Hostile To A Flight Attendant Or Disruptive On Board? Aeroflot Will Revoke Your Elite Status

I’m living for Aeroflot lately. Every time I see one of their press releases I’m like:

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Last week I wrote about how Aeroflot published a press release indicating that they’re planning to recover costs from a passenger who disrupted a flight due to “petty hooliganism.” They’re seeing an increase in abusive passengers, and they’re trying to minimize that going forward.

It looks like Aeroflot is now taking another step towards preventing passengers from misbehaving. You’d think that you’d use threats like arrest or being blacklisted from the airline or having to pay for the costs incurred as a result of problems caused. Nope, instead Aeroflot is going after something that’s near and dear to our hearts — airline status. Aeroflot is threatening to take away the status of anyone who treats their employees like second class citizens and behaves aggressively or rudely.

Here’s part of the press release:

Aeroflot has seen an increase in cases of disruptive behaviour on board its aircraft. Since the beginning of 2018 alone, there have been nine cases of physical violence against employees of the airline. Closer scrutiny of these incidents has revealed that virtually all the disruptive passengers were elite-level participants in the Aeroflot Bonus loyalty programme. A number of silver, gold and platinum Aeroflot Bonus card-holders consider it acceptable to treat the airline’s employees as second-class citizens, behaving not only rudely and aggressively but also in some cases resorting to violence.

The rules of the Aeroflot Bonus programme are such that a participant’s account may be blocked for abusive behaviour towards Aeroflot employees, and the participant will subsequently be banned from re-registering with the programme. Each participant may register with the Aeroflot Bonus programme only once. Thus, passengers who behave in a disruptive or violent manner on Aeroflot flights may be deprived not only of all privileges associated with the Aeroflot Bonus programme, but also of the possibility of further participation in the programme.

Aeroflot continues to take all cases of violation of public order on board very seriously, regardless of the status of the individuals involved. The airline strives to ensure complete safety and comfort for passengers on its flights. Aeroflot is constantly raising the level of its services and makes every effort to ensure the safety and protection of its passengers.

Fascinating! So they’ve seen nine cases of violence against airline employees this year, and “virtually all” of those passengers were elite members in Aeroflot’s program. Wow!

We’re used to seeing videos of airline employees threatening to deny someone boarding or send them to jail, but now taking away status becomes part of the equation as well.

Good on Aeroflot for standing up on their employees in this way.