A trio of British Airways passengers who verbally abused flight attendants in the worst of ways after being cut off from alcohol have now received fines, including restitution for the flight attendants involved. It’s an interesting concept and highly appropriate.
Abusive Passengers Will Pay Fines To British Airways Flight Attendants
On February 7, 2021, three people were traveling on a British Airways flight from Miami to London. I’m just going to leave out the details because they are so lurid, but it involved profanity…a lot of it. You’re free to check out all the exchanges at the UK Daily Mail.
The main provocateur was not just some drunk loser (though he was), but the son of Commonwealth Secretary-General Baroness Scotland. In addition to the profanity, he threatened to have the cabin crew fired by invoking his mother’s influential position. Even as a non-credible threat, it made the offense worse.
While the young man’s attorney claimed he had been prescribed anti-anxiety drugs which likely contributed to the behavior onboard, he did offer the court an unmitigated apology:
“This is the most shameful and embarrassing thing that has ever happened to me. I make no attempt to excuse what happened.”
Thank you. This is repentance.
The judge was fairly lenient, blaming lockdowns in part on their behavior:
“You were at the end of a prolonged period of social confinement and that might have had some psychological impact on you and might have been the reason each of you behaved out of character.
“You each acted with a profound sense of entitlement, you each acted without any consideration for the crew or the job they had to do.”
I think the “behaving out of character” assumption is quite generous if you dig deeper about these three.
Each defendant was levied with a fine of £2,835. That included restitution of £500 per person for each of the two abused flight attendants.
This marks the first time I have seen restitution paid directly to flight attendants and under the circumstances, I think it was highly appropriate. By all accounts, the crew went far above and beyond its duty to try to serve the pesky passengers with dignity when dignity was not returned. Enduring such abuse is not part of the job description.
Unlike many drunken fits of in-flight rage we feature on Live and Let’s Fly, this involved a particularly vicious attack against crewmembers. The penalty was appropriate.
CONCLUSION
A trio of youths were fined £2,835 each for drunken misconduct on a British Airways flight to London. Each of the flight attendants involved will receive £1,500 in compensation for the abuse they endured. I find this an excellent blueprint for punishing future onboard abusers.
(H/T: One Mile At A Time)
What about fines paid to passengers for flight attendants abusing their power and citing aircraft safety to excuse their poor performance when they are called out by passengers. It works both ways.
Yes, I think the FA who threw me off my United flight for taking a picture of my seat (as well as the spineless captain who backed her up) should have paid me restitution. But that’s a different issue.
Lifetime ban is also appropriate. Any idea if that happened? And why is south Florida always somehow involved? (says a former south Florida resident)
For what it’s worth, they were apparently connecting from the Caribbean
Lifetime bans only apply if you don’t pull your mask up in between bites.
“A trio of British Airways passengers who verbally abused passengers”
That needs fixing.
“This is the most shameful and embarrassing thing that has ever happened to me. I make no attempt to excuse what happened.”
This apology is a non-apology. He didn’t apologize for his actions, he said they happened “to” him. When the person apologising makes it all about them, it kind of loses any sincerity that might have been there otherwise.
@Dublin
Freedom of movement (in your home country of citizenship and as a tourist) is a human right. Banning people traveling on an airline for life for one incident is very dangerous. Some routes are only served by one airline. A ban for 24 months or 5 years, maybe. A life time ban is too much.
A lot of these cases involve alcohol. People drink. Some people are stupid when they drink. Flying is scary for some people and they drink to calm their nerves. People sometimes have weird reactions that are aberrations from normal. I’m not overly concerned with people who acted like idiots when drunk. I’m concerned with thugs who rob, burglarize, vandalize, criminally menace, batter, rape, or unjustifiably murder my people. Most drunk people don’t have malice. They are just fools.
It’s a right until you cross a certain boundary.
There are very few cases where the people getting banned have no other option when it comes to traveling.
These numbers are not consistent with Ben’s reporting. He notes total fines of £2835, which includes £500 for each named crewmember.
Yes, give more power to FAs. “Oh, this passenger abused me so he has to pay me money.” I can see this becoming a source of income for them.
Going to be a very slippery slope. Other customer facing professionals such as check in staff often face abuse and it’s not from customers that are drunk or on meds,,,,they are just angry as hell because their flight was (a) cancelled or (b) they didn’t get their upgrade/ DYKWIA mode kicks in, etc. The direct compensation to staff is very problematic, even if well deserved. No employee should have to be subjected to the kind of abuse this BA crew was subjected too, as well as neighboring passengers. In the US, there are specific fines/ penalties spelled out on your ticket, but I don’t see the phrase “if you yell nasty things at our crew we are going to charge you money.” The T&Cs do talk about the penalties for disobey FA/ Crew instructions (whether the instructions are ‘correct’ or within FAA guidance is often subject to reasonable dispute, but not in the air people!). Perhaps were are to start seeing changes to ticket T&Cs. I think BA could have made a direct payment to the affected employees if they believe that was right. I imagine that there are a whole load of BA (and other airline employees) that have been abused at the same level by less high profile customers and received zero compensation. Until some of the folks, like these PAX suffer an actual penalty like jail for for breaking FAA/ CAA or other relevant authorities’ laws/ regulations, this stuff will continue and those that can write a check will do so and move on. As for bans, I agree that perhaps a 10 year ban. The right to travel has not been removed. Just the right for a private business to decide, within the law, to no longer welcome a specific customer is certainly within the business’ rights.
Banned for life is great, Once a drunken moron, always a drunken moron. At 35,000 feet, these types of low lifes endanger the entire passenger and crew. Unless lifetime banning is done, these type of offences will go on.