Flight Attendant

With "The Jet Blues"

    The news about how a JetBlue flight attendant handled a combative, rude and obnoxious passenger on his flight has become water cooler fodder for crew members.     It's giving us in the industry a boost! Something we've all talked about doing, but never really had the courage to do it.
     Enter, flight attendant Steven Slater.
     If you haven't heard the famous story by now, it goes something like this: Flight attendant Slater, a 28-year veteran, gets into some type of scuffle with a moronic passenger over her all-too familiar carry on luggage. Words are exchanged. Passenger refuses to comply with crew orders -- a federal law by the way -- Slater gets hit in the head when the dumb-ass passenger slams shut the overhead bin, so he tells off the imbecile  over the plane's public address system. Then Slater decides to evacuate his career by blowing the plane's emergency escape slide while parked at the gate, but not before grabbing a nice cold beer to go!
    This is too funny!!! Something I'm sure Hollywood will include in a movie at some point.
    I have to say, after reading article and several internet posts about this incident, this guy has become an overnight hero, especially to those of us in the "service industry." I can't tell you the number of times I've encountered similar rude and obnoxious passengers, who think the world evolves around them. The ones who have no respect for authority. The ones who act like children on flights.
       And I can't tell you the number of times I just wanted to tell a passenger where they could go, knowing I would feel so much better afterward. Or slap the crap out of a new mother who rolls her eyes at you when you tell her you can't handle her baby's shitty diaper because you are a food and beverage handler. Or tell the passenger with the over sized luggage, who gets mad at YOU because he can't place it in the aircraft, where he can stick it. The ideas go on and on!
    A day after the incident, it's been the talk in flight attendant crew lounges. And most applaud Slater's action.
      We all jokingly tell of ideas we have when we decide to leave the industry. Like blowing the emergency escape slide like Slater did. Or telling off a passenger who has crossed that line on our very last flight. Call it, "flight attendant therapy."
     In all fairness to Slater, whose smiling photos have been splashed across the nationwide news, he reportedly has been going through a tremendous amount of stress lately. Apparently, according to published reports, he had recently lost his father, and is now dealing with a mother who has been diagnosed with cancer. Not that either is a reason to do what he did, but let's face it, some of us handle stress better than others. And in his case, he did what he felt was right for him.
    But there is something more troubling about this whole story.
    Although Slater has been arrested on suspicion of  "reckless endangerment" and "criminal mischief, " -- both apparently felonies in the State of New York --  nothing has been said about the stupid-ass female passenger who started the whole commotion before the flight left Pittsburgh. After all, she was the cause of his head injuries when she reportedly  slammed shut an overhead bin on his head when he intervened between her and another passenger over a squabble over  shared space in an overhead bin. And she didn't comply with his orders to sit down when the plane was taxing to the gate. So why isn't  she facing federal charges of interfering with a crew member and assault? Makes you wonder whose side the laws are on.
     I can tell you this. Had that been on my flight and the problem started at the gate from our departure city, and my head suffered a gash from a passenger slamming shut the bin on me, she would have been off the plane in a heartbeat. No questions, no apologies. Which is surprising to me. With that many years as a flight attendant, Slater should have had the experience to know where the beginning trouble could end. You nip it in the bud immediately when it starts.
    Miss Thing and her bags would have been looking for another flight to NY.
    Let's hope Slater had other things on his horizon. Maybe it will be better than the aviation industry!