There’s some video footage circulating of an interaction between a Delta captain and a passenger on a recent flight. There’s not much context for what happened, so I’m doing my best to piece together the interaction.
What happened between Delta pilot & passenger
The video starts with the pilot approaching the passenger. It would appear that the passenger is wearing a hat that has the “F” word on it. I’m not sure if there’s more to it than that — perhaps it’s part of a phrase, but that’s the only word we can see.
The captain explains that the flight attendants had asked the passenger to remove it, but the she didn’t comply.
Was the airline in the right for asking her to remove the hat?
- Delta’s contract of carriage reserves the right to remove a passenger when their attire “creates an unreasonable risk of offense or annoyance to other passengers”
- While I’m not personally offended by the hat (I cuss a bit more than I should, to put it mildly), I can appreciate that many would consider this to be offensive
The captain approaches the woman and says “we’re not going to do that,” and gives her two options — she can either remove the hat or get off the flight.
The passenger responds “please tell me where that’s posted,” to which the captain replies “I’m the captain of the airplane, that’s where it’s posted, and Delta has guidelines, and I don’t have to explain it to you.”
He then asks her if she understands.
Passenger: “Yeah I heard you, sir.”
Captain: “No, no, do you understand it?”
Passenger: “I said I heard you.”
Captain: “Do you understand it?”
Captain: “Do you understand what the two options are?”
The captain then points his finger at the passenger, at which point she tells him not to do that. At that point the discussion continues with them going around in circles:
Captain: “Tell me now, so which is it?”
Passenger: “Tell you what? The hat is off. There’s nothing to tell you, the hat is in my lap.”
Captain: “For the entire flight?”
Passenger: “The hat is in my lap.”
Captain: “For the entire flight? It will not be worn the entire flight?”
Passenger: “The hat is in my lap.”
Captain: “Tell me it’s off for the entire flight.”
Passenger: “The hat is in my lap.”
Captain: “One thousand one, one thousand two. I’ve got six kids, I raised 10 kids.”
Passenger: “I’m not a child sir, the hat is in my lap.”
I can only write the same thing so often, so if you want to watch the rest of the interaction (“the hat is in my lap”), you can watch the full 2min20sec video here:
https://twitter.com/DMVBlackLives/status/1320194085551001601
My take on this situation
First and foremost, why isn’t the captain wearing a mask while in the cabin talking to passengers without any amount of distancing? That’s the part of this video that I find most confusing.
Delta has banned hundreds of people for lack of mask compliance, and at this point in the pandemic it should be pretty clear that you should be wearing a mask whenever walking through the cabin, with zero exceptions.
As far as the situation as such goes, my general take is:
- Personally a hat with the “F” word doesn’t offend me, but I can appreciate that objectively it’s inappropriate, and I don’t think the airline is wrong for asking the passenger to remove it
- Based on what we see, the passenger isn’t being cooperative after being asked to remove the hat; she apparently refused to follow flight attendant requests, which is the point at which the captain got involved
- The captain comes across as ridiculously arrogant, from saying “I’m the captain, that’s where it’s posted,” to pointing his finger at her, to his general condescending tone; this isn’t how you should talk to anyone, let alone a customer
Bottom line
I’m not sure anyone comes out of this looking great. The passenger was uncooperative with a reasonable request that’s support by the contract of carriage, while the captain wasn’t wearing a mask and had a belittling tone.
What do you make of this situation?
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