Can this week get any worse for Fort Worth-based American Airlines?
The airline faced an onslaught of flight disruptions over the last seven days that included a passenger having to be restrained with duct tape after trying to disembark mid-flight, a plane full of travelers being told to put their hands on their heads for nearly 60 minutes because of an onboard security threat and a professional woman bodybuilder barred from a flight for wearing “inappropriate” clothing.
With air travel nationally hovering around 2 million daily as the COVID-19 pandemic slows, the number of unusual events aboard planes is on the rise.
American Airlines’ week to forget started on Tuesday, when a woman passenger caused a commotion by reportedly trying to exit an aircraft through the plane’s front door on a flight from DFW Airport to Charlotte. The outburst led flight crew to duct tape the woman to a first-class seat for the remainder of the trip.
The incident, reported by Insider, was documented in a series of videos by TikTok user @lol.ariee in which the restrained woman can be seen with duct tape across her chest and mouth as she tries to scream at passengers exiting the plane at the end of the flight. The woman attacked and bit flight attendants before being restrained, @lol.ariee said in a subsequent video, according to Insider.
The videos have since been removed from TikTok.
The next day, on an American flight from Los Angeles to Miami, passengers were ordered to stay in their seats with their hands on their heads for the last hour of the flight because of a security threat. Passengers were also reportedly asked not to film on the plane.
Law enforcement boarded the plane after landing. One passenger referred to the encounter as the “scariest moment of my life” and asked if the airline would come forward about the nature of the threat in a tweet about the flight.
“We apologize to our customers for the inconvenience, but their safety and security is our top priority,” an American spokesperson said in a statement.
American Airlines workers drew ire online after banning a professional bodybuilder from boarding a flight Thursday because her outfit was deemed “offensive.” The airline said they were enforcing the company dress code that passengers agree to in the “conditions of carriage.”
Turkish bodybuilder Deniz Saypinar posted about the ordeal in an Instagram story to her 1 million followers, including images of the outfit that got her barred from her flight from DFW to Miami.
“I don’t deserve to be treated like the worst person in the world for wearing denim shorts,” she said in her post. “What separates us from animals if humans can’t control even their most primitive impulses.”
On Saturday, a flight from Los Angeles to Atlanta diverted to Memphis because of a disruptive passenger. Law enforcement took the passenger into custody before the flight continued onto its original destination.
Later that day, a flight from DFW to Bangor, Maine, was also diverted to Memphis because of a potential mechanical issue. Passengers landed in Memphis at 2 p.m. and did not arrive in Bangor until after 10 p.m. that evening.
Flight attendants aren’t just dealing with the occasional violent passenger. Some travelers are frustrated with chronic delays and cancelations related to the airline’s return to normalcy post-pandemic, while others are becoming increasingly hostile toward mask mandates. Staffing shortages also have been cited for some of the problems.
It’s been 16 months since the pandemic upended the airline industry, and flight attendants are the most visible enforcers of company policies on masks, alcohol and just getting passengers to generally follow the rules.
“We can’t tell if someone has water or a soft drink or alcohol in a cup,” said Julie Hedrick, national president of the Association of Professional Flight Attendants.
Still, flight attendants overwhelmingly want to keep mask mandates in place, leaders from some aviation worker unions said, especially as the country struggles to reach vaccination rates conducive to herd immunity and as new strains like the Delta variant continue to spread.
American, the largest airline in the country by number of passengers, led its competitors in consumer complaints in April, although the total was only a fraction of complaints the airline had a year prior, according to data compiled by the Office of Aviation Consumer Protection.
