And for part three of the United 873 saga, here we go. You can read part one here and part two here.
This one is sort of similar to The Flying Pinto’s post yesterday about the most ridiculous excuses for a passenger that won’t stay seated.
Anyway, our flight was a bit late arriving and almost all the passengers (including moi) were connecting onwards. Nonetheless, despite the delay, everyone had at least 30 minutes to make their connection, which is plenty at IAD. As we’re taxiing in a passenger from the back of coach gets up and starts retrieving his carry ons, and then proceeds down the aisle. The flight attendant sitting by door 2L yells loudly “Sir, you need to sit down right now!” He responds with “No, I have a tight connection, I need to be off first.” At this point I couldn’t help but laugh, because I figured we’d have plenty of authorities waiting at the gate that would happily make his connection even tighter. 😉
Anyway, the flight attendant continues to yell at him “Sir, sit down right now. You’re endangering not only your safety, but other people’s safety as well.” He refuses to sit down though and we pull into the gate and the seatbelt sign is turned off.
The passenger sitting right by door 2L, however, decided to take the matter into his own hands, and they get into a verbal confrontation. The conversation goes a little something like this:
9C: “You’re not getting off before me.”
Moron: “Yes I am, I have a tight connection.”
9C: “You think you’re the only with a connection, you idiot?”
Moron: “I don’t care, I need to make my connection.”
9C: “Well next time you better stay seated. You’re putting me in danger, and I don’t appreciate that.”
Moron: “Don’t tell me what to do. I’ll get up if I want to.”
They go on for about a minute as the flight attendant stands by the door and peaks through the door to make sure the appropriate authorities are waiting for our “special” passenger. They were, so the door opens. Fortunately the rush for the connection stops these two from getting into any worse of a fight, and off they were. I was about ready for a fist fight, and there wouldn’t have been a better flight.
I let everyone get off first since I received an EasyUpdate saying my flight was already delayed, and I couldn’t help but just laugh and say “wow.” I of course thanked the crew for doing an incredible job.
I think this flight is a perfect example of how flight attendants are not overpaid sky waitresses, as some people like to put it. Kudos to this crew for being totally awesome and keeping their cool during a flight that would have left others in tears.
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