One of the last things you want to hear an American Airlines flight attendant say to you as you’re settling in and buckling up for takeoff is, “If you don’t come off I’m going to have to call the officers.”
But such was the directive, as heard in the video below, to a pleading, crying woman from an apparently pitiless American Airlines hostess, as the female passenger begged the AA hostess for some understanding.
No such understanding was forthcoming from the American Airlines representative, however, and the sobbing woman was bullied off the plane as a chorus of boos and anti-American Airlines quips rained down from the other passengers on the American Airlines flight crew, filling the cabin with support for the banished passenger.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DajZAX7t9lE
The incident between the American Airlines crew and the unfortunate American Airlines customer was sparked when a male American Airlines attendant took offense to the female passenger for allegedly not responding to one of his commands, reports 9News.com.au .
But the woman reportedly wasn’t ignoring the disgruntled male American Airlines steward, according to other passengers, but simply didn’t hear him, or realize he was talking to her.
Regardless, the female passenger’s non-response allegedly prompted the male AA flight attendant to be more firm with his commands.
This in turn, according to 9News, led the female passenger to make an aside to another flight attendant, allegedly telling her that her American Airlines colleague was “rude.”
That apparently flipped the “kick-passenger-off-flight” switch, because that’s what happened next, a female flight attendant demanding the unsuspecting traveler to disembark from the Phoenix-to-Portland American Airlines flight.
The video footage was captured by a man named Bill Byrne, who was sitting behind the unidentified vanquished woman and clicked his phone camera on in time to capture the female American Airlines flight attendant demanding the pleading woman to get off the plane, and the tears that followed.
“‘What? You guys are so mean to me. I didn’t do anything,” says the sobbing passenger, the off-screen American Airlines crew member unmoved as other surrounding passengers begin to voice their displeasure.
The frustration of the barred American Airlines traveler continues to no avail, the woman saying, “This can’t be legal,” leading the American Airlines flight attendant into her seemingly snarky and soul-crushing threat that, “If you don’t come off I’m going to have to call the officers.”
Perhaps it’s the way she says “officers” in a very condescending way, but this comment by the American Airlines representative, to her obviously distraught passenger, pushes surrounding passengers toward potential mutiny, their general disgust palpable.
The passenger being kicked off the plane, meanwhile, shifts to the most understanding tone she can muster, telling the off-screen American Airlines attendant, “Mamm, I know you weren’t here for it, I know you didn’t see it…”
But the American Airlines hostess doesn’t want to listen, and the female passenger’s hopes of soon being on her way to Portland are dashed.
As she is removed from the flight, her fellow passengers let fly their disapproval and new found disdain for American Airlines with a spontaneous chorus of condemnation aimed both at American and the airline’s flight crew.
“You just lost a lot of customers,” says one passenger, with others saying, “Adios, American,” “This is horrible,” and, “This is the last time I fly American… Never again.”
Finally, as the exiled, teary-eyed woman is once and for all booted off the American Airlines flight, the remaining passengers converge into a collective, “BOOOOO,” culminating in a final, perhaps most powerful, admonishment of American, with a man exclaiming, “S***w this airline!”
“I’ve seen people who deserve that, but never actually seen somebody thrown off a plane,” Byrne, the passenger who videoed the incident, told KATU . “It was nuts, and that poor woman was so upset… She handled it well, but you could tell it was super-embarrassing for her.”
American Airlines, meanwhile, claims they are “currently investigating the incident in question but the passenger was booked on the next available flight.”
Have you ever been, or seen someone else, kicked off an American Airlines or any other flight? Please feel free to share your airline fiascoes below.
[Images by Kevork Djansezian / Getty Images and Bill Byrne / YouTube]
