Delta Passenger Says Flight Attendant Served Food Off The Floor, Spat On Him And Threw A Glove—Then Called Police

A Delta Air Lines passenger says he caught a flight attendant trying to serve food that had fallen on the floor of the cabin. When he sppke up he says she spat on him, assaulted him and threw her glove at him. Then he was warned for potentially violating federal law, and police met the flight on arrival. Video begins in the middle of the confrontation. The passenger is seated, while the flight attendant stands in the aisle wearing black gloves. He asks why she’s antagonizing him. She denies it. He says he no longer needs to speak with her and repeatedly asks her to go away. We don’t see the flight attendant attempt to serve food off the floor, or what kind of food it was. Then, in a second video, another flight attendant hands the passenger a “Notice of U.S. Federal Regulation Violation.” He says he doesn’t know what he did and that the first flight attendant spat on him and assaulted him. The lead flight attendant says this isn’t the story she got. The Delta letter isn’t a citation from the Department of Transportation, despite social media discussion of it. It is an airline-issued warning that the crew believes a passenger has refused to stop objectionable or disruptive conduct like interference with crewmember duties. The FAA can investigate and impose civil penalties. These fines are almost never actually paid in their reported amounts. Here’s an old British Airways ‘Yellow Card’ and here’s what an old American Airlines inflight disturbance report looked like: Generally, commenters assume that if Delta issued a formal warning and called police, the passenger must have done some bad stuff before recording. (“If the police are getting called I’m sure YOU were the problem.”) There are lots of comments loving that he was left with OJ’s glove, though. Flight attendants need authority to manage a cabin. But that authority can also turn an ordinary customer service dispute into a federal law enforcement matter based largely on the crew’s version of events. I can’t tell you the number of times a misunderstanding between passenger and crew has led to a flight attendant asking, “are we going to have a problem today?” The answer then is either no and comply with whatever is being requested, or get removed from the aircraft. (HT: Live and Let’s Fly) Topics on this page