10 likes!
People are going to say this is political correctness gone too far, but it’s really about safety. If the guy can’t respect a person who will be in authority and giving lifesaving orders in an emergency, he shouldn’t be on the plane.
This story made me inordinately happy. In addition to the respect for authority point made above, how about the fact that guy was interrupting the safety discussion and distracting the passengers from it?
Now if airlines would only start ejecting the passengers who have been getting inebriated at the airport bar and bring their alcohol stench and rude behavior on board, the parents who make no effort to occupy their kids so they annoy all the other passengers instead, the aggressive sitters who take up the entire armrest and half of the floor space…ah, isn’t air travel fun?
GOOD!!
What do you think, ucbalumnus?
I’m glad he got ejected. That’s rude, inappropriate, and I would suspect the guy was drunk. Who wants that? I suspect that if he had immediately apologized for his first comment, he would have stayed aboard. Gone are the days where you could harass s flight attendant mercilessly, and get away with it. Thank God.
The times, they are achangin’.
Slowly. Verrrrrrrrry slowly.
A guy sitting next to me got hauled off the plane once before we pushed back from the gate. The flight attendant asked me if I noticed if he was drunk or loud but I really hadn’t noticed anything (I always put in earbuds and stick my nose in my kindle and try to ignore everything on a plane though). But apparently somebody else had complained so the flight attendants came back a couple minutes later and asked him to leave.
Which people are those? Any one on this board? Any one in particular? Just a pet peeve of mine, imagining that we are more enlightened than those who would say those bad things. I’d rather wait for someone to say them before complaining about it.
Maybe they should start breathalyzer tests as part of the boarding process … JK [but only half].
I know I’ve shared parts of this story over the years on CC, but in May 2007, D and I were on our way back home from Philly after attending an orientation of sorts at college. There had been a massive computer outage across air traffic control computers across the east coast - it was a Friday evening, and flights were backed up unbelievably, so flights were delayed for hours. When we finally boarded our flight over two hours late, it took us about another hour or so to move up in the line of planes to take off… so slowly we made our way out the tarmac. When we were about 20 planes from taking off, the flight attendant came on to make an announcement that all passengers were required to stay in their seats as we were on an active runway. We didn’t think much of it; but when we were about three planes from taking off, the pilot came on, saying that people getting up from their seats while taxiing on the runway was against FAA rules, and if people got out of their seats, we would have to return to the terminal. Of course at this point, everyone starts looking around, trying to figure out who the idiot is that’s getting up. And about three minutes later, that’s exactly what we did… return to the terminal. The captain announced that two passengers had violated the rules and we had to return to the terminal so that they could be arrested and escorted off the plane - and that’s what happened… police came on an hauled off two passengers. Unfortunately, by the time they did that, and the pilots wrote up the required report, by the time we would have gotten back in line to take off, and flown to Chicago, we would have arrived after the airport was accepting incoming flights for the night (it was about 11PM at this point), so they had to cancel our flight. As we were deplaning, people started to talk, and evidently this couple had spent most of their evening in the bar when the flights got delayed due to the computer outage. When we spent so much time on the tarmac taxiing, they ‘had’ to go to the bathroom, so kept getting up. I hope those people spent some time in jail that night.
So here we were, at 11:30, after having rebooked our flights with the gate agent, having to try to find a room - which was next to impossible because many flights still had been cancelled and a lot of people were left stranded in Philly for the night. We barely found a room, and I use the word room loosely - we were lucky we weren’t robbed or mugged - as we walked down the halls to our room, we could smell pot wafting from rooms, and there were people walking through the ‘lobby’ with brown bags of liquor (looking very much underage). All this alone might have been bearable, but on our way to the airport that evening, we were crashed into on the interstate while stopped in traffic, by a semi-truck (thankfully no trailer attached); our rental was totaled. But we had just been to my 25-year old nephew’s funeral four days earlier, who had been killed in a car crash, so we were quite traumatized by the whole experience of being in a crash that night, and we were quite bumped up and sore.
Surprisingly, about four weeks later, totally unsolicited, we got two RT vouchers from Southwest Airlines to fly anywhere they flew. They apologized for the behavior of the two passengers that caused the cancellation of the flight and said everyone on the flight was receiving the vouchers, minus the two unruly passengers.
So I’m all for anything to screen unruly passengers before they get on a plane and disrupt the lives of others!
Wow, what a story! I was about to wonder how anyone could get sufficiently drunk at the airport considering the ridiculous prices they charge but clearly, they can.
The only passengers I’ve seen ejected were a young boy and his mother. He was having such a tantrum that she couldn’t buckle him in. The tantrum was undoubtedly caused by the crazy airport crowds and horrible delays shortly before Christmas. How do you go out and calm the kid down so he can wait several more hours to get on the next flight?
Well, I’m sure there is more to the story but if a plane is sitting on the tarmac for 1+ hours, there should be SOME accommodations for folks who need to use the restroom.
OH dear @teriwtt --that is quite a story. SO glad for your family you were OK. that really does sound traumatic.
about 10 yrs ago, my DH and his Dr. buddy were in a transport van headed to the airport in chicago and the van hit a hotel. My DH had a slight concussion; threw up on himself; buddy was bloody and scraped, He checked out DH, and then they all got shuffled on to another van and made it to the airport and made the flight. I couldn’t believe they were let on the flight looking like that when i picked them up.
@doschicos - I think people need to be aware when they’re boarding a plane, especially if it’s a long flight, that there’s the possibility that you won’t be able to use the restroom. I’ve been on flights where the turbulence never settled down enough to turn off the seat belt signs, meaning you can’t get up to use the restroom. Mostly when I have long flights (2+ hours), I refrain from drinking too many liquids before the flight and am sure to use the restroom just prior to boarding.
We weren’t quite ‘sitting’ on the tarmac. Once we got on the plane, we left the gate and got in the incredibly long line of other planes waiting to take off, so we were moving, although very, very slowly. I think there were upwards of 30-40 planes ahead of us to take off. But they moved us away from the gate and into this line so incoming planes could get to the gate.
I disagree @teriwtt but I’m guessing there is more to the story about the behavior of those 2 you might not have witnessed. If a plane is taxiing on the tarmac and someone does need to use the restroom, the proper thing to do is notify the flight attendant from your seat and ask permission. It’s not that uncommon a thing and the rules aren’t that black and white. Flight staff are usually very accommodating, even with mild turbulence.
I’m guessing there was attitude as well by those 2 passengers and when confronted by the FA, they didn’t respond in a cooperative manner, similar to the OP’s linked story. If the man in the linked story had been apologetic and contrite and not a behavior and attitude problem, I doubt he would have been removed.
It would be nice if there was a drink limit on board the plane as well. Many years ago when I was 21 and flying home from a visiting my mother, my connecting flight was delayed. As a result my seat was given away on my next flight and I just made it to the boarding gate in time to board. The only seat left was in first class. Never having flown first class, you can imagine how excited I was about scoring a seat there. I was seated next to a man who started to drink and did not stop. By the end of the 6 hour flight he was so wasted he was promising me he could make me a star. (He ran a very large convention center - LOL). Needless to say, I never enjoyed a flight less. Well, there was the time we had a bomb scare but that is another story.
My husband and I were flying out of Bradley (Hartford) a year or two ago. As the flight attendant was making her last check down the aisle, we heard her ask a younger guy to turn off his cell phone (he was talking to someone). She continued walking down the aisle. I know we were starting to pull away from the gate. On her return trip, she again asked him to turn his phone off. He said he would. After a bit of back and forth, she then went into the cockpit, and the pilot came on the speaker and said he would return the plane to the gate (I think we were still in the backing up process) if all cell phones weren’t turned off.
There was a bit of arguing back and forth (including fellow passengers urging him to turn off his phone). Next thing we knew, we were back at the gate and two security officers came on to escort the guy off the plane. At that point he became childlike - “I’m turning it off!” - but they took him off anyway. He was traveling with another guy who had the option of staying on the plane (he hadn’t done anything wrong), but the offender guilted his friend into getting off with him.
Part of me thinks the whole situation got a bit overblown, but as a rule follower I had no problem with what happened. The flight attendant kept her cool and followed through on her threats.
I’m pretty sure you can keep your phones on now so doubt it would be an issue today.
I do have to wonder if there was something more to the story than people getting up to use the restroom. It’s one thing to return to the gate after a few minutes, another thing to have waited hours on the airplane, have to return and then the flight get cancelled. That is an extreme inconvenience to everyone. I wonder if they thought there was some security issue, or if they were totally wasted. Then again, I have a hard time judging if I wasn’t sitting right next to them and watching. I wonder if it was a dual issue of the crew running out of duty day after the long wait (or getting low on gas after waiting so long for takeoff), and the passengers acting up.