Career flight attendant Steven Slater was fed up. During a day at the job, in the career field he had been in for more than two full decades, a traveler saw fit to abuse Steven Slater for doing his job. Slater, a Jet Blue flight attendant at the time, cursed the man over the intercom, opened the door of the plane and engaged the emergency exit slide, leaving the tarmac on foot. He has been charged with reckless endangerment and criminal mischief among other things.
A plane case of a man pushed too far
Jet Blue Flight 1052 was arriving at JFK International Airport from Pittsburgh according to CNN. The plane was nearing the terminal after landing, and a passenger stood up to get his bag in the overhead bin before it was safe to do so, and Steven Slater, a flight attendant, instructed him he had to take his seat until the plane came to a stop. What happened next isn’t really clear, but seems like either the bag fell and struck Slater or the passenger shoved him. The man refused to apologize and swore at him. He took over the intercom, announced he was quitting and unleashed a barrage of profanity at the unruly cretin. He grabbed some beer from the galley before engaging the emergency inflatable slide to exit the plane. He was arrested at his home later.
Pressure in the cabin
When Slater was not working, according to MSN, he was rarely home. His roommate disclosed that he often flew to Thousand Oaks in California to care for his ailing mother, as he did for his father before he passed away. According to the New York Times, his mother had also been a flight attendant. His father, formerly a pilot, had died from Lou Gehrig’s Disease.
The consumer in not always right
It is high time that we, as a nation, treat the people within the service trades better. Anyone who has worked in retail, food service or related fields knows how rude some individuals could be. Mistakes do sometimes get made, but cooperating and being polite cost nothing.
Discover more information on this subject
MSNBC
msnbc.msn.com/id/38629517/ns/travel-news/
CNN
cnn.com/2010/TRAVEL/08/10/new.york.escape.chute.opened/?hpt=C2
NY Times
nytimes.com/2010/08/10/nyregion/10attendant.html?_r=1 and hp
