So, yesterday I flew back from Pittsburgh to NYC and I happened to be on the flight heard 'round the world.
Everything seemed fine as I got on the airplane, but when I got to my seat, this flight attendant (Steven Slater) was standing in the exit row and his head had this cut on it that was bleeding. A man who was seated in the row asked him what happened and he replied "you wouldn't believe the day I had...".
While doing his little safety talk he was totally bored and tired. Then later he came around with sodas and was offering them to everyone. When he got to me, he said "Soda?" and I said "Water?" And he literally just stared at me. Then turned and walked away and continued to pass his sodas. About 5 minutes later, he walks up with water, glares at me (I am not exaggerating - he was an a**hole) and sets a water down on my tray table and walks away, ignoring the girl next to me who tries to ask for one too. So, my point being, the guy was a JERK and he is NOT some hero for "stickin' it to the man" as many blogs are saying.
Then we pull up to the gate, and one guy stands up and starts getting his bag out of the overhead bin. Steven walks up to him and starts talking to him. I was too far away to hear what was said between them, but what others told me was that he came up to tell the man to sit down because the seatbelt sign was on and we were just shy of the gate. Then the bag accidentally hit Steven in the head as the man continued to pull it out. Steven asked for an apology and the man said it was an accident. Steven then DEMANDED an apology and the man said "f*ck you".
So...then when the seatbelt sign goes off and the door opens, we are all standing and I'm waiting to walk down the aisle to the door and the PA system comes on and we hear the following:
"To the mother f*cker who said 'f*ck you' to me, f*ck you too." Then he goes on about how he has been doing this job for 28 years (which is impossible cause the man is not even 40 yet...but I'm not the only one who heard him say that...) and he's already going to quit and it's not worth it anymore and yadda yadda angry man stuff. He then starts to kick stuff out of the way and open the emergency door on the other side of the plane (up by the cockpit). The pilots come out and start trying to stop him, the other flight attendant is trying to stop him and he pushes them out of the way and falls over into his and the other flight attendant's bags. The whole time he's yelling things like "you know what?! I don't even care! Watch this! It doesn't matter at this point!" This is when I was able to get off the plane. But, I was not going to miss the rest of this altercation so I stood on the jetbridge right off the plane and watched as he pulled the cord for the emergency slide, grabbed his bag and was like "Screw this, I'm out of here!", jumped out of the plane, slid down the blow-up slide and walked away.
I walked out with some other passengers into the terminal and a pilot for the next flight asked me "Did someone blow up one of the emergency slides?" and I said "Yeah, your pilot did it" and he was like "What?" So an older couple and I told the pilot and other flight attendants what happened and they all looked SHOCKED. One even was like "I've got to see this!" and ran to the window to watch.
At this point I was just in a fit of giggles and sadly, I did not stick around to see what happened next, but apparently nobody caught him until later in the day anyway.
Nobody was in any danger and as far as I'm concerned, I still LOVE Jetblue and will continue to fly with them. I planned on writing them a letter to explain what happened, but since it got all this publicity, I don't feel the need. PLUS (and this is how great that airline is) I already received an email with an apology and a credit for $100. I got it this morning. Less than 24 hours later. They are awesome.
But like I said, this guy is not a hero. He's a jerk. And an idiot. I mean, c'mon, I know you're mad...but you work in the customer service industry, you're bound to run into rude people and you have to be able to deal with it. I think maybe that last guy was just the straw that broke the camel's back.
And I'm SO glad I was there to witness it. It was priceless. :)
