blues deville Posted July 9, 2008 Share Posted July 9, 2008 Angry Passengers, Agitated Crew Face Off WASHINGTON, July 8, 2008 (CBS) A plane-load of passengers was delayed 24 hours when the crew for a flight from Miami to New York arrived late. The crew balked at flying after passengers became angry and belligerent. Passengers say the pilot and crew over-reacted. It all started Sunday night when passengers say the flight crew showed up over an hour late for American Airlines flight 1901, reports CBS News correspondent Joel Brown on The Early Show. The passengers were upset and they let the crew know it. "When the crew got there, they were late and everyone started to boo them," said passenger Dianne Chandler. "And then they closed them behind glass doors and they kind of threatened us that they weren't gonna fly because of the way people were acting. Some people got very agitated." The crew says the passengers did more than boo. They said they were downright hostile. "I wouldn't think they were hostile," disagreed passenger Tim Chandler. "You know, they booed because they were an hour and fifteen minutes late. When you want to leave at 9:45 - it's 11 o'clock they show up. So obviously, people are a little upset." The crew refused to fly. When American couldn't find another crew, the flight was cancelled and the passengers were put up for the night. "They give us a hotel and all that," said one passenger, "but the hotel we stayed at had barbed wire all around it. Nice place, nice hotel, but barbed wire around it." They finally got to New York's Kennedy airport late Monday night, but to add insult to injury their luggage went to LaGuardia airport, 12 miles away. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dagger Posted July 9, 2008 Share Posted July 9, 2008 Sounds like a great theme for a video game. X-Box anyone? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AIP Posted July 9, 2008 Share Posted July 9, 2008 good for the crew. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DEFCON Posted July 9, 2008 Share Posted July 9, 2008 "good for the crew" Agreed! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steam Driven Posted July 9, 2008 Share Posted July 9, 2008 No mention whether there were Duty Time limitations or crew rest issues... Nice piece of reporting... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cp fa Posted July 9, 2008 Share Posted July 9, 2008 I don't understand what is going through the minds of a group of passengers when they start harassing a flight crew for delaying their flight. Do they honestly believe that the whole crew got together and just arbitrarily decided to show up late for work? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maverick Posted July 9, 2008 Share Posted July 9, 2008 I don't understand what is going through the minds of a group of passengers when they start harassing a flight crew for delaying their flight. Do they honestly believe that the whole crew got together and just arbitrarily decided to show up late for work? The question I have is what the crew may have done to disarm or escalate the situation. I was on a CP B747-400 flight years ago when we had a mechanical diversion to NRT on a HKG-YVR flight. The following morning after spending 5 hours in a Tokyo hotel the crew were totally caustic as we were re-boarding. Snippy answers to questions, non-existent customer service. Just basically miserable. It got progressively worse until the captain came on the PA and spent 3 or 4 minutes explaining what had happened and then all was fine. The back end crew were still cranky but the captain defused a potentially ugly situation with a few calm words. My point is the crew were late and if the PAX felt they were being treated badly or "blown off" then they are at least partially to blame... Just throwin' it out there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CanadaEH Posted July 9, 2008 Share Posted July 9, 2008 The passengers were upset and they let the crew know it. Without knowing why.. the passengers should've been told that their flight was going to be delayed. If they weren't, they should've been told. At some point the crew should've been able to explain why there was a delay if the CSA's hadn't or weren't. Communication is paramount. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CAT3DUAL Posted July 9, 2008 Share Posted July 9, 2008 Well, for the most part this show's the difference between American and Canadians. Only twice in my 29 years have I ever had to toss someone off the plane and both times it was in LGA (GO FIGURE!!). Raise your voice/swear at one of my crew, your gone, no second chance. People lose all common decency in airports and the travel experience isn't what it use to be, as a kid we use to go out to the airport in our Sunday best to go on a trip, now for the most part you are dealing with a large percentage of the great unwashed and the Larry lunch Bucket crowd. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moon The Loon Posted July 9, 2008 Share Posted July 9, 2008 Every time I've witnessed something like this, whether happening to me or to other crews, there has always, Always been a ring-leader in the crowd. Given the way the story above was written, I would hazard a guess is that one of the ring-leaders was the passenger quoted as saying "I wouldn't think they were hostile," and "So obviously, people are a little upset." The last time it happened to me, about a week after it happened to a fellow crew in the same airport, we deplaned 250+ passengers into a terminal where the bag handlers pulled a wild cat strike. It was a small airport in a land far, far away. Near the equator and near the prime-meridian. Anyway, the previous flight crew had told me what happened to them with a similar mob but for different reasons. So I was somewhat prepared when I heard about the strike (at the same time as the passengers. Nobody told us) when a group of about 25 passengers came storming back down the airbridge intent on "taking the airplane hostage" until they got their bags. Serious sh!t. When airport "security" heard about the strike and the incoming aircraft, they had all gone home. An engineer, my F/O and myself were outside of the airstair and were confronted by this group. By keeping low voices, a menacing appearance (I'm kind of a big guy) and standing our ground, then I spoke to them in French. Rather, I spoke to the two ring-leaders in my halting French. Once these people are identified, it's like letting the air out of the balloon. It is important though to let the air out slowly and in a controlled fashion than having the balloon go POP. Within less than a minute, the mob had been defused. They turned around and went back into the terminal. End of my story. Moral? Defuse rather than detonate to get rid of the potential explosion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maverick Posted July 9, 2008 Share Posted July 9, 2008 Moral? Defuse rather than detonate to get rid of the potential explosion. Bingo!! To add to this I was on Vegas charter and there was (surprise, surprise) a stag group on board going down for three days of debauchery. They were quite loud but boisterous in a fairly amusing way. There were 5 or 6 if I remember correctly and we suspected they were drinking their own booze because they kept ordering glasses of ice and coke (duh!). The four 21 year old F/A's were freaking out about this and I suggested they leave it alone. What I did then was bring two empty glasses, two glasses of ice and two cokes to them and then whispered conspiratorally that I knew what they were doing but keep it down and this is the last one. The two guys I talked two had the deer-in-the-headlights look. I just kind of laughed and got the "Hey thanks dude!". They kept it down after that and it was a non-event. Was it the right thing to do? I don't know but there was no hard feelings anywhere and I wouldn't have wanted to escalate it by doing something stupid. Sometimes you just got to read the crowd. Hmm, maybe they thought I was an air marshall! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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