Former Spirit Airlines staff explain viral outburst: "I don't want to let this TikTok moment define who I am"
Two former Spirit Airlines gate agents have shared their perspective on the incident that led to their dismissal from Hollywood-Burbank Airport.
A viral video shows employees Sara Jane Barrow and Razia Singh yelling at travelers to "shut up" after a flight was delayed for several hours, heightening everyone's frustration.
"I deeply regret what happened that day," Barrow said.
The video, recorded on July 13, captured the outburst during a system outage. Singh, a supervisor, explained that she couldn't use the loudspeaker to address the entire terminal.
"Nobody was listening to me when I was using my indoor voice," she said. "It was around 300 people or more at that small gate area. Everybody was screaming and yelling."
The pair said what was captured on camera and eventually shared on social media was just a portion of last month's chaos. They tried to be cordial with people at first, but everything escalated.
"It was two men screaming at her, cussing her out and being vicious," Singh said.
Spirit Airlines announced that the pair had been fired following an internal investigation.
"The two agents involved are no longer working with Spirit following the completion of our vendor's internal investigation into the matter," the company said. "We apologize to our Guests."
Barrow and Singh said that during the incident, the computers crashed, the ticket printer broke, and only three employees were at the counter.
"The fact that we had no help from upper management, I feel like, it was like we were left to fend for ourselves pretty much," Barrow said.
The former employees have struggled to find new jobs since the incident.
"I don't want to let this TikTok moment define who I am," Barrow said. "I want to be able to show you I can work just as hard. I can be a valuable asset to everybody.
