Under-fire airline in fresh passenger row

An American Airlines worker who allegedly struck a woman passenger with a child’s pram when he forcibly removed it from her has been removed from duty.

Another passenger, Surain Adyanthaya, uploaded a video of the aftermath of the incident in San Francisco and said that preceding the footage the employee had “violently” taken the pram, hitting the mother and narrowly missing her baby.

The footage shows the mother distraught as other employees and passengers try to intervene.

One male passenger demands the name of the employee involved and when a man dressed in American Airlines uniform enters the plane, the passenger tells him: “Hey, bud, you do that to me and I’ll knock you flat.”

The employee confronts the passenger, telling him to “stay out of this”, adding: “Hit me! Come on, bring it on. You don’t even know what the story is.”

The passenger replies: “I don’t care what the story is. You almost hurt a baby.”

American Airlines said it was “deeply sorry for the pain we have caused” the woman passenger and her family, who were on a flight from San Francisco International Airport to Dallas/Fort Worth.

The incident follows another high-profile clash on a United Airlines plane two weeks ago, when a passenger was violently removed from an overbooked flight.

In its statement, American Airlines said: “What we see on this video does not reflect our values or how we care for our customers.

“We are deeply sorry for the pain we have caused this passenger and her family and to any other customers affected by the incident.”

It said it was “making sure all of her family’s needs are being met while she is in our care”.

The airline upgraded the woman and her family to first class when she took another flight to Dallas.