Two stories have surfaced over the past day or so that should serve as a friendly reminder how NOT to behave while traveling, via air or otherwise, though these two specifically were airline related.
The first is the tale of an American Airlines flight that was running a bit late out of Miami headed up to New York because the crew was delayed getting to the plane for some reason or another. The passengers were none to happy about this and apparently they started heckling the crew when they finally got to the gate. Mob mentality set in and the scene got ugly. AA canceled the flight because the flight crew didn’t feel safe getting in a big metal tube with the crowd. I can’t say I blame the crew in this case. I’ve been on a delayed flight (Orlando to Syracuse) where after a couple hours at the bar waiting to depart one of the passengers got pretty loaded and then started making rather inappropriate comments to one of the FAs as we were finally getting on the plane. The Orlando police escorted him off the plane a couple minutes later. He deserved it and he knew it. In this case the mob mentality probably left the passengers in a state of disbelief since none of them thought it was too hash, but that’s life. Oh, and their bags were sent to JFK instead of LaGuardia. Ha!
The second story is of a family who had some trouble with Southwest. It seems that the kids were running around uncontrollably during the first of their two flights. When they arrived in their connecting city they were met by cops and told that they were not welcome on the continuing flight. She was “shocked” and left stranded in the Phoenix airport. If the kids aren’t staying seated then they are a safety risk, to themselves and to those around them. Not to mention that the other hundred folks on the plane probably didn’t want to be babysitters instead of passengers. Here’s a hint – keep the kids under control and next time you won’t have such troubles.
It is rare that I side with airlines in customer service issues, but these are two cases where I think the airlines were way more right than wrong. Happy flying, and try to behave 🙂
Never miss another post: Sign up for email alerts and get only the content you want direct to your inbox.
I disagree with AA cancelling the flight. Based on the televised interviews, foul language from a few pax is not enough of a reason to inconvenience the majority. Instead, those pax of which the crew was fearful could’ve been denied boarding.
It is hard to know for certain without having been there to know just how bad the scene was. If it was one or two people they could have easily just denied those people. If it were 5 or 10 it gets murky in a hurry because it is hard to know just how badly things are going to turn once in flight. Canceling the flight wasn’t good for AA either, leaving a crew and a plane out of place in their rotation, so it isn’t something that would be taken lightly.
I don’t know the whole story either, but I’m more likely to err on the airline’s side in this case based on the data I’ve seen.