Phone films of clashes have airlines smarting
Another day, another cellphone video of a conflict on an aeroplane.
American Airlines said it grounded a flight attendant who got into a verbal confrontation with a passenger on a flight from San Francisco to Dallas-Fort Worth.
Spokeswoman Leslie Scott says the airline is looking into whether the male attendant violently took a stroller from a woman just before she boarded the Friday flight.
In an age of cellphone videos and social media, airlines are learning the hard way that it is essential to deescalate tense situations during air travel, even as there are more passengers, less room and fewer flight attendants than ever before.
Less than two weeks ago video of a man being violently dragged off a United Express flight sparked widespread outrage .
United initially blamed its passenger, Dr David Dao, before finally apologising days after the incident, fanning the public’s fury.
American, by contrast, seems to have learned from United’s mistakes: it immediately said it was sorry, that it had grounded the flight attendant while it investigated the incident, and that it had upgraded the passenger involved and her family to first class.
“American doesn’t want to become the next United, but then, United didn’t want to become the next United,” said Henry Harteveldt, travel industry analyst at Atmosphere Research Group. “No airline wants to be seen as being anti-consumer or antipassenger.”
Smartphone cameras and social media are shifting power to consumers who can share customer relations gaffes with the world.
They’re increasingly making confrontations with customer-facing staff headline news, making it harder for companies to sweep complaints under the rug. The faster companies own up to mistakes, the quicker they can start to do damage control.
American’s fast reaction could be helpful, said brand consultant Allen Adamson, chief of BrandSimple.
“The quick reaction will prevent it from escalating further, but it won’t mitigate the perception among flyers that flying is becoming a less enjoy- able experience every day,” he said.
Overall, airlines must start to put more of an emphasis on customer service, he said.
“It’s another example of airlines struggling to treat their passengers with the traditional ‘customer is always right’ attitude,” he said.
Days after Dao was dragged off the United Express flight from Chicago to Kentucky to make room for airline crew, his lawyer spent a good part of a news conference railing against what he said was the industrywide shabby treatment of air passengers.
Dao lost teeth, suffered a broken nose and received a concussion.
The American video on Friday, later posted on Facebook, shows the sobbing woman holding a small child and saying, “You can’t use violence with baby.”
Later, an unidentified male passenger confronts the attendant, telling him, “You do that to me and I’ll knock you flat.” The flight attendant responds with, “Hit me. Bring it on.”
Another passenger, Olivia Morgan, told the New York Times that the flight attendant nearly hit the baby with the stroller when he jerked it away from the woman.