American Airlines Flight Attendant Accused of Nearly Hurting a Baby After Altercation With Passenger
(Facebook / Surain Adyanthaya)
United Airlines isn’t the only airline dealing with some bad publicity. Last Friday night, an American Airlines passenger uploaded a video of a tense situation onboard his flight from San Francisco to Dallas/Fort Worth. According to witnesses, a flight attendant had violently removed a woman’s stroller from the plane, nearly hitting her and her baby. The video starts in the immediate aftermath, and the mother can be seen crying at the front of the plane while the flight crew tries to comfort her. Another passenger sticks up for her, and at one point gets into an altercation with the flight attendant. Now that passenger is speaking out.
After witnessing the altercation between the flight attendant and the female passenger, Tony Fierro decided to intervene. “A baby almost got hurt. That’s what just fired me up, so that was it. I don’t want to make a big deal about it,” he told WFAA.com. In the video, uploaded by fellow passenger Surain Adyanthaya, Fiero walked to the front of the plane to ask for the name of the flight attendant who took the stroller. “Is he an American Airlines employee? I want to know his name personally. This is ridiculous.”
As the woman, who was flying with twin babies, cried, the flight attendant in question came back onto the plane. That’s when things got interesting. Fiero, who was seated in from of Adyanthaya, stood up and called out,
“Hey, bud! Hey, bud! You do that to me and I’ll knock you flat!”
OOOOOOOOOOOH. The flight attendant yelled at Fiero to stay out of it, and when Fiero joined him in the aisle the attendant yells out, “Hit me! Hit me!”
According to American Airlines, the woman tried to bring a double stroller onto the plane after forgetting to check it at the gate. The flight attendant has been placed on paid leave while American Airlines investigates the situation. Twenty minutes after the flight landed in Texas, AA released a statement addressing the situation.
”We have seen the video and have already started an investigation to obtain the facts. What we see on this video does not reflect our values or how we care for our customers. We are deeply sorry for the pain we have caused this passenger and her family and to any other customers affected by the incident. We are making sure all of her family’s needs are being met while she is in our care. After electing to take another flight, we are taking special care of her and her family and upgrading them to first class for the remainder of their international trip.
The actions of our team member captured here do not appear to reflect patience or empathy, two values necessary for customer care. In short, we are disappointed by these actions. The American team member has been removed from duty while we immediately investigate this incident.”
