JetBlue Flight Attendant Steven Slater (Personal Photo)
Let me tell you something. I fly internationally frequently. And ‘flight attendants’ – or as we know ‘m: stewards or stewardesses - do not have the glamorous job people might think they have. Sure, if you look no further than the surface you see mostly young, attractive people flying all over the world to cool places. And people generally envy them for that.
Well, reality is that they are mostly playing babysitters to annoying people. People that don’t obey the safety rules on a plane. People who are rude and get abusive because they experienced a delay of simply because they had to much to drink. Or people that are just assholes in general. Also, they get underpaid a lot, just like pilots.
Let’s face it: if you are in the service industry – and that’s what I think flight attendants are in – you can have a hard time and your job may become just a modern variant on “cattle herding”.
Well, this morning, it was one of those days for JetBlue flight attendant Steven Slater (38) who has been in the business for many years, working for 5 different airlines. But this time Slater took matters into his own hands and decided that enough was enough.
The official report of what happened is as follows:
When the JetBlue flight landed on JFK International airport in NY, one passenger stood up to retrieve her belongings from the overhead compartment before the crew had given permission and the plane was still taxiing. Mr. Slater instructed the person to remain seated. The passenger defied him. Mr. Slater reached the passenger just as the person was pulling down the luggage, which struck Mr. Slater in the head.
Mr. Slater asked her for an apology. The passenger instead cursed at him. Mr. Slater then got on the plane’s public-address system and cursed out the womand for all to hear. Then, after declaring that “20 years in the airline industry” was enough, he blurted out, “It’s been great!” To everyone’s surprise he then activated the inflatable evacuation slide at a service exit and – on his way out the door- paused to grab a beer from the beverage cart. Then he slide out the plane and ran to the employee parking lot and drove off to his home where some time late he got arrested.
Neighbors in California, where Mr. Slater grew up, said he had recently been caring for his dying mother, a retired flight attendant, and had done the same for his father, a pilot.
A former flight attendant, Janet Bavasso, who lives next door to Mr. Slater in Queens, sympathizes with Slater: “Enough is enough — good for him,” Ms. Bavasso said. “If he would have called me, I would have picked him up.”
What can I say: I can understand why Slater did it and I sympathize with him as well.
Just because you paid for a ticket doesn’t mean you can do what you want. Safety rules may look stupid to you but the last 9 years have shown us that those safety rules are not there just for fun.
I’m sure he will be out of a job because of this (he broke many serious FAA safety rules) and might even go to jail. I think he also will become an icon for many of his fellow flight attendants who might dream of doing the same he did.
Anyway: when I am flying to the US this weekend I will make sure I thank the flight attendants and the pilot when I leave the plane.
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