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Unruly Passenger Kicked Off American Airlines Flight, Should Consider Flying Spirit

A tribute to an American Airlines agent who handled an ugly situation at DFW Airport remarkably well, and some hand-wringing over viral videos of bad behavior.
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Here are a few things that can be true at the same time:

  • Many people are on their worst behavior while traveling by air, and it’s only gotten worse during the COVID-19 pandemic: The FAA has this year logged more than 3,000 cases of disruptive passengers, the majority of them throwing hissy fits because they have to wear a mask. We should all chill out a little bit.
  • Viral videos of people melting down or acting up or otherwise embarrassing themselves are free of context, and we should for many other reasons be uncomfortable with our culture of public shaming, which is exacerbated by the attention economics of social media and by the digital content churn we see in blog posts like this one. We should try to have a little more empathy, even for people who appear to be acting like real jerks.
  • The American Airlines agent seen in the viral video below is handling an ugly situation at DFW Airport remarkably well, and “You can find another carrier to fly; I’d suggest Spirit” is a great line. We should applaud this man’s cool.

The Dallas Morning News has a few more details on what happened. A dispute over mask-wearing led a passenger to insult a flight attendant. The passenger was kicked off the flight, and somebody filmed this:

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