Steven Slater and Tales of Air Travel
Greetings from Delta 263. I am 38,000 feet above the planet, passing over Lake Ontario on the way west to San Francisco, upgraded to the first class cabin by virtue of frequent flying. It's a few days after JetBlue flight attendant Steven Slater achieved his celebrity status, which may now be morphing into notoriety.
Slater's wild ride down the JetBlue slide and verbal barrage plugged into the frustrations of many people across the country who are stuck in jobs they don't like with few alternatives to earning an income. But his status as a working class hero doesn't appear to be supported by many of the passengers who witnessed his behavior on that JetBlue flight.
Lauren Wood told CBS News that Slater was more zero than hero. "He was very rude to everyone throughout the entire flight," Wood says. "I feel like, yeah, we all have our moments where we're pushed to the limit, but there's a line that he crossed. I don't think this man should be called a hero at all."
Another passenger, Marjorie Briskin, told The Wall Street Journal that she witnessed an exchange between Slater and a passenger after the plane landed. She said that Slater was to blame and used profanity first.
"I didn't think she was rude in the least," Briskin told the WSJ. "It really blew my mind. It was so inappropriate."
Slater's lawyer Howard Turman said on Thursday that his client loves flying, and hopes to "return to the aviation business."
The now-suspended flight attendant, who is facing criminal mischief, reckless endangerment and trespassing charges, will get his wings clipped.
JetBlue Chief Operating Officer Rob Maruster said that several passengers have given a different accounting of events. In a memo to employees, Maruster wrote, "If Mr. Slater's story proves to be accurate, and even if there was a precipitating event that motivated his behavior, that still doesn't excuse his actions."
He wrote that Slater's emergency slide ride was reckless. "Slides deploy extremely quickly, with enough force to kill a person. Slides can be as dangerous as a gun."
No matter what triggered his dramatic and dangerous exit from flight, Slater will eventually slide into obscurity like a castoff from a "Survivor" episode.
Flight attendants have a tough job. It's a grind working in a narrow metal tube, understaffed, dealing with hundreds of uncomfortable people breathing the same stale air and who can't wait to get off the plane.
I talked to a few flight attendants since the Slater incident, and they understood how he could go off the deep end, but not to the point of opening the door and using the slide. "It can be rough in the air. Passengers can scream and yell at you, pee on you, bring you to tears...he cracked," I was told by one flight attendant.
Like taxi drivers, I am happy to give flight attendants the right of way and don't want to get in the way of them performing their duties. Flight attendants are professionals, trained to deal with serious emergency situations, not just pouring soda for a hundred people while a plane is rocking in turbulence or rearranging storage bins. But you don't always get "service with a smile," which makes flying more of a grind for both passengers and crew.
Sometimes interpretations of rules and regulations get in the way of a pleasant ride. For example, this evening's Delta flight: It got off to a rough start, which is very common on a Friday night at JFK. The flight attendants working the first class cabin on the 757 were cheery and efficient as the cabin filled up with passengers and the pilots readied the plane for takeoff.
The flight was fully loaded with passengers for the 3:55 p.m. departure and the jetway was pulled back on time. But then the plane just sat, departing the gate on time but going nowhere.
After sitting in my comfortable first class seat for 30 minutes a few yards from the gate, I asked a flight attendant what was going on since they had asked for cell phones and electronic devices to be turned off around 4 p.m., and we had received no guidance on the delay from the pilot or crew. For the first time, I hadn't brought a physical book or magazine with me to read on the plane - all my reading material was stored on an iPad. I ended up reading Delta's "Sky" magazine instead of Alan Furst's "Spies of the Balkans" as the plane sat by the gate.
The flight attendant responded pleasantly to my query and said she would ask the pilot. Of course, like many people sitting on the plane, powered down and stalled near the gate, I didn't turn off my cell phone, but used it to check e-mail, including alerts from Delta offering information that the staff on the Delta flight wasn't providing. I received three alerts about new departure times - 4:05, 4:15 and 4:35 - before the pilot came on the intercom to say anything about the delay. He said it was due to baggage still being loaded on the plane, which was unusual, and that we would get moving soon.
Around 4:40, a flight attendant announced the $2 fee for headsets in coach was waived. The pilot came on the intercom about the same time to say all the bags were loaded but offered no color as to why it took 45 minutes past departure time to load bags.
By that time, the taxiways had become busy, and Delta 263 had to wait for other planes to clear the space around the gate before it could head for the runway.
At 5 p.m., a flight attendant announced that people were asking if they could use their cell phones (those who weren't already using them and trying to avoid detection), and the captain said it would be OK. Around 5:24, a tug towed the 757 into position and the engines started. Electronic devices were shut down once again.
Delta 263 got in line behind 13 planes and experienced a brief delay due to flow control from San Francisco before lifting off at 5:55 p.m. for its six-hour journey.
It's not clear why the use of cell phone and electronic devices couldn't have been allowed sooner while sitting near the gate and loading baggage for 45 minutes and then waiting to exit the gate area. When the wheels touch down on landing, cell phone usage is allowed. Maybe the captain was negotiating with air traffic control to get moving more quickly but wasn't successful.
Whatever the case, in this new age of transparency the pilot and flight attendant crews could do a better job of communicating and keeping passengers in the loop. It would help to alleviate some tension, clear the air and perhaps reduce the risk of a Slater event.
