A “celebrity” passenger was removed from a JetBlue flight after being unable to handle that his Mint business class seat was broken.
Jax Taylor Livid Over Broken JetBlue Mint Suite – His (Poor) Reaction Is A Lesson For All Of Us
Jax Taylor, an American television personality on Bravo, was flying JetBlue from New York to Los Angeles in Mint Business Class last week. According to reports on Twitter (X) and reddit, his seat did not function and became stuck in the down position.
Seats must be kept in an upright position for takeoff and landing. With Taylor and flight attendants unable to get his seat up, the aircraft returned to the gate.
So far, so good, right?
Initial reports suggested he demanded the flight return to the gate because of a broken light, but his publicist explained (and others have verified) that it was about the seat:
“The plane did not come back due to any uproar. His seat was in the bed position in first class, and the plane is unable to take off if it is not upright. He was not able to sit in that seat. It was not working. It was not his fault that the seat wouldn’t move from the bed position.”
But the story takes an ugly turn, which is alluded to in the publicist statement above (“uproar”). Passengers then reported that Taylor was incensed over the broken seat and threw such a fit that he was removed from the aircraft.
Interestingly, Mint was not full and Taylor was reportedly offered an alternate seat, but declined to take it. That suggests to me that he had a Mint Suite (the solo seats) and would have been moved to the “regular” Mint seats in which you have to sit next to a stranger.
A passengers shared:
“Well I was there, he claims his seat was broken in first class. So the flight attendant offered him a new seat. He refused and kept arguing saying he paid 3000$ for the ticket. The back and forth continue and they had to return the aircraft back to the gate 10 mins after it left.
“…Supervisor decided to remove him from the aircraft due to his behavior. Once they made that decision. He started saying he was never offered another seat. Which was lie. Continue to act entitled. So his ticket was refunded and he had to purchase a new ticket first class to LAX.”
On reddit, another passenger suggested that Taylor’s outburst was so dramatic that it was first assumed to be a panic attack:
“At first, the way the captain phrased it, it almost seemed as if a person with mental health issues was close to having a full-on flight-long panic attack, so people were grumbling, but not pissed. Once we found out it was some self-entitled prick, we lost it.”
But that was not the case:
“This douchenozzle had to pitch enough of a fit that we ended up 2-1/2 hours late…”
So there you have it.
My takeaway is that seats do break and that is inconvenient. But throwing a hissy fit is not going to fix the seat or get you on your way. No one deliberately breaks a seat or fails to fix it, especially when a plane is not able to lawfully depart when the seat is in the lie-flat position.
It doesn’t matter if you pay $3,000 for your seat (unlikely, by the way, at least on a one-way basis): losing your temper does not help your cause.
CONCLUSION
A TV personality named Jax Taylor was removed from a JetBlue flight after complaining about his broken seat. My interest is not so much in his celebrity status (I’ve never heard of him until today), but in his childish behavior. It simply does not make sense to get upset about something like this. All it did for Taylor was get him kicked off the flight.
Taylor is no stranger to Mint:
Happy to have you back in Mint, Mr. Taylor! Enjoy!
— JetBlue (@JetBlue) January 21, 2017
But will he be welcomed back after this disturbing incident?
Celebrity!! ROFOL!!!
Even putting celebrity in quotes is using that term wayyyyyy too loosely. For a Vanderpump Rules personality, I think the term passenger is more than sufficient.
Guy is certainly not at Jon Gosselin’s level of fame.
You got it correct “celebrity”.
I guess everyone gets their 15 minutes of “fame”.
Who the heck is this person? What a moron.
I was on Jetblue in Mint a few months ago JFK-LAX. I had a suite. Someone else’s suite door would not close. The woman pitched a fit. The Flight Attendant offered me $200 to swap with her. I couldn’t care less about the door. I switched after the F/A cleaned up the seat (the woman had been sitting there for boarding plus 10 minutes of flight and it looked like the plane had flown upside down). I said I’d have done it for $50 if it meant the other pax would shut up. I don’t think she heard me… she was too busy washing something from a prescription bottle down with a vodka on the rocks.
Yet another entitled turd who thinks because he’s traveling “Mint” he’s above the rules.
Was the seat stuck in the lie-flat bed position when the plane left the gate? How would that be allowed/possible? Don’t all seats have to be in the upright/locked position before the plane can push back from the gate?
Yes, technically. But not if he move the seat after the takeoff check was done.
Who in the F is Ajax Taylor? A celebrity? Are you kidding me? What a clown this guy is, actually believing that anyone gives a crap. LOL
Guys stop mocking his celeb status, he has 1M+ followers in Instagram.
Also, who is this guy and how tf does he have 1M followers on Instagram?
This guy is as much a “celebrity” as you are, Matthew. I’m also not entirely convinced you would have reacted any better under these circumstances.
Perhaps he should take his anger out on whoever is booking his travel. Walk up Mint fares for today are around $1,500. If he actually wants to fly in First flights on AA today are as low as $1,500 and as high as $2,200
It sucks that the plane had to go back to the gate, but I’ve had pretty good luck with compensation for seat malfunctions…up to $300 for malfunctioning tray tables, spotty wifi, nonreclining seats, etc. I’ll take the $ any day.
If I was a celeb I would commit suicide and leave a note saying ‘I just couldn’t handle the fame and fortune. Oh woe is me’.
Jax figured following the example of Conrad Hughes Hilton III is the polite way to treat the crew.
Completely off topic, but does anyone know anything more about what happened with KQ100? https://jalopnik.com/nobody-is-explaining-why-raf-fighters-intercepted-and-d-1850926182
Considering the hundreds of channels showing thousands of shows in addition to podcasts and YouTube and whatever else counts for being an influencer… we really need to eliminate the term “celebrity” from our vocabulary. It’s lost all meaning.
And, and to the point, he sounds like a prick and hope he was forced to fly a middle seat on Spirit.
Will no one rid the world of all these self aggrandising nobodies who claim to be celebrities?
I’m going to play Devil’s Advocate here: Most of the folks who read this blog are of a “poor” mindset. Don’t take that as an insult, but rather you had to earn your airline status and have even flown economy from time to time if you had to. You know that the sky wardens sometimes will capriciously exercise their right to throw you off a plane for looking at them the wrong way.
But elite status wasn’t necessarily designed for you in mind. The majority of money the airlines make from those seats are from the privileged classes who are a bit like baby royalty. They emotionally cannot handle standing in long lines because they never had to or if they’re celebrities, they have a huge ego that demands they fork out huge ticket prices. D-lister Reality TV show stars live in a mental bubble propped up by a million followers. Think of the Queen Bee in your high school who got a big head because a hundred kids all wanted to be her friend and multiply that by 10,000.
Then again, undermining my own observation, the truly spoiled ultra-rich don’t fly commercial at all. They have private jets and we never meet them and heck, they even go out of their way to hide their existence. Kim Jong Un went to a private Swiss school where few were aware of what he was going to turn out to be. They have assistants who handle any of these inconveniences before they are even aware of them. Commercial first class travel is a poor-man’s version of what the real wealthy enjoy.
Now to switch back again: First class treatment should mean that these issues would be handled before the “celebrity” even got on the plane. The gate agent should have been notified the seat was broken and to advise the passenger of the difficulty. Heck, this might be a good idea for cattle-class as well. If there’s going to be an issue in the air, why not pro-actively address it on the ground? Why not notify passengers if their entertainment system in 35D is dead, or if there won’t be catering in ANY class of the aircraft before they get on the plane and cause a ruckus? If they throw a temper tantrum, let them do it in front of the gate?
Who? Never heard of the guy.