While we were boarding, a Flight Attendant seated at 14D traveling standby, makes his way to the back and asks me for a club soda. As I serve it to him, he looks at my crew members and tells me, “Looks like we have the soul train on board” which I can only assume is a semi racist remark regarding the fact that my colleagues were black. Since I didn’t completely understand his reference, I ignored it and he went back to his seat.
After he takes his seat, he began to wave at me frantically. Worried that there was a major issue I worked my way up through the boarding passengers and inquired what was wrong. Melba proceeds to inform me that his seat back entertainment system was not working and he was unable to watch his movie. I had him reset his system and went back to helping passengers with the boarding process.
As we got closer to departure he again began frantically waving at me and our number one, Nicole. She worked her way back and asked what was wrong. He informed her that the seat entertainment was still not working. She told him she would manually reset it and worked her way back up to first and reset it.
As the safety demo begins to play, he gets up and walks to the forward galley and begins to rudely inform the number one that his entertainment center is still not working and also tells her to take his trash. She tells him that she will inform the captain but he needs to take his seat for the safety demo. He goes to his seat, and as I’m doing a compliance check he rings his call light and motions me over to him. He again informs me that his seat back entertainment is not working and that the number one doesn’t seem to care.
I explain to him that we had done all we could do. He loudly and rudely says to me “I guess you just don’t care do you?” I asked him what else I could do that we hadn’t already done? He makes a dismissive gesture with his hands and tells me to “just go away.” I inform the number one and she goes to talk to him. As she was kneeled down speaking to him, he pushed her arm out of the way. She asked him not to touch her and he said “well then get the hell out of my face”.
At this point, the whole crew was on edge and no longer felt comfortable with him on the flight. We called the pilot and informed him of his lack of understanding and how he had repeatedly pushed the number one. The captain agreed that he should not continue his flight, and we returned to the gate.
At the gate, we were met by several managers. The managers asked us if it was ok to remove the unruly flight attendant and if we could do it. We walked to the exit row and the Flight Attendant was on the phone loudly talking to his supervisor. We asked him to please deplane and take his baggage with him. He refused to deplane or get his baggage so I returned to the front of the plane to ask help from the law enforcement officers.
As the Leo’s are about to board, he gets up and forcibly pushes one of the managers on his way to the front of the plane. Once off the plane he continues on the phone with his manager ignoring the captain and everyone else. The manager returned to the flight attendants seat to grab his luggage and brings it to the front. The Flight Attendant loudly informs us that he still has bags on board but refuses to describe them. The manager goes back and finds his final two bags which Melba confirms were his. We then close the plane and departed.
This experience was a stark reminder of the challenges we face as flight attendants. We are trained to handle a wide range of situations, but confrontations like these test our patience and professionalism. It’s not just about serving drinks or demonstrating safety procedures; it’s about ensuring the safety and comfort of all passengers, sometimes in the face of unexpected and difficult behavior.