WTAH?
A United Airlines flight attendant called for security on an elderly disabled first class passenger who asked for assistance stowing her cane and small purse, since sheās not allowed to keep them with her for takeoff because she was seated in a bulkhead row.
A fellow first class passenger on the flight shares the incident.
An āelderly disabledā passenger seated at the first class bulkhead āpolitely asked the flight attendant if she could help putā up her āsmall purse and a fully collapsedā into the overhead bin.
The flight attendant āgot super defensive and aggressive,".
The lady became apologetic, explaining that she āonly asked because sheās disabled and canāt do it herselfā and noted that sheās never had problems when making this request before.
The flight attendant didnāt let it go. She ākept insisting that lady was being unreasonable.ā Fortunately another passenger stepped in to assist the woman in stowing her carry-ons. But the flight attendant āthen angrily slammed the bins closed and stomped back to her jump seat.ā
Hopefully that would have been the unpleasant end of it, but the flight attendant decided to delay the flight. The plane had already pushed back. It sat, though, for a few minutes before a pilot came on and announced that āthere had been an incident and weāre heading back to the gate.ā
Since it was obvious to staff who boarded the plane that there was no threat, they left and did not remove the elderly disabled passenger. This was awkward for the flight attendant, who āthen gave the safety announcement in the most eerie, overly cheerful, almost sociopathic-sounding voice.ā
The idea that the flight attendant was prohibited from helping by āunion regulationsā is just incorrect. The flight attendantās union contract may be what the crewmember is referring to, but it definitely does not say they cannot help with the cane.
Flight attendants generally arenāt required to assist passengers with their bags, however Department of Transportation regulations actually do require the airline to provide the assistance that the passenger was asking for!
Once a passenger with a disability has boarded, airlines must provide assistance, if requested, such as:
moving to or from the lavatory, including using an on-board chair to assist, if requested.
stowing and retrieving carry-on items, including assistive devices.
This flight attendant is everything thatās wrong with airline culture, and why in many ways Delta crews whle not as good as they were pre-pandemic (too many good ones left, and their replacements arenāt up to par) are the heart of the āDelta Differenceā. Their flight attendants are somewhat friendlier and more helpful ā treating passengers as people.
Itās important to note that this isnāt necessarily a union versus non-union result, as some online commenters suggest keying off of the flight attendantās reported claim about union rules. Southwest Airlines crew are generally quite good and also unionized. Thereās a saying, though, that management āgets the unions they deserveā and decades of bad management at United is difficult and time-consuming to reverse, doubly so in a unionized environment.