen many cases when the mother is genuinely distraught (not faking it) the baby is very distraught as well. Not in this case.
2. The "white knight" guy was aggressive and he threatened the gate agent with violence. Not to mention disruptive, arrogant and totally out of line. Too bad he wasn't booted off that flight and charged for assault.
3. The gate agent ordered the "white knight" dude to stay out of it.
4. The "white knight" guy attacked the gate agent and aggressively entered his personal space. Again he should be charged for that.
While I was very negatively impacted from the video that made all the news at United, watching this over and over again actually I can't really blame the gate agent for anything but standing up for himself. And since it's easier today for the airline to throw a gate agent under the bus and throw money at people for good publicity that's how it will happen. I wouldn't be surprised if more people in service jobs start looking for a different career. After all that's happened being a gate agent is worse than a toilet cleaner with all the crap people are willing to pull on you just to get a pay-out.

Maybe you need to take yet another look, because much of what is "obvious" to you is simply wrong:

1. You deduce the woman is "faking it" because the baby isn't crying? She was the one who, according to other passengers, was hit by the stroller; the baby was barely missed. Whether or not a baby was crying is a non sequitur, regardless of your "many cases" of observation.
2. The "white knight" was aggressive, but hardly arrogant and out of line. If you think he should be charged with assault, perhaps you need to look at the video a few more times. He was attempting to protect the woman - and the babies - which would normally be considered commendable by honorable - and non-biased - people.
3. Not likely, because there was no gate agent on the aircraft. It was the hot-headed flight attendant who told the "dude" to stay out.
4. Again, he couldn't invade the space of any gate agent; there was no gate agent on the plane. And other passengers agree that incident started when said FA "violently" jerked the stroller, almost hitting the baby; some say the stroller did hit the woman - and her forehead does appear to be bruised.. That precipitated the woman's anguish, as well as the disgust of the other passenger. And that, Mr. sofianec, might be the invasion-of-space you are looking for.

So, fortunately, there will be no gate agent thrown under the bus... but a short-tempered flight attendant may be looking for a new job. He might want to try out for a lucha libre role...


ABC did interview some of the passengers; http://abcnews.go.com/US/american-airli ... d=46951873

After this and UA last week.....why don't airlines ban cell phone usage once you are on the aircraft?


Also, I'm confused....was this guy a FA or gate agent? ...and the other gentleman was a pilot, correct?

The gate agent was totally out of line. That's obvious. However, the woman traveling, and other passengers, have to understand that rules are there for a reason. Now if this indeed fell under the AA's COC then by all means she's in the clear, but if not she (and other passengers who think they're entitled to everything) have to realize that the rules have in place are there for a reason. If you go to somebody's house and they ask you to take your shoes off, you take your shoes off. Respect and manners seem to be disappearing in this world (in this case on both the airline and passenger side). This speaks to a larger cultural issue.

chiawei wrote:

You attack a woman, regardless is incidental, anyone should have the right to confront and defend. That so called alpha male is not in the wrong.

alfa164 wrote:

For decades, we have denigrated society for the "loss of chivalry"; this man - albeit in a misplaced situation - stands up to defend a woman, and the this-airline-can-do-no-wrong is crying "foul". It may be misplaced on his part, but his intentions appear to be well-meaning.

mjoelnir wrote:

I still am amazed the people rushing to the defence of the AA employee, if he hit the woman with the stroller, he should expect getting beat up and got away without that happening. Do people really believe that airline employees can hit a passenger, in this case a male hitting a woman, and other passengers should just look on?

Would any of these opinions differ if it was simply a person or (god forbid) a man melting down with two small kids in tow? If it was a man, should he have just dumped the two kids to put his dukes up and righteously defend his honor?

1. If indeed the stroller hit the passenger and/or came dangerously close to contacting the child, the passenger deserved an immediate apology befitting the situation…anywhere from a simple “pardon me ma’am” for a glancing incidental brush to a stop-everything concern for her situation, offer of medical care, etc. We do not know the extent of the contact.

2. That the passenger was sobbing doesn’t really tell us squat. She could be in serious physical pain from getting intentionally hit hard with the stroller. She could be making a deliberate dramatic fuss over not getting to keep her stroller. She could have been confused about what was going on if indeed there was a language barrier. She could have been overstressed by the trip and children, a situation where something pretty minor could push one over the edge. Regardless this passenger needed compassion, calming, and care. She did not need an avenger, and escalating the situation almost certainly did nothing to calm the passenger.

3. Although the passenger was quite out of line to appoint himself to get in the face of that employee, the airline employee clearly screwed up by further escalating the situation himself. It’s his job in situations like this to defuse things, not escalate them. He’s the professional and he has the power of rule. With millions of daily passenger-employee interactions every day there are certain to be occasional incidents of threats, physical intimidation, angry tirades, etc. Sad but true. 99.9% of the time the employee handles it without in-your-face escalation.

American is doing the right thing by not trying to explain or justify things at this point, a fatal flaw in United’s first reactions. As many of us are I’m eager to see the whole “another airline incident” flavor of the day pass with the media. Ideally I’d like to see the ugly situations never happen and increased civility, but sadly I’m not as optimistic about that.

727LOVER wrote:

After this and UA last week.....why don't airlines ban cell phone usage once you are on the aircraft?

Completely un-enforceable and will result in global outrage. Plus you ban cell phones, I'll just take out my actual camera.

knope2001 wrote:

Although the passenger was quite out of line to appoint himself to get in the face of that employee, .

By the way, the pax still got to fly...not booted off?

LAXintl wrote:

AA statement;



https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C9_EemEXgAEyhSk.jpg

2 things: 1: Yes they are of course going to investigate. 2: They will always offer services & release a statement like this so they can soften any lawsuit. This is a legal department PR statement that they release to the press.

727LOVER wrote:

After this and UA last week.....why don't airlines ban cell phone usage once you are on the aircraft?
Also, I'm confused....was this guy a FA or gate agent? ...and the other gentleman was a pilot, correct?

He was a Flight Attendant... or, perhaps more correctly, a former Flight Attendant.

727LOVER wrote:

knope2001 wrote:

Although the passenger was quite out of line to appoint himself to get in the face of that employee, .

By the way, the pax still got to fly...not booted off?

She was rebooked for a later flight, and given First Class to Buenos Aires.

picarus wrote:

Thanks B777LRF, you're probably the first response posted by someone who has kids or is old enough to be empathetic to a mother traveling alone with a young child. To everything else judging those who got involved and jumped to her defense -- were you there? Did you actually see and hear what happened? I didn't, but I'm certain that a woman traveling alone with a small child wanted her travel experience to be completely stress free.

Clearly, there is a whole chain of individual events that culminated in the escalation of what we see on this video. The "alpha-male" pax was took it to far, but I laud his reaction to stand up for this woman. We've lost our way as a society if we're unable to show compassion and empathy. The FA was clearly having a bad day and maybe he just snapped, who knows. If it's true that he hit her with the stroller, nearly missing the infant in the process, then he should be fired.

AA's response was quick and a textbook example of how to confront and diffuse the situation in the court of public opinion -- obviously something United failed at so profoundly last week.

He was the Gate Agent, not an FA. the two jobs are vastly different.

rbavfan wrote:

He was the Gate Agent, not an FA. the two jobs are vastly different.

Well.. no. He was a Flight Attendant, not the Gate Agent, and he continued on with the flight.

But the two jobs are vastly different...you are right about that part...

alfa164 wrote:

Maybe you need to take yet another look, because much of what is "obvious" to you is simply wrong:

1. You deduce the woman is "faking it" because the baby isn't crying? She was the one who, according to other passengers, was hit by the stroller; the baby was barely missed. Whether or not a baby was crying is a non sequitur, regardless of your "many cases" of observation.
2. The "white knight" was aggressive, but hardly arrogant and out of line. If you think he should be charged with assault, perhaps you need to look at the video a few more times. He was attempting to protect the woman - and the babies - which would normally be considered commendable by honorable - and non-biased - people.
3. Not likely, because there was no gate agent on the aircraft. It was the hot-headed flight attendant who told the "dude" to stay out.
4. Again, he couldn't invade the space of any gate agent; there was no gate agent on the plane. And other passengers agree that incident started when said FA "violently" jerked the stroller, almost hitting the baby; some say the stroller did hit the woman - and her forehead does appear to be bruised.. That precipitated the woman's anguish, as well as the disgust of the other passenger. And that, Mr. sofianec, might be the invasion-of-space you are looking for.

So, fortunately, there will be no gate agent thrown under the bus... but a short-tempered flight attendant may be looking for a new job. He might want to try out for a lucha libre role...

1. She is either faking it (badly) or simply suffers from mental issues to create such a scene. Her sobbing/yelling or whatever she was performing was just bad. And yes, this is my opinion.
2. The woman nor her baby were in no danger whatsoever. She was not in any situation where she needed protecting. In the presence of many passengers, the captain, flight attendants. Please ...
3. Whatever the bald "hot headed" dude was (gate agent, flight attendant) i was referring to him.
4. Then again the "white knight" dude decided to act like a big macho asking "what's this guy's name", threatening the bald dude with bodily harm. I mean come on. Flight attendants are treated like punching bags - it's wrong.

I am not American, i am from Germany. Here if the flight attendant tells you - no stroller on board, there will be no stroller on board. Period. Guess who shows up 5 minutes before gate closes and holds up the entire plane with hundreds of extra requests. Guess the nationality. Literally on every flight. And we oblige almost always if we can but we can't always surely. And then sometimes we get people calling us names, calling us nazis for doing our jobs and following the rules.

The bald dude surely lost his nerves but the woman is surely exaggerating her anguish beyond belief. In my humble opinion.

After watching the video, I'd say that clearly the AA employee had lost his cool and was no longer fit for service. The passenger boarding as the video progressed clearly witnessed what had happened with him grabbing the stroller and was communicating her disgust to one of the flight attendants. Obviously he was too aggressive in how he took it. The captain seemed pretty hands-off. I don't know how it works while on the ground but it would have been great if he'd suggested to the male FA to stay off the aircraft until things cooled down. And while I applaud the notion of the male passenger standing up for her, there wasn't an ongoing altercation and he had no business threatening the male FA. Get his name, report him, share the video, etc., but standing up and being antagonizing like that was simply not needed.

sofianec wrote:

Guess who shows up 5 minutes before gate closes and holds up the entire plane with hundreds of extra requests. Guess the nationality. Literally on every flight. And we oblige almost always if we can but we can't always surely. And then sometimes we get people calling us names, calling us nazis for doing our jobs and following the rules.

I'm at a loss - who are you talking about here?

alfa164 wrote:

She was rebooked for a later flight, and given First Class to Buenos Aires.

Trying to keep it a bit light, it'd be just my luck that I'd book First Class intercontinentally and a single parent with two infants/young toddlers would be seated next to me. lol

727LOVER wrote:

After this and UA last week.....why don't airlines ban cell phone usage once you are on the aircraft?

Yeah, because THAT is the root of the problem. People recording bad behavior. Not the bad behavior itself.

IPFreely wrote:

He is quite lucky that the captain did not have him removed from the flight or that another passenger did not give him a smackdown.

That was also a surprise to me. The captain observed everything that was going on and once a passenger got out of his seat and threatened a flight attendant, he should have been removed. (Maybe a reaction to the United issue?) However, the FA was also in the wrong. By all accounts he was at best rude and at worst threatening to at least two passengers, and in no way should have reacted with the "hit me" comment. He escalated the situation rather than doing the opposite.

transswede wrote:

727LOVER wrote:

After this and UA last week.....why don't airlines ban cell phone usage once you are on the aircraft?

Yeah, because THAT is the root of the problem. People recording bad behavior. Not the bad behavior itself.

haha Well, it is the new reality that we live in, but in our world of Yelp and Instagram, everyone with a cellphone (so, everyone) suddenly becomes a journalistic social justice warrior. Many times it sheds light on incidents or topics which is great, but what often seems to happen is that a trial is held with limited and sometimes manipulated information, parties are found guilty/not guilty by the public, and people's lives are affected forever - and it might not even be accurate.

It's the way it is nowadays, but it doesn't mean it's handled responsibly or fairly. I just know that, personally, I would hate to have someone standing there with a camera in my face recording my every action, posting on the internet, and making accusations without me having a chance to defend myself. I think most people would feel the same way. Eventually the shoe may be on the other foot and we'll wish there was a bit more privacy and grace on all sides.

sofianec wrote:

I am not American, i am from Germany. Here if the flight attendant tells you - no stroller on board, there will be no stroller on board. Period. Guess who shows up 5 minutes before gate closes and holds up the entire plane with hundreds of extra requests. Guess the nationality. Literally on every flight. And we oblige almost always if we can but we can't always surely. And then sometimes we get people calling us names, calling us nazis for doing our jobs and following the rules.

Maybe because Germans seem to have an unnatural affinity for autocratic and despotic leadership?

PlanesNTrains wrote:

alfa164 wrote:

She was rebooked for a later flight, and given First Class to Buenos Aires.

Trying to keep it a bit light, it'd be just my luck that I'd book First Class intercontinentally and a single parent with two infants/young toddlers would be seated next to me. lol

I pictured that scene, too... and I didn't want to be there...

Jo8338 wrote:

The real problem is the 321. They replaced the 757 which had a second closet. AA needs to makes it a more close replacement to the 75 and bring F to the second door with another closet.

Yeah, it's all Airbus's fault!

sofianec wrote:

1. She is either faking it (badly) or simply suffers from mental issues to create such a scene. Her sobbing/yelling or whatever she was performing was just bad. And yes, this is my opinion.

Well, you know what they say about opinions... I assume you're not a mental health professional?

Tell me, are you a parent who's endured the stress of travelling with young infants and all that entails?

ikolkyo wrote:

That male passenger trying to be the white knight riding on his horse to save the day and just intervene like that was just so unnecessary.

The reactions here to a pax that stood up for a woman who was almost assaulted by some pyscho FA is scary but not surprising since you always think the airline is always right. I am actually glad he stood up for her. The FA needs to be fired and should seek some emotional help.

AA FAs are the worst. They treat coach pax like crap and need to be retrained or fired. My recent flights with them was eye opening and made me love Delta all that much more.

scbriml wrote:

Tell me, are you a parent who's endured the stress of travelling with young infants and all that entails?

Yes, i have 4

Must be something in the water these days. I was in LAX this morning waiting to board a SWA flight. Apparently another SWA flight had pushed back the had to return to the gate with a mechanical. The flight was the canceled and some of the pax became so obnoxious that the gate agent who was trying to rebook these pax on another flight, had to make an announcement that she would have to call the police if some of the pax did not calm down. When a SWA agent has to say something like you know these people were getting out of hand.

The traveling public is spoiled and like little children display society's manners for all to see. I know one thing this the pax who threatened the crew with violence would, or should not have been allowed to continue on that flight. End of story.

sofianec wrote:

Yes, i have 4

Welcome to the club. Now, what are your mental health professional qualifications?

alfa164 wrote:

Maybe because Germans seem to have an unnatural affinity for autocratic and despotic leadership?

Surely I will be extremely diligent and overly strict in the future while performing my duties especially with the wonderful and very kind passengers from across the pond.

scbriml wrote:

Welcome to the club. Now, what are your mental health professional qualifications?

How is your blood sugar level?

But to answer your relevant question ... I have plenty of qualifications spotting fakers.

sofianec wrote:

But to answer your relevant question ... I have plenty of qualifications spotting fakers.

So that's a "no".

11725Flyer wrote:

IPFreely wrote:

He is quite lucky that the captain did not have him removed from the flight or that another passenger did not give him a smackdown.

That was also a surprise to me. The captain observed everything that was going on and once a passenger got out of his seat and threatened a flight attendant, he should have been removed. (Maybe a reaction to the United issue?) However, the FA was also in the wrong. By all accounts he was at best rude and at worst threatening to at least two passengers, and in no way should have reacted with the "hit me" comment. He escalated the situation rather than doing the opposite.

Based on this logic, both the male passenger AND the flight attendant should have been removed, because both displayed aggressive behavior....

scbriml wrote:

So that's a "no".

It's actually a YES.

11725Flyer wrote:

Jo8338 wrote:

The real problem is the 321. They replaced the 757 which had a second closet. AA needs to makes it a more close replacement to the 75 and bring F to the second door with another closet.

It's the airplane's fault. That's a new one. Pretty silly, really.

My point is that the 321B in the incident was to be a direct replacement of the 75's. Management chose the wrong configuration to be an apples to apples replacement. The 32B would be equipped with 22F and a second closet forward of the L2 door.

727LOVER wrote:

After this and UA last week.....why don't airlines ban cell phone usage once you are on the aircraft?

Yes, the problem isn't that some airline employees treat customers with contempt. It is that the flying cattle talks back and has cameras.

OTOH, maybe airlines could hire professionals? There are a lot of people that manage to do their job without hitting or insulting customers... in the airline industry and in any other industry. Really!

The problem is actually that American Airlines and all full service Airlines provide pretty much the same service as a LCC nowadays yet they spend tons of money on advertising themselves as premium thus setting expectations that when you pay 10 times over you're going to be treated like a VIP.

A poster earlier listed horror stories on European airlines but almost all were with LCCs. With Ryanair, EasyJet, WizzAir you get crappy service but it's never expected. You pay 10 euros to take you from London to Ibiza and that's it.

The reality is sadly different. All full service carriers are super optimized to make the most money and in many cases aren't any different than a dirt cheap LCC. I mean the new European seats for Lufthansa are worse than Ryanair but they charge top dollar. I'm sure this woman and many people on this flight paid huge sums expecting to be treated as if on Singapore Airlines. The reason United with their ironic "friendly skies" BS and American basically provide the same basic service as Spirit but people bought the whole "premium" fallacy.

All this a result of the rampant consolidation in the US and lack of competition.

I rarely have a bad flight. You can turn around a grumpy F/A.

I go out of my way to say good morning or hello when boarding. I say please and thank you.

Goes a long way.

sofianec wrote:

Guess the nationality. Literally on every flight. And we oblige almost always if we can but we can't always surely. And then sometimes we get people calling us names, calling us nazis for doing our jobs and following the rules.

I don't believe you for a second. As a society we have been brainwashed we are bunch of cheapos and all corporations are doing us a "favor" by providing service for which we paid. This is our daily life, airline would be the last place to ask for any last minute request. You can see hundreds of posts suggesting any change will cost more.

BobbyPSP wrote:

I rarely have a bad flight. You can turn around a grumpy F/A.

I go out of my way to say good morning or hello when boarding. I say please and thank you.

Goes a long way.

I absolutely agree. I have NEVER had a bad flight. In fact when I used to live in the US I was impressed the most by United. Literally every time I was on United everything was beyond perfect, the F/A were amazing, friendly and absolutely fabulous. In fact the only times I had anything close to bad experience was 1. On Delta because they wanted to charge me 1200$ for a ATL-ORD flight because I missed a connection, I took AirTran for 120$ instead and 2. On American but it wasn't really their fault cause of blizzard (at LGA) we were stuck in the plane for 4 hours and then they told us to come back the next day.

Like I said before most of the times because of regulations or what not the airline cannot do more than a LCC. People's expectations however are vastly different and often when faced with a non-flexible situations they rant. I get it. It's unfair but it's not some F/A or gate agent fault, just don't act so entitled because you have money and you have miles and status and blah blah. It's just BS to make you pay more.

dtw2hyd wrote:

I don't believe you for a second. As a society we have been brainwashed we are bunch of cheapos and all corporations are doing us a "favor" by providing service for which we paid. This is our daily life, airline would be the last place to ask for any last minute request. You can see hundreds of posts suggesting any change will cost more.

As in every "brainwashed" society any view that shatters the uniformed perception of things within the society bubble is not believed for a second. As of course you can't possibly expect every member of said society to behave in an uniform manner. I have absolutely no reason to lie but you have many reasons not to believe me regardless of whether i'm right or not.

Just a thought: what if your request is absolutely not possible whether you pay more or not? I'll give you a hint ... cry and hold a baby.

Funny reading all the posts in this thread before watching the video. Basically a rude pilot and an out control passenger. Nether looks good. But nether is this an issue that would be given as much attention as it has received. If not for the ubiquitous prescience of video cameras.

Siddar wrote:

Funny reading all the posts in this thread before watching the video. Basically a rude pilot and an out control passenger. Nether looks good. But nether is this an issue that would be given as much attention as it has received. If not for the ubiquitous prescience of video cameras.

So you watched the video and in your video it was the pilot? Huh....

db373 wrote:

11725Flyer wrote:

IPFreely wrote:

He is quite lucky that the captain did not have him removed from the flight or that another passenger did not give him a smackdown.

That was also a surprise to me. The captain observed everything that was going on and once a passenger got out of his seat and threatened a flight attendant, he should have been removed. (Maybe a reaction to the United issue?) However, the FA was also in the wrong. By all accounts he was at best rude and at worst threatening to at least two passengers, and in no way should have reacted with the "hit me" comment. He escalated the situation rather than doing the opposite.

Based on this logic, both the male passenger AND the flight attendant should have been removed, because both displayed aggressive behavior....

And the FA was. Just not on that flight.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/ame ... on-n749651

Some Observations Here:

- The passenger in first class was an aggressive jerk who overreacted and needed to chill.

-The gate agent or flight attendant was out of line and reacted just as agressively in response to the jerk in first class. The employee lost his cool and lowered his behavior to the first class passenger's asinine behavior and his threats.

- The woman..... without any video... might have overreacted and became overly emotional here.....we really don't know. But some passengers have a sense of entitlement and feel like the rules/policies don't apply to them and are very belligerent and disrespectful to airline employees.

-AA's public response was well done and appropriate.... good job!

commavia wrote:

cokepopper wrote:

Just to note, flight attendants and gate agents can and have been fined by FAA inspectors for allowing non regulation items on board. Not defending this F/A just some background. Just like the FAA has fined F/As for exiting the a/c to inquire about a seat dup (if we go below min staff)
In this case IF the f/a was checking bags in the jetway and the f/a staff went below min with him exiting, then he also could be fined.

Right. But it's the way it's done. The way this employee acted was ridiculous - regardless of whether or not it should ever have even gotten to that point, once it did, he should never have behaved that way.

I suspect where this is all heading is that in the future, rather than risk escalation or a confrontation, with cell phone cameras recording, front-line employees will be instructed to simply call the manager on duty and the two of them will then calmly inform the passenger that the flight will be delayed or cancelled as a result of their refusal to comply with the rules. Rather than even attempting to "negotiate" with the passenger, the choice will essentially be "follow the rules" or "we'll all sit here until you do." A big part of what drives the stress on the part of employees is the constant pressure to get the plane out on time because of how prominent on-time statistics have become. But my guess is that corporate policies will change to allow an exception for situations like this, removing the "blame" for taking a delay from the agent or FA based on the premise that accepting a delay is better than risking these types of P.R. incidents.

From what I am hearing this is where it's headed. They're not going to Invol any seated passengers. If they need to remove someone, they ask for Vols to a point then cancel. Probably the best outcome out of all imperfect solutions, and yes this should apply to incidents like this also. Ask nicely for the stroller, ask nicely again adding the plane can't leave until the stroller is checked. Keep asking nicely and sate that at some point the flight will have to be canceled. I am pretty sure the stroller will be checked or Vols would come forward.

That said, the FA or agent was wrong, but I find it hard to believe he intentionally hit the passenger. I think it is more likely that if she was hit it was while he was trying to get the stroller from her. It doesn't excuse his actions or subsequent arguing, but I just don't believe he intentionally hit her. I also agree with the person who said she was probably advised. I have been on many flights and I doubt the agents and FA's told her to wheel a large stroller down the aisle, and at that size I am almost certain it had already been tagged or the passenger was told to leave it at the aircraft door. Don't know for sure, but I have always seen the agents and FA's instruct the passengers that it must be checked.

We don't know what happened before but even if the passenger was rude or did not follow instructions, it should have been handled politely. It wasn't and all we now see is the aftermath. AA handled the apology well and cellphones and videos are the new reality. Best to smile and be nice and let the Internet see the passengers behaving badly, not the employees.

I think there are two very simple solutions to this.

1. NEVER grab something from a passenger's grasp unless your life depends on it. Why in the world would he have done that?
2. NEVER touch or yell at a passenger during the boarding process. Simply stop the process and let a manager be responsible. If it takes an hour, so be it.

Simple solutions - too bad we need to keep providing these people with solutions that they should already be trained to figure out on their own.

PlanesNTrains wrote:

Siddar wrote:

Funny reading all the posts in this thread before watching the video. Basically a rude pilot and an out control passenger. Nether looks good. But nether is this an issue that would be given as much attention as it has received. If not for the ubiquitous prescience of video cameras.

So you watched the video and in your video it was the pilot? Huh....

Yes it was pilot in video I watched inside airport. There appears to thread merger that happened.

In my opinion, the AA PR team has done a significantly better job than their counterparts at UA, they immediately said AA was fully responsible, instead of standing by the employee which is almost what always happens, they went after him.
I think the UA incident made all airlines take more precautions on how to respond to these situations.
However when an employee is caught on camera it is hard to defend, for any company.