Stay up to date with notifications from The Independent

Notifications can be managed in browser preferences.

American Airlines attendant scolds passengers over their ‘disgusting’ behaviour in video

Gino Spocchia
Friday 11 June 2021 12:58 BST
Comments
Video of a 7 June flight in which passengers insulted staff
Video of a 7 June flight in which passengers insulted staff (Brent Underwood/TikTok)
Leer en Español

Airline passengers were scolded for verbally abusing American Airlines cabin crew during a flight delay, according to video of the incident.

In footage from 7 June on TikTok, a flight attendant told passengers that abusing cabin crew was “disgusting”, and that it had been “living hell”.

The American Airlines flight, which took off from Los Angeles for Charlotte, was diverted because of bad weather — forcing both passengers and cabin crew to wait it out at Raleigh-Durham airport.

A passenger allegedly told a female flight attendant she was a “fat gorilla” after they argued about face coverings, according to The Charlotte Observer.

Others allegedly chanted “Give them a Snickers!”, after another passenger said sarcastically that flight attendants were threatening to turn around the plane because they hadn’t eaten, after finally taking off from Raleigh-Durham.

A member of cabin crew was also told to “suck my d***”, according to Brent Underwood, a musician from North Carolina who filmed the incident on TikTok.

“There was absolutely no excuse for it”, he told the Observer. “Everybody deserves respect. And everybody deserves to be punished equally for being a rude person like that.”

A flight attendant was filmed standing in front of passengers and saying: “Just like you we have not eaten ourselves, we’ve been delayed here, we’ve catered to you the entire flight and we do it because we love this job”.

“But the fact that we get insulted and mistreated by passengers for things that we cannot control. It is disgusting,” he continued. “Shame on the passengers who have made this flight a living hell for the flight attendants”.

In statement, American Airlines told the Observer: “We take the health and safety of our customers seriously, and our crew members work hard to uphold the federal mask mandate that remains in effect on aircraft and in airports.”

“We value the trust our customers place in our team to care for them throughout their journey, and we expect those who choose to fly with us to treat each other — and our team members — with respect.”

More than 700,000 people have viewed Mr Underwood’s video since it was shared to TikTok.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in