A disturbing allegation has emerged that began over a diaper incident onboard a United Express flight and ended with a post-flight phone call in which a flight attendant cursed out a passenger.
Diaper Incident Leaves United Airlines Passenger Speechless
Dr. Farah Naz Khan and her mother were flying from Kalispell (FCA) to Houston (IAH) on Mesa, a regional United Express partner of United Airlines. They were seated in first class and flying with Khan’s baby daughter.
According to Khan, during the flight she used the rear lavatory to change her baby’s diaper. The soiled nappy was placed in a “scented diaper disposal bag” and placed inside the waste receptacle inside the lavatory.
But when she returned to her seat, the flight attendant berated her for dumping her baby’s diaper in the lavatory, calling it a “biohazard” and demanding she return to the lavatory and retrieve it (the flight attendant knew she had changed her diaper because she was carrying the baby, wipes, and a foam changing pad).
She did return to the lavatory and attempted to fish out the dirty diaper. While doing so, she asked the rear flight attendant for a trash bag to place the soiled diaper in. Puzzled, the other flight attendant said she had properly disposed of the diaper.
Kahn returned to the first class cabin, “confronted” the flight attendant and was yelled at again, with the flight attendant walking away and saying he did not want to deal with her.
As if that was not bad enough, a few hours later Khan claims she received a phone call on her mobile phone from 1-800-United1, the general reservations number for United. She answered…and it was the flight attendant on the other end.
He informed Kahn that she had been placed on United’s “No Fly List” due to diaper incident and added:
“YOU people bring your families everywhere. You should stop flying and just drive. I can hear your obnoxious baby in the background right now.”
Khan also claims the flight attendant used obscene language during the phone call.
She took to Facebook and Twitter to tell her story:
For any of my friends considering flying @united, watch out, their flight attendants will curse about your children to you on the phone by finding your number after you’ve left the flight. He said “YOU people always bring your children everywhere.” Wth does that mean? #racist
— Farah Naz Khan (@farah287) July 9, 2021
United Airlines issued only a brief, cautionary response:
“We have reached out to our customer and our regional partner Mesa Airlines, who operated this flight, to get a better understanding of what occurred.”
Khan says she has already had two calls with United Airlines and they’ve been fruitless:
Two unhelpful calls from @united corporate so far with no answers to my questions.
— Farah Naz Khan (@farah287) July 11, 2021
My Take
If Kahn’s story is true (and I see no reason why she would make it up), I hope United really makes this right through a formal apology, compensation, and telling Mesa that this flight attendant is unfit to fly for United Express.
I’ve been called by gate agents before if I am late to boarding a flight and the number that appears is the 1-800-United1 number. It is actually quite easy for flight attendants to obtain a passenger’s phone number if they look in the right place or ask the right people.
CONCLUSION
This is a very sad story and I find it absolutely disgusting and wholly indefensible if Kahn’s account captures all the details. Even if Kahn snapped at the flight attendant and berated him, he deserved it…and the retaliatory phone call is grounds for immediate termination.
COVID has provided the perfect cover for a small minority of control freaks to carry on like this. They’re temperamentally unsuited for work in a service industry but it seems there are limited mechanisms to weed them out. It goes without saying their preferred targets are those they think are powerless/ unlikely to push back.
I don’t believe her story.
What does it matter if the FA is white male or any other race or gender? To me that implies there is yet again a race card.
On a similar note regarding how easy it is for employees to get personal data, I was flying Continental out of SAV back in ~2007 and it was very evident that the counter agent was being flirtatious during check-in. It didn’t bother me, but when I got home, I saw an email from him saying that enjoyed checking me in and thought I looked great and would love to take me out the next time I was in SAV. I told him I was flattered, but that wasn’t going to happen. He asked that I didn’t contact CO as he would get in trouble for reaching out to me directly. I didn’t say anything and that was the end of it, but it is very easy to get personal information of PAX.
Yeah, this story seems fabricated. Sounds like someone is trying to capitalize on the current tension amongst travelers and airline employees.
This sucks and I feel so bad for her. BTW, what is the proper way to dispose a diaper while on the plane?
Exactly the way she did it.
The passenger did it correctly: put it in a scented bag and then in the trash disposal location; many passengers don’t use a scented bag nor any bag, so they just dispose of it in the correct location; that’s why there’s often a stench when you use the bathroom in the aircraft. I know, I cleaned planes and you’d be shocked at what people do on an airplane. (you don’t want to know).
What are the chances that a Mesa Airlines flight attendant would be able to make a call from United’s 800 reservations number? I’m thinking about ZERO.
ZERO… this is BS social media attack to get something… $$$$$
and EVERYONE is falling for it…
Didn’t realize UA gate agents can call if you’re late to board. Learned something new!
First of all, I’m more upset about the 1st class woman going back into the peon lav to dump her shitty diaper. Secondly, There’s no way in hell they would give an FA a passengers direct number. I called complete bullshit on this.
I disagree with you.
It’s time you get off your high horse; I’m sure you need those ‘peons’ siting in the back, during your daily life; what a stupid comment.
I’m sorry I have a hard time believing any part of this story the whole thing stinks of poo. First the passengers claims the first class FA said they did not properly dispose of the diaper but the diaper was properly disposed of in the trash bin which is where it is supposed to go not be flushed down the toilet. Second the FA instructed the passenger retrieve the dirty diaper out of the trash? If true what was the customer supposed to do with the diaper keep it in the cabin in fist class? YEAH this sounds 100% believable. As if that isn’t bizarre enough now the customer claims the flight attendant who works for Mesa (United Express) not even a United employee somehow was able to get the passengers personal number which isn’t listed on any paperwork given to crew member and then gained access to United’s reservation system somehow found this customers reservation, gained access to the customers reservation, and then gain access to their personal information and then called the customers from a United reservation call center just to curse out the passenger?
This is the very definition of fake news then has the audacity to end her tweet with #racist??? I mean really??? And yet we have liveandletsfly.com breathing life into a story that is obviously 100% fake simply because it involved one of America’s most hated airlines.
Sounds like lies to me. Crew members don’t get pax personal info. United tracks every single key stroke, so it won’t take long for them to discover if someone did access the phone number.
Remember the Duke Lacrosse players? Thrown in jail, fired, kicked out of school, lives destroyed – and it was later shown to be all lies and outright perjury.
Would have liked if you added the word reportedly in your headline.
When are we going to stop reacting to things only after hearing from one side? Lets wait until we hear both sides of the story. One of the things that sounds rather unusual is how did the FA get her phone number. Can FA’s have access to that much of customers details?
You don’t want to be last blog to report on anything even if you have the most accurate information.
It’s like reading error corrections on the bottom of page 30 of a newspaper.
How much responsibility and/or does United have over United Express airlines? I think this doctor thinks they’re one in the same.
From a passenger perspective they largely are the same.
United still is responsible as the umbrella carrier. They contract to MESA but are still the ‘carrier’.
It is worth considering the possibilities here. Some people are overlooking very realistic probabilities.
1. Flight’s have passenger manifest lists, and FA’s absolutely know who you are, and what your status is. This comes as no surprise, especially for those who fly up front. When taking your order, FA’s regularly refer to this manifest sheet, and address you by name.
2. Outbound telephone calls from a United office (e.g. – a United hub with a break room that has a telephone) could show up on a caller ID as a United corporate telephone number.
It could be possible to be retrieved by a gate agent; I just don’t know if it is. Or it could just as easily be the FA’s looking up the PAX, and calling (CV’s/resumes have telephone numbers, addresses, email addresses. LinkedIn and personal websites often have the same).
I think this story is plausible.
RE: racism.
There is a lot of racial resentment and hatred in America right now. There are a lot of people who see successful under represented minorities, and they get mad. I am not sure if race is really involved here, but if it were – this kind of behavior is exactly what I would come to expect. Mesa isn’t exactly a high class airline; the people who work there are not all refined, mindful and enlightened individuals. I will go as far as to say; a Mesa employee is a rejected United employee.
Re: obtaining the telephone number.
If you are successful enough to value privacy; your cell phone number won’t be found online. If you aren’t in that camp (which is most everyone); your number is plastered everywhere, and sometimes you even help plaster it everywhere. So I would buy the far-fetched idea that the FA looked up the PAX, called the PAX, and harassed them.
FAA needs to quit screwing around. After a long day of asshole passengers (of which, there are a ton right now), I bet a lot of FA’s get pushed to the point where they make these career limiting mistakes. The passengers don’t fear a $1000 fine or a misdemeanor. I’ve seen the FAA fines issues to bad passengers, and they are not enough of a deterrent. I am not defending the FA, but I can empathize with why a FA could freak-the-hell-out on a PAX for putting a baby diaper in the back. Maybe the FA felt this required more intensive cleaning, and they would be on the hook for cleaning a trash bin smeared with poop. AA is big on on-time departures at the moment, and I bet these staff feel their bonuses are tied to their operational performance.
This whole situation is not as far fetched as it seems.
This story has given me time to pause and reflect on how baby diapers are handled. One thing I just thought of, that should gross everyone out, is that there are a lot of baby diapers….stuffed in seat back pockets. If I were a FA, I would prefer people to hand them in to the “main” trash bag being used to retrieve items, that way I know there isn’t a random stinky diaper somewhere. I don’t think they clean out these trash bins on every regional jet, after every route. So yah…
I work for an airline here in the US (not United Airlines) but still a major carrier. The paperwork the flight attendants are given contains a passengers name their seat number and their status if they have any there is no other personal information on that paperwork. Having a passengers name, seat assignment, and status still does get a flight attendant access to that person’s reservation and every stroke on a company computer is recorded and anyone access ing passenger private information without approval is grounds for immediate termination and could be grounds from prosecution. Also gate agents can only access certain information that pertains to their job, there isn’t a single computer at the gate or in the airport that will give an agent access to a passengers personal phone number to access that information you need to be in a reservation center.
Secondly I don’t know of any US carrier with a reservation center at the airport and secondly even if the flight attendant were able to make personal call from the airport (highly unlikely) the 1800 number wouldn’t show up the local number would show up with the local prefix. Lastly employees can’t just pick a phone at the airport and place personal calls, they need an access code to activate the call out feature because most all are restricted and can only dial numbers with-in the airline. There are very few people who have the access codes to make a personal phone call and at least at the airline I work for all calls on company phones are recorded are archived.
Your post proves the point so many other have already made people are willing to accept this as factual because they believe this is plausible when the reality is completely different. This is why I’m disappointed with Matthew Klint and liveandletsfly.com because he claims to be an avid traveler, as an avid traveler I would expect someone like him to do their due diligence. Nothing about this story is even close to believable and liveandletsfly should know this.
United without question is a terrible carrier but this story is 100% false and people shouldn’t just believe it simply because it is United Airlines. If this was Delta Airlines this story would have never been posted on liveandletsfly.com
“United without question is a terrible carrier but this story is 100% false and people shouldn’t just believe it simply because it is United Airlines. If this was Delta Airlines this story would have never been posted on liveandletsfly.com”
I’m waiting for the facts to come out, of course, noting that corrections are usually given less publicity than initial, sensational stories.
I chuckled when Matt wrote: “If Kahn’s story is true (and I see no reason why she would make it up)”
I can personally see SEVERAL reasons for someone to make up such stories. Numerous fake hate crimes have been reported by both the left and rights for attention. Would love to see a follow up when United eventually completes the investigation.
There will be one.
I disagree with many of your thoughts: from pilots on down, thousands started at a commuter airline and moved on to the larger company; there have many times when big airlines aren’t hiring and commuters are, so people go to the latter and wait for the big one to have an opening (it’s easier, in most cases, to move from within than from the outside). I’m very disappointed to read your comments, calling commuter employees ‘reject’; read my initial comment.
Unfortunately, many people of high income, (not all) look down on people that somehow don’t have their income; as you are aware (need I remind you?), high income doesn’t make you a better person, AT ALL; everyone’s job is important, regardless of what he does or how much he makes; unless you can tell us that you’re able to do everything in your life, by yourself, you’ll always need somebody else to do something for you, EVERYWHERE.
Btw, airline jobs are one of a kind: the vast majority of people working for an airline, don’t leave until they retire; it’s in their DNA; I was laid off several times and moved across this nation, with kids in tow (two month old and two year old), making 14/hr back then and doing the moving ourselves (with wife); I loved my job, loading and offloading planes, cleaning, fueling, etc, etc. as you can see, your aircraft would have never left the ground without someone doing those tasks; everyone is needed, EVERYONE. And if I had to do it all over again, I would, regardless of all the stress, not enough money and everything in between.
Next time you travel, be thankful you’re able to sit on that FC or Business seat; once you are on your seat, think of all the people you encountered along the way, from the time you entered the terminal to the plane, and be happy; no one can do all those jobs, NO ONE. Everyone is needed.
Oh, we thank you for flying (it doesn’t matter the airline); we appreciate your business and your money, but always remember, everyone’s job is important; treat everyone with respect and chances are you’ll receive the same back; life’s stressful in today’s America and you never know what cross the other person is carrying. Be nice, be polite, be respectful.
Written by a HS graduate that dedicated thirty years of his life doing what he loved doing: working for an airline; I took pride in my job, often went beyond the call of duty, just because…
Those of you who think this is unbelievable have clearly never been called a “YOU people” before.
Sincerely,
One of THOSE people
PS Regional carriers often only have ONE lav.
Mesa Airlines do not fly to Denver. The details don’t add up.
What routes does Mesa fly from Wyoming?
unbelievable story..like what really??
If she has done everything perfectly, how did flight attendant know there is a diaper in garbage bin?