NEW YORK—Another day, another cellphone video of a conflict on an airplane.American Airlines said it grounded a flight attendant who got into a verbal confrontation with a passenger after taking a baby stroller away from another passenger on a Friday flight from San Francisco to Dallas-Fort Worth. The incident comes less than two weeks after video of a man being violently dragged off a United Express flight sparked widespread outrage.Spokeswoman Leslie Scott says the airline is looking into whether the male flight attendant violently took away the stroller from the female passenger just before she boarded a Friday flight from San Francisco to Dallas. He has been removed from duty in the meantime.The video, taken by a passenger and posted on Facebook, shows the sobbing woman holding a small child and saying, “You can’t use violence with baby.”Later, an unidentified male passenger confronts the flight attendant, telling him, “You do that to me and I’ll knock you flat.” The flight attendant responds with “Hit me. Bring it on.”Read more: Why flying on airlines is only going to get worse: OliveIn an age of cellphone videos and social media, airlines are learning the hard way that it is essential to de-escalate tense situations that occur during air travel, even as there are more passengers, less room and fewer flight attendants than ever before.United initially blamed its passenger, Dr. David Dao, before finally apologizing days after the incident, fanning the public’s fury. American, by contrast, seems to have learned from United’s mistakes: it immediately said it was sorry, that it had grounded the flight attendant while it investigates the incident, and that it had upgraded the passenger involved and her family to first class.“American doesn’t want to become the next United, but then, United didn’t want to become the next United,” said Henry Harteveldt, travel ...
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