Qantas is standing firmly behind its flight attendant against a charge of racism by American rapper William Adams, popularly known as will.i.am.
Adams, of the Black Eyed Peas group, was on a flight from Brisbane to Sydney and alleges that he was targeted by an “overly aggressive” Qantas flight attendant on the basis of his race.
He was wearing noise-cancelling headphones and said he did not hear the flight attendant announcement to put laptop computers away prior to landing. The flight attendant then singled him out, berating him for not following crewmember instructions.
Some words may have been exchanged because five police officers met the flight upon landing in Sydney. Adams was not arrested.
Naming the flight attendant and posting a picture of her on Twitter, he added she was “beyond” rude with the hashtag #RacistFlightattendant.
I don’t want to believe she (sic) racist. But she has clearly aimed all her frustrations only at the people of color.
Qantas: We Will Support Flight Attendant
After Adam’s claims were picked up by many news outlets, Qantas issued a cautious but somewhat passive-aggresive statement blaming the “misunderstanding” on noise-cancelling headphones.
There was a misunderstanding on board, which seems to have been exacerbated by will.i.am wearing noise cancelling headphones and not being able to hear instructions from crew.
We’ll be following up with will.i.am and wish him well for the rest of the tour.
But as the story has continued to gain traction and outrage has grown over shaming the flight attendant so publicly (Adams has over 12 million followers), Qantas now is publicly backing the flight attendant:
Absent a retraction, and if the crew member wanted to take the matter further, we’d certainly be willing to provide legal support for them to do this.
That’s an interesting turn, because a number passnegers onboard have backed Adams, including this one:
I was on the same flight and couldn’t believe the appalling behaviour of the flight attendant. My apologies on behalf of Australia.
— Kate Selway (@kate_selway) November 16, 2019
In an interview with the Daily Telegraph, Adams did not express vengeance, just a hope for the flight attendant to be retrained.
CONCLUSION
The interesting news here is how strongly Qantas is standing behind its flight attendant. If more passengers continue to corroborate Adam’s account, that’s bad optics for the Australian carrier, even if its issue is more the public shaming and privacy invasion than the harsh words exchanged onboard.
image: Eva Rinaldi / Flickr CC 2.0
and exactly when as a society do we stop this brain dead mob mentality whenever someone throws the race card and we just blindly believe they’re the victim ? paging mr smollett
Could not agree more.
Besides people on the flight corroborating his side of the story?
Absent each passenger being interviewed by a trained person, I wouldn’t believe a fan’s tweet.
I was not on the flight so not taking sides here BUT did she “aim all her frustrations only at the people of color” OR only at people that did not follow crew instructions to put down their laptop? I am not saying she has the right to aim her frustrations to anyone but I am a bit tired of everything that happens now has a race/gender/hair color/etc…. reason for happening. How about it just happened because he did not follow crew instructions?
Something tells me there may be more to the story with Qantas backing the flight attendant. They must know something that hasn’t been published
Yet another attempt to turn race and identity politics into the arbiter of right and wrong. Sounds like Australia is just as bad as America. Persons such as Adams are entitled due to their celebrity, and I have no doubt that he ignored multiple if not dozens of requests to stow his computer.
I seem to remember a few years ago he got upset and made a big public deal about how the lounge attendants would not let him into the (then still in existence) United GlobalFirst lounge at IAD with his United Club card on a domestic flight.
Haha, I remember that too. I think he was denied entry because he wasn’t flying in the correct cabin class for admission into the lounge, though he claimed it was because they accused him of using a fake card. DYKW(ill)IA?! Lol
Lol. A good example of cultural discrepancies can affect opinions. Matthew and will.i.am are murican. Qantas an aussie.
May not have been racially motivated, I’ll give the FA that much benefit of doubt. But that they were rude? I totally buy that.
So many FAs have gone on power trips, or have simply been too full of themselves to even have the common sense (or courtesy) to think about de-escalating, that there’s little benefit of doubt to give.
I’ve witnessed several of these ridiculous episodes of FAs confronting passengers when it was entirely uncalled for, and I myself have been on the receiving end of the “I’m here for your safety” attitude that some FAs believe allows them to bark orders as if we were army recruits instead of customers paying (a proportion of) their salaries. And that’s been independent of class of travel (although international F has, in my experience, been immune to these).
I am a FA. I’ve known thousands of other flight attendants who are rude, power mad or just have really bad attitudes. I’ve never known one to act in a racist manner. I’ve been accused of racism twice, and of discrimination once. The first time, two black customers accused me of racism for not offering them blankets or taking their meal orders. I wasn’t working in their cabin or on their side of the plane and didn’t offer anyone in their cabin blankets or take anyone’s meal orders. The second time, I asked a middle eastern woman to use the lavatory in the main cabin (where she was sitting). The instance of discrimination was asking a tattooed man to use the lavatory in his cabin rather than the first class one. I’m inclined to believe the flight attendant based on my own experiences. Good for Qantas.