“(The flight attendant) never pushed the lady,” said Lauryn England, who shot the video obtained by NBC 6. The passenger then tells her repeatedly, "You shouldn't have touched me," and accused the flight attendant of pushing her. What the video does show is the passenger, with her mask down to her chin, visibly upset and punching the flight attendant in the face. The video doesn't show how the altercation started, but witnesses say the passenger's boyfriend refused to put on his seatbelt, and in response, the flight attendant asked them to leave the plane. The video was taken Monday evening on Flight 1997 bound for Atlanta. I have a hard time imagining how Delta will worm their way out of this one, and can only hope that this serves as a lesson to them, and any other airline – putting fear of liability above common decency and respect will cost you a whole lot more in the long run than anything that could have possibly happened while assisting a passenger to and from their seat.Cellphone video showed the moment a passenger punched a Delta flight attendant on a plane at Miami International Airport. Kanaan is now seeking damages from the airline. Maybe that would be acceptable if it were for flights on another airline. This time, Delta really stepped up and offered Kanaan 25,000 frequent flier miles. I kept reading on, hoping that this was some sort of wayward Onion piece that got lost and found its way in the news. This time, however, they did offer him a piece of cardboard to scoot on to avoid getting dirty. Guess what? His return trip was delayed, again due to weather, and when he arrived for his flight, the passenger was told yet again that the safety equipment was not available. They offered him a $100 travel voucher and an apology for his troubles with the assurance that he wouldn’t experience the same trouble (and embarrassment) on his return trip. Upon retrieving his wheelchair, Kanaan called Delta. I’d like to think that in a situation like this, I’d be willing to lose my job in order to help someone else avoid this kind of humiliation. Not one member of the crew stepped up and offered to assist this passenger. Kanaan couldn’t just sit on the plane all day, so he took it upon himself to not only crawl down the aisle, but also down the stairs and across the tarmac to his waiting wheelchair. When he asked how he’d get to and from his seat, he was allegedly told by a flight attendant “I don’t know, but we can’t get you off the plane”. A flight attendant informed him that not only did they not have the aisle chair to move him between the airplane door and his seat, but they also did not have a lift to go down the stairs from the plane to the tarmac to get him to his wheel chair. He was not informed of this until arriving at the airport for his flight. ![]() Apparently, the company’s travel database did not pass on the memo that there was a disabled passenger being bumped from one flight to another, because Delta was not at all prepared to assist him. Baraka Kanaan booked his round-trip flight, he was assured by a Delta agent that “all was noted in the company’s travel database, and that he would be received and given reasonable accommodation for his disability.” Unfortunately, his original flight was canceled due to weather, so Kanaan had to take a flight out on the following day. Apparently, humiliating a human being was the better choice in this situation? Even worse, this not only happened on his departing flight, but on his return flight home as well.Īccording to court documents, when D. Why? Because the airline hadn’t provided the proper safety equipment for the passenger, and didn’t want to risk liability. ![]() ![]() That being said, I was still shocked to read about a disabled passenger on a recent Delta flight who was “forced to crawl down the aisle of the airplane, down the stairs of the aircraft, and across the tarmac to his wheelchair without any assistance from the crew or the use of any mandated safety equipment,” with an audience of a “great number of people”. Often, passengers feel more like livestock than guests as they wait to board, and then are shuffled onto their flights where they’re stuffed into increasingly smaller spaces as airlines struggle to squeeze every dollar they can out of each flight. Airlines are not commonly known for their great customer service these days.
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