Facebook/Surain AdyanthayaYet another disturbing video has emerged, this one showing an American Airlines employee squaring up to a passenger, after allegedly attacking a woman with a pram.
It seems there’s a story about an American airline doing the rounds nearly everyday at the moment, which surely cannot be doing their reputation any good…
This time though, it involves a debacle which broke out on a flight from San Francisco in which a member of the flight crew allegedly hit a woman, before turning on another passenger.
The shocking footage uploaded to Facebook by Surain Adyanthaya – a fellow passenger on the flight – show the airline employee goading another passenger and saying ‘hit me.’
He wrote on Facebook:
OMG! A Flight attendant violently took a stroller from a lady with her baby on my flight, hitting her and just missing the baby.
Then he tried to fight a passenger who stood up for her.
Facebook/ Surain AdyanthayaThe woman can be seen crying in the video as she clutches two babies, as she asks to get her pushchair back from the airline staff.
Other passengers can be heard muttering in the background, discussing their outrage at the situation and one exclaims he’s ‘not going to sit here and watch this,’ before marching up to the employee.
The bizarre brawl then takes a turn for the worse, as another airline employee steps onto the plane and the enraged passenger decides to confront him.
Facebook/ Surain AdyanthayaHe says:
You do that to me and I’ll knock you flat.
Angered by the quickly escalating situation, the uniformed man orders the other guy to ‘stay out of it,’ before the furious passenger then challenges him to fight.
The airline employee then responded with:
Try it. Hit me. You don’t know what the story is.
Facebook/ Surain AdyanthayaThe fuming passenger can then be heard retorting with ‘You almost hurt a baby!’ as the bewildering saga continued.
Another picture posted on the Facebook page appeared to show the woman being escorted off the plane, while according to Surain the allegedly violent flight employee was allowed back on.
The company have now issued a statement reading:
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.
Things are not looking good for American based airlines right now…
Especially after the horrific incident when Dr Dao was dragged off United Airlines earlier this month.
Looks like PR companies are going to be in big business right now…
