MYFOXNY.COM — A flight from Florida to New York Sunday night never got off the ground. That’s because after the flight crew arrived late, angry and impatient passengers got verbally agitated and hostile. Apparently it was so bad, the crew wasn’t comfortable working the flight so they refused to take off.
This would never have happened if the passengers had been fitted with “safety bracelets”.
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Maybe those bracelets in the last article may have a use after all. Zap everybody into oblivion before you take off. Problem solved. No more unruly passengers, no more terrorists to blow up the plane.
Maybe the crew just fancied another night out and about on the town?
Serves them right. I’ve seen similar a-holes who think they are God’s gift to the world. They strut around gabbing on their cell phone and yell at the gate agents with arrogant comments like: “Do you know who I am?”
They flip out when a thunderstorm or a snowstorm delays the incoming flight and crew. Instead of putting them in a hotel, the real hotheads should have been given a greyhound bus ticket.
Watch the video… the airline got revenge when they sent all the passengers’ luggage to the wrong airport.
Sure lets punish everyone becuase of a few jerks.
It doesn’t matter much but I wonder why the flight was late arriving and I’ll bet the Airline did not explain what was happening and just let the passengers stew without explanation?
Its unusual for pilots to be in a position where they interact with passengers? All they have to do is walk thru the terminal to the boarding gate and get to the cockpit. Surely those locking crew doors would provide the safety they seek?
At some level, once again, I suspect bad management. Would still be curious as to what the repercussions might be for the pilots.
Oh Well, Hotels in Miami now have barbed wire huh?
Bobbo, why do I think you have never once in your life been in a position where the lives of several people are your responsibility?
So, planes have turned into buses that cost two arms and two legs. People are getting fed up with the delays and abuse heaped onto them by the crew. If a passenger is late, its the passengers fault. If the airline is late, its the passengers fault. If the airline goes bankrupt, it has nothing to do with the shoddy management…..its due to the passengers wanting to bring a change of clothes and not paying for it.
Maybe these passengers should be sent to D.C. where time is truly wasted.
#6–Gig==take your choice:
1. That obviously is a question you have to ask yourself as it has nothing to do with me?
2. Not even once?
3. I wish I could forget one of the first jokes I ever learned: Hey Gig,–I saved your life lastnight! Oh, really?==How so? Well, I ran over a shit eating dog. Followed by: What goes ha,ha,ha,—-thud? A man laughing his head off.
If you have the interest, try to narrow down why YOU connect anything I have posted with a disrespect for life. I’m looking to be surprised, but can handle disappointment.
#3 said it.
The crew was probably late due to overbooking by the airline. At this point I support anything that empowers the crew against rude and unruly passengers.
The only thing wrong in this picture is that the crew couldn’t simply – on their own authoritiy – put the jerks out on the street and take off with the rest of the passengers.
The crew should be able to deny boarding to anyone that isn’t behaving in a civilized way.
New Yorkers and Floridians… surprised this doesn’t happen more often.
The airlines are digging their own graves. This is just another example.
#11 – Jimbo
>>The only thing wrong in this picture is that the
>>crew couldn’t simply – on their own authoritiy – put
>>the jerks out on the street and take off with the
>>rest of the passengers.
That might work, as long as the passengers had the same right to put asshole crew members out on the street.
How much skill does it take to be a “flight attendant”?
Shit, even I could hand out peanuts and read the instructions on how to fasten your seat belt over the PA system.
Seems to me that the pilot could have simply hijacked the gate PA and given an explanation. Apologize profusely, and promise that “We’ll be on our way just a quickly as possible.” Situation over. Maybe even play a Southwest and promise double rations of pretzels for the inconvenience.
How f’n stupid was this guy?
Hey !!! The Air Crew was ONE HOUR LATE !!! Anyone read the article ? That would tend to piss me off too !!! Does the Air Crew still have jobs ??? Being late gives the airline a freebie retrenchment opportunity, so I would imagine the air crew should SHAPE UP or get SHIPPED OUT !!!
Mob mentality is a scary thing. It is especially frightning at 30,000 feet where there is no place to run. If I were cabin crew on that flight, I would have been uncomfortable too. I don’t blame them a bit. A group of people yelling, booing, screaming, and swearing? 140 passengers and only 3 crew in the cabin? I don’t think so. If folks can’t be civilized, then they can’t fly.
Chris
Tucson, AZ
#17–JimD==why did the crew arrive late? I didn’t catch that in the video and don’t see any article to read. Links?
American Airlines “old” policy:
“American Airlines and American Eagle are in business to provide safe, dependable and friendly air transportation to our customers, along with numerous related services. We are dedicated to making every flight you take with us something special. ”
American Airlines “new” policy:
“F*ck you, *sshole”
When pilots and flight attendants are late, it’s because they were late flying an earlier flight inbound. It’s not because they just reported for work late!
As for angry passengers……………. I’m an airline pilot with a major airline. My personal observation is that the flying public is becoming more and more rude, obnoxious, and intolerant. Managers certainly make mistakes but 70-80 percent of the time the problem is the passenger(s).
If I have an overly angry, obnoxious passenger, I talk to them. If they don’t respond well, they don’t fly – period!
If I have 100+ passengers behaving the same way, I don’t fly – period!
There are published standards passengers must comply with to SAFELY fly on an aircraft. These are mandated by the FAA. It’s not corporate policy. It’s not personal preference. It’s the law.
Let me put it to you another way….. If a passenger cannot and/or will not listen to, (and follow the directions of) the flight crew while on the ground, they certanly won’t do it in an emergency, and that’s unsafe. If it’s not safe, it’s not legal. If a passenger threatens a crew member in any way, that’s also illegal.
Put yourself in the “shoes of the flight crew”. You had a long day, several delays. You get off an aircraft after parking at gate “A”, go to gate “B” where another aircraft is waiting on you only to find 100+ angry passengers who all think it’s your fault. You try to talk sense into them but it doesn’t work. They are really really angry. Now……….. Would you lock yourself in an aluminum tube with 100+ people that wanted to do you harm with the knowledge that the only help available to you was 35,000 feet straight down?
I think not!
Pilots are professionals. If you screamed at a doctor and his nurses because your surgery started late and threw a temper tantrum in the waiting room, what do you think would happen? If you screamed at your attorney just prior to a legal proceeding because the trial started late, what do you think would happen?
I hope I’ve made my point,
-V
#22 – Viking707
>>I hope I’ve made my point,
I think the point has been made with excruciating clarity.
Nobody flies any more unless they absolutely have to.
The days of “getting there is half the fun” are as far in the past as the Edsel and the manual typewriter.
I’ve known people who passed up high six-figure jobs because they would have had to fly too much.
Me, I try never to leave the coast, and take the train whenever possible.
The idea of flying nowadays is about as alluring as getting a root canal. Perhaps without Novocaine(R).
And btw, those peanuts suck. The pretzels too.
Boobo I think it is option 2. I didn’t say you had no respect for life. The point I was making was that you had no respect for having responsibility for the lives of others.
#23 “The days of “getting there is half the fun” are as far in the past as the Edsel and the manual typewriter.”
How have we arrived at this point after almost 100 years of engineering progress in air travel? A point where airlines are constantly, systematically, working to make air travel ever more tedious, aggravating and miserable – with no end in site? Where the whole system seems finely tuned to elicit the worst possible behavior from people?
Where we have 6 inches this year, we’ll have 3 inches next year. If the flights are at 90% now, next year it will be 100. If you can sleep on a flight now, next year they’ll make that impossible. If you can still think while flying, get ready for cell phones in flight and nonstop ads blasted in your face.
And all the while, the airlines say they can’t make money, despite seemingly unlimited demand and little market resistance to price increases.
#26 – Jim H
>>How have we arrived at this point after
>>almost 100 years of engineering progress in
>>air travel?
Hey, who knows. Follow the money. I remember back during the oil embargo of ’73, everybody was saying “in 5 years, we’re going to have 100mpg cars”. How is it that after 35 years of engineering progress (starting with the already fairly fuel-efficient “rice burners”), we’ve still got 9mgp Humpers and Naggravators roaming the streets?
When oil hits $500/barrel, people are going to wish that somebody had followed through on the “100mpg” idea.
In any case, I think part of the answer is that the airlines are run by asswipe dillweeds whose only question is “how much money can we save by cutting back from 3oz to 2oz bags of honey-roasted peanuts? How about charging $0.25 to use the sink-free portapotty with no toilet paper? Will the lawsuits over deep-vein thrombosis outweigh the profits from squeezing in an extra row of seats, cutting the leg room by 4”?
20 years ago, I loved to fly. Everyone I knew loved to fly (except those with a fear of flying). Now, I can’t think of a single person who would willingly get on an airplane if there is a viable alternative.
They better institute those Discipline Bracelets real soon now. The anger is building. Don’t tase me, bro.
MM, our best hope is that all of today’s airlines simply go broke, and as the pieces are picked up, they fall into a new alignment.
We’re often too quick to blame “corporate America” for the way things are, but in this case I agree – the people running these companies are jerks with no regard for the society they live in.
I live in Minneapolis and I remember when Cecci and Wilson grabbed Northwest in a leveraged buyout that buried the company in debt – a prominent member of the Minnesota legislature called them “a couple of takeover artists who thought it would be fun to run an airline for a while.”
#28 – Jim H
Just stay out of the bathrooms in the Lindbergh terminal. You never know what kind of corporate raider repubs you might encounter, wide-stancing it under the stall partition.
In any case, I hope that the airlines all do collapse. This is a system that’s so broken, I doubt that it can be fixed. Things go from bad to worse, and then they get worse yet again.
A few weeks ago, I showed up early for my flight like a good lemming.
An hour after the flight was supposed to leave, they started to board. (OK, no big deal, stuff happens sometimes)
After everyone was in their seats, they closed the doors. We sat in our seats for over an hour in sweltering heat with NO air conditioning. (gotta save fuel!)
After a hour and a half, we were all ready to mutiny and attack the crew, so they relented and opened the doors on the plane to get some air.
After two and a half hours, they close the doors and say we are finally taking off! The passengers cheer! We taxi away! We get to the runway and…..”Oh s**t! We forgot to put fuel in the plane!” Back to the gate……
After sitting in my seat for almost THREE HOURS, we finally take off. Of course, I missed all possible connecting flights.
(“we might be able to get you a flight the day after tomorrow”)
Although no explanation was ever given, I’m pretty damn sure none of it was caused by passengers.
I worked for an international airline, some people were pricks, arseholes who deserved to get their bags sent to Angola via Moscow when they where travelling direct to London.
Simple, be nice to airline staff, as you would like people to be nice to you, there is always another side to the story.
For we can go home whilst you are stuck at the airport sleeping on the seats. We have clothes at home, yours can end up anywhere on this earth other than your destination!
I have to agree with most of the negative comments on flying. I can also agree with the crew deciding not to fly but they are not directly responsible for the demise of the airline industry.
Part of the problem is the spectrum of prices. You can get flights for $50 while a business traveler on the same flight may have paid $500 because he/she booked it last minute. In general prices are low, service is bad. It’s a wonder that planes aren’t falling out of the sky.
The whole security theater by the TSA just compounds the problem.
To Viking707: Thank you for your post. You made your point beautifully and eloquently. However, non-airline individuals can never understand what flight crew, gate agents, and anyone involved in the operation deals with as far as weather, FAA regulations and restrictions, passengers with a sense of entitlement, ATC, etc. as is so clearly evident by some of the extremely ignorant posts and responses to your post.
That said, I would just like to pose a questions to all of you who prefer to dis the airline crew and employees: If a group of YOUR customers came in to your office/store/whatever and began booing or yelling obscenities and at you for something they were upset about (even if warranted) would you serve them? I doubt it. It sounds like they were warned that this would happen if it didn’t cease, and apparently it didn’t. The crew felt threatened, obviously, and what are they going to do at 30,000 feet if the mob mentality escalates?
I am a flight attendant and very proud of my job. I strive to make your flight enjoyable and above all SAFE. For those of you who think that we only serve peanuts and coke, let me just say this: If we really have to do our “job”, then it’s a bad day for all of us. We are trained to keep you as safe as possible on your flight. There are rules that you need to follow and they are in place for YOUR safety. Many, many passengers seem feel these rules do not apply to them and do not comply when the announcements are made. Therefore, we have to come and speak to you personally, without the time to explain, which may come off as being arrogant or authoratative, but it is YOUR responsibility to understand the rules of flying. We are not waitresses, and we are not babysitters to parents who sit and do nothing while their children run amok and crush pretzels and peanuts on the floors and seats, then leave without even an attempt to clean up after themselves.
“How much skill does it take to be a “flight attendant”?
To serve peanuts…not much, but to get 100+ people to listen and comply with safety regulations and to be able to do it in a professional, courteous, and customer service oriented manner, A LOT. The general public is rude, and in my opinion they have already decided they are going to be treated badly. You get out of it what you put in to it.
Admittedly, they are flight attendants out there who lack this skill, but the majority of us hope you sit back, relax, and enjoy your flight.
Just another reason why I hate American Airlines. Every single time I’ve been on one of their flights it’s late and the crew has this attitude of “we’re late but don’t care, so shut up, sit down, and don’t bother us. Oh ya, and don’t ask for peanuts, only first class gets those.”
I’m no fanboy, but Southwest consistently provides ontime, courteous service. AA, and others can’t seem to figure it out, but carry around the attitude of being better somehow.