On February 26, an American Airlines flight from Miami to Tampa became a modern-day example of how not to handle being asked to use headphones. It started with a female passenger who was playing videos on her phone’s loudspeaker. Flight attendants asked her twice to put on headphones, but the woman did not. What followed was posted to TikTok, where it went viral.
In the footage, the passenger sits inside the flight and screams profanities at the crew. “I played a video for 30 [expletive] seconds, at 50 percent sound,” she raged.
“That’s the [expletive] reason you’re kicking me off?”
That’s when we see a flight attendant waving at her to “calm down.” It did not work either, and then the woman tried to reason how anyone could be bothered by noise on an airplane and said, “That sounds like a them problem.”
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When sheriffs arrived, she screamed at them, too. At one point, she even grabbed one officer’s arm and demanded, “Can I not express my feelings?” One of the sheriffs replied, “Can you express your feelings over there?” As a result, we see her eventually gather her belongings and be escorted off the plane. On her way down the aisle, she was still yelling and wagging her finger.
To fellow passengers who had been filming, she said: “Thanks for recording me.”
After she left the flight, the cabin broke out in applause as fellow passengers thanked these officers. The TikTok poster noted the woman may have been drunk and that the flight attendants “handled it very well and were respectful the entire time.”
We can see similar changes in the airline industry as a whole. United Airlines updated its contract of carriage in March to require all passengers to wear headphones when listening to audio/video content on personal devices. Under the new rules, anyone who doesn’t comply can be removed from the aircraft and potentially banned from flying United altogether.
Make sure to bring your headphones on your next United Airlines flight — not using them with the volume turned up all the way on your phone or tablet could get you kicked off the plane, or even banned.https://t.co/521TtnZdwl
— NBC Bay Area (@nbcbayarea) March 5, 2026
Travel expert Scott Keyes told CBS News he’s not sure if any other major U.S. carrier has gone this far. He said that while airlines typically ask their passengers to use headphones, United is now the first to back that up with real consequences. American Airlines has not formally adopted a similar policy, though this particular flight may have given their team something to think about.
To those who genuinely forgot their headphones, United will hand out a free pair of earbuds when available.
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