Getting a flight is rarely a relaxing or smooth process. For most of us, it includes a lot of stress, money, and effort to go through, with various opportunities for it all to go wrong. And even if your plans go off without a hitch, the experience of being on a plane isn't exactly great either. Packed in a confined space for hours, along with dozens of strangers with bad habits - not so fun.
You would hope that the people you are sat near are friendly, polite, or simply keep to themselves during the journey. However, some people feel the need to make a big fuss over nothing, treating the employees who are trying their best to help them with nothing but disrespect. And, in some cases, this disrespect goes far beyond mere rudeness.
On a recent Southwest Airlines flight travelling from Chicago, Illinois, to Houston, Texas, an entire flight was derailed because of the actions of one woman. The Saturday morning flight was reportedly delayed for around an hour after a woman onboard became enraged with flight attendants, with her frustration even leading to racial slurs.
According to witnesses at the scene, the entire debacle started simply because a flight attendant had asked the woman to put her tray table up for takeoff - a standard procedure on commercial flights.
This soon escalated, as the woman yelled the n-word at the flight attendant, and continued to use the slur after she was removed from the plane.
The incident was filmed by another passenger, who shared the footage with ABC13 Houston. You can watch the video below, but be warned that it does contain racist language which some might find upsetting:
The offender was reportedly met at the gate by local law enforcement, although what happened next is unknown. The news station chose to blur the passenger's face, as she has not yet been charged with anything.
After the event took place, Southwest Airlines released a statement to ABC13, both confirming the incident and the surrounding events:
"On Flight #5593 with scheduled service from Chicago Midway to Houston Hobby on Saturday morning, our reports indicate that a Customer refused to comply with our Flight Crew's instructions after boarding and before the flight departed Chicago.
"The customer became unruly and verbally abusive toward our flight attendants, and the decision was made to return to the gate to deplane the Customer, where she was met by local law enforcement officers. Our employees handled the situation professionally with grace and class, and we do not condone or tolerate such profane and unruly behavior on board our aircraft.
"Once the customer deplaned the aircraft, the flight resumed to Houston Hobby, arriving about an hour later than originally scheduled.”
One thing is for sure - you have to have a thick skin to put up with this kind of behaviour in a customer service role. It takes a lot to remain professional and graceful in the face of such disrespectful and offensive acts.
