Sadly, it seems like these stories are happening at least once a week these days. An American Airlines flight was diverted this week to Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina after passengers continued to yell obscenities at a female flight attendant. The flight was going from Los Angeles to Charlotte.
The incident was captured in a TikTok video that has now gone viral with over 600,000 views.
According to passenger Brent Underwood, the man who took the TikTok video, the flight was initially being rerouted because of bad weather and the plane running low on fuel. Passengers became upset as the plane sat on the tarmac, and many not receiving the in-flight snack service.
“He called her a fat gorilla, and he told her that she can suck his, yeah. I was like, ‘What in the world?’ It was all because his mask was down,” Underwood said in an interview. “She walked up to her lead attendant, and he got over the intercom and said he will not tolerate rudeness to his flight attendants.”
Also, according to Underwood, just before the flight took off another passenger became unruly after trying to force his way to the bathroom, and flight attendants asking him to take his seat.
“From what I understand he tried to force his way into the bathroom. It was ridiculous.”
Things became so bad, the lead flight attendant had to make an announcement over the loudspeaker.
“Just like you, we have not eaten also,” the lead flight attendant said over the intercom. “The fact that we get insulted and mistreated by passengers over things that we cannot control. It is disgusting.”
The flight attendant goes on to describe the flight as being a ‘living hell.’ Other passengers even called the attendants ‘drama queens’ for calling the unruly passengers out on their behavior.
American Airlines was made aware of the incident and issued the following statement to Charlotte’s Fox 46 news:
“We take the health and safety of our customers seriously, and our crewmembers work hard to uphold the federal mask mandate that remains in effect on aircraft and in airports. We value the trust our customers place in our team to care for them throughout their journey, and we expect those who choose to fly with us to treat each other – and our team members – with respect.”
There is no word on if the unruly passengers will face consequences. Underwood revealed that the passenger who yelled the obscenities did eventually apologize for his actions.