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| Not the airline I worked for however I did fly on this aircraft two days before 9/11. It was delivered to ATA the night before and had that new airplane smell. Very cool experience flying on a new airplane. |
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If I had a hero of the day it would be Steve Slater. Now I am not saying I condone what he did, but I know exactly why he did it. That dude has cojones. I worked in the airline industry for years so I have some frame of reference here. Flight attendants, ticket and gate agents are the face of the airlines and at the same time they are the first to be blamed for anything and I mean anything that can go wrong. Sit back, relax, grab some popcorn and let me tell you a wondrous story.
Working for an airline back in the late 90's (before all the 9/11 restrictions) we had a canceled flight. I was working at the gate in an attempt to reroute the passengers on other flights. The reason for the cancellation was fog. Our plan was to either taxi or bus the passengers to Cincinnati so they could catch their connecting flights. All was going well until one passenger told me "Like hell am I going to let you put me in a taxi when I paid for an airplane ticket." The passenger (with a group his newly found supporters) continued to barrage me to the point that one exclaimed "It's not that foggy outside you need to un-cancel this flight." Now I was not the one to cancel the flight in the first place, that decision came from a dispatcher in a tower in another state and at the same time I had no authority to un-cancel anything. What these passengers failed to realize is that I was, in the only way I had available to me, trying to ensure they arrived safely at their final destination. However in the end after taking about half an hour of berating at the hands of these passengers I handled it in much the same way as Mr. Slater (minus the slide and beers although that would of been a lot of fun). I informed this group of passengers "Hey I have an idea why don't I just give you the damn keys to the airplane and you can go ahead and fly it on out of here for me." that was when one of them spoke up saying "Do you know who I am" I told him "I don't give a damn who you are." as I walked away.
The point of this is don't blame the airline employees you can see as many of them have absolutely no control of anything that happens. Oh and if you are nice to them in situations like this they will definitely take care of you. Those guys were going to get upgraded first class out of Cincinnati and ended up in the back of the plane near the wonderful smelling lavatory. So Steven Slater I salute you and welcome to the club of disgruntled former airline employees. Let me know what you think in the comments below and stay tuned for tomorrow I talk about Man-food . Thanks and please subscribe.
