Angry JetBlue Attendant Exits Plane on Slide
Drake and Chris Brown / CBS/Getty Images
Next time you're having a bad day on the job, don't follow in the footsteps of JetBlue flight attendant Steven Slater. Instead, take a deep breath and think twice before you do anything you will regret.
The New York Times City Room blog reports Slater, 39, frustrated with a customer who wouldn't follow directions, cursed out the entire plane on the public-address system, activated the inflatable emergency evacuation slide, then slid down it, escaping into John F. Kennedy International Airport.
PICTURES: Jet Blue Attendant Steven Slater Loses It
Police found Slater at his home in Belle Harbor, Queens and charged him with reckless endangerment and criminal mischief.
The incident occurred after a passenger ignored instructions from Slater to stay seated, and got up to reach for his belongings in an overhead compartment. As Slater approached the passenger, his luggage struck the flight attendant in the head.
Upset, Slater asked for an apology, and instead, the passenger told Slater off. The flight attendant then continued on with his tirade, shouting:
"To the passenger who called me a m---f--er, f--- you," Slater ranted over the intercom, passengers said.
"I've been in the business 28 years. I've had it. That's it," reports the New York Daily News
Slater then slid down the emergency escape slide, fleeing into the employee parking lot to a car he had left there.
According to LinkedIn, Slater has worked for JetBlue since January 2008, and served as chairman of JetBlue's uniform redesign committee and on the company's in-flight values committee.
Response on the Internet to the news of Slater's outburst has been fast, furious, and - in a sign of how frustrated other fliers are with abusive passengers - pretty positive.
Comments left on Slater's Facebook page include:
"I applaud you sir … grabbin' a beer for the slide was a nice touch! . . . [expletive] rude folks & their lack of respect."
"You sir, are a god."
"I raise a glass in your honor."
And perhaps the most prophetic: "Kind of jealous. I'll write you in jail, darling!"
Already there is a Free Steven Slater Facebook page.
And if there needed to be a sign that Slater may enter the annals of folk hero, it is this: the "Free Steven Slater" T-shirt from Customink.com.
PICTURES: Jet Blue Attendant Steven Slater Loses It
Copyright 2010 CBS. All rights reserved. The New York Times City Room blog reports Slater, 39, frustrated with a customer who wouldn't follow directions, cursed out the entire plane on the public-address system, activated the inflatable emergency evacuation slide, then slid down it, escaping into John F. Kennedy International Airport.
PICTURES: Jet Blue Attendant Steven Slater Loses It
Police found Slater at his home in Belle Harbor, Queens and charged him with reckless endangerment and criminal mischief.
The incident occurred after a passenger ignored instructions from Slater to stay seated, and got up to reach for his belongings in an overhead compartment. As Slater approached the passenger, his luggage struck the flight attendant in the head.
Upset, Slater asked for an apology, and instead, the passenger told Slater off. The flight attendant then continued on with his tirade, shouting:
"To the passenger who called me a m---f--er, f--- you," Slater ranted over the intercom, passengers said.
"I've been in the business 28 years. I've had it. That's it," reports the New York Daily News
Slater then slid down the emergency escape slide, fleeing into the employee parking lot to a car he had left there.
According to LinkedIn, Slater has worked for JetBlue since January 2008, and served as chairman of JetBlue's uniform redesign committee and on the company's in-flight values committee.
Response on the Internet to the news of Slater's outburst has been fast, furious, and - in a sign of how frustrated other fliers are with abusive passengers - pretty positive.
Comments left on Slater's Facebook page include:
"I applaud you sir … grabbin' a beer for the slide was a nice touch! . . . [expletive] rude folks & their lack of respect."
"You sir, are a god."
"I raise a glass in your honor."
And perhaps the most prophetic: "Kind of jealous. I'll write you in jail, darling!"
Already there is a Free Steven Slater Facebook page.
And if there needed to be a sign that Slater may enter the annals of folk hero, it is this: the "Free Steven Slater" T-shirt from Customink.com.
PICTURES: Jet Blue Attendant Steven Slater Loses It
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Remember this, you represent your company...If you don't like your job find another one and stop your ********.
If your going through problems talk to someone, vent it out.
Imagine what he would have done if the plane was in Flight.There are so many possibilities of something going disastrous.. What if your Kids or your loved ones were on a flight that crashed or something went fully wrong because of someones bad day!
He should be fully charged, He shows no remorse on TV with his stupid sarcastic smile. Yes, there are customers that should get told off or a beating. Trust me there has been times I wanted too, but I brushed it off... Like I said, If you don't like your life or your job do something about it STOP your ********!
What's its going to be next time? A flight attendant brings a gun aboard and decides to shoots all the passengers??
Further more, No tolerance to nasty rude customers! Refund there tickets and take a bus!
Sad thing is, if he had managed to keep his head and follow procedure by getting the Air Marshall involved this would have never made the news and brought attention to her behavior and subsequently the issue of "Air Rage" Working in the airline industry and I do (as well has my husband)...I know how serious the consequences are for not following procedure, or (as in this case) blatantly NOT following procedure...where the FAA is concerned. He may have been brave in not tolerating her behavior...but he will never work in the airline industry again. So, in my mind...if that was going to be the consequence for what he did...then he should have chucked her unruly ass down the slide too!
Air rage is a real phenomenon.
Airline industry and FAA share blame on allowing profit and politics to creep so deep into this industry thus corrupting safety.
I unreservedly respect and regard all flight attendants as flight safety officers, who manage on and off boarding and in flight cabin safety, they are essentially civilian agents empowered by law to enforce federal aviation statutes during commercial air transport activities.
FAA must proactively engage to prohibit growing menace of air rage by stopping.....
Airline overbooking and seat bumping.
Aircraft design or modifications that do not mandate equal carry on baggage space for each and every seat.
Vague and inconsistent carry on baggage guidance and enforcement.
Any tolerance and pandering to rude and obnoxious air passengers, who ignore airline staff, dismiss rules, selfishly delay efficiency, and create a public nuisance in a high risk environment degrading overall safety for all.
Airlines learn the lesson here.
Pulling a Slater, doing a Slater, going Slater, or whatever way similar deeds are now branded will be forever more known in airline industry with equal notoriety as the going postal axiom.
Steven Slater personifies scores of strained professional air industry staff who struggle every day and night to keep flights moving safely on time against all odds. Wrong even when you are right, no win situation.
This JetBlue flight attendant did his job by the book correctly time and time again despite increasing frustration of misbehaving passengers until get got mad as hell and just was not going to take it anymore.
Legal folks and court need to apply leniency and mandate stress treatment as only punishment.
JetBlue as employer owes him paid sick leave and paid for stress treatment.
All levels of management owes all working staff better backing next time to oust distracting and uncooperative travelers.
FAA needs to start policing airline industry better from safety threat of inconsiderate or unruly passengers.
Airlines need to up their game with better training and quality control to support staff on actually ejecting the few but growing numbers of habitually offensive customers near or on an aircraft that abuse or distress fellow members of traveling public or flight safety officers just doing their lawful safety related duties.
Uncouth passengers need to comply with carry on size and weight requirements and exercise better respect for other passengers and staff.
Prevent and treat cause, not symptoms.
i think this guy is the MAN though, i hope he doesn't have too much of a punishment!