That Slater Flight Attendant

Why in the world would anyone make a hero out of this Slater fellow who cursed out a planeload of paying customers and then stormed away like a 5 year old who didn't get a cookie he wanted? In Japan, I guarantee, this behavior would be seen as exceedingly shameful, as so it should. Certainly his union cohorts will support him, but that doesn't mean that he is in the right.

I suppose we can accept his claim that the passenger was rude, cursing, and had hit him with a suitcase causing a cut. Being hit with the bag could easily have been accidental and even Slater does not claim it was intentional. Walk up behind someone taking a heavy item out of the bin and you are asking to get smacked in the head as they struggle to pull it down. People don't have eyes in the backs of their heads.

However, we do not know whether or not anything Slater claims is the truth, as none of the passengers has corroborated his story about the rude passenger.

Even if the passenger was rude and even if many passengers are rude, can you blame people for getting upset? What other business model, other than an airline, has paying customers 1) show up 2-3 hours in advance to wait in a check in line, 2) requires customers to wait in another security check line in order to have their personal possessions searched through, 3) provides the choice of being frisked like a criminal or electronically strip searched, 4) routinely offers severe delays or service cancellations, and 5) offers uncomfortable seating and bad food after requiring that food and drink are confiscated at the so called security check point?

People are also cooped up and tired and nervous about missing connections. Did Slater notice these sorts of things? Does he care or understand the pressure of being a passenger? Oh, and we pay through the nose for all of this abuse. Flying is really not so cheap most of the time. People get badly treated and they are rightfully upset at times. Flight attendants need to understand this and learn to deal with it.

Slater's focus was on himself. Someone DARED not obey his command to keep seated. You know, we are all supposed to obey like trained animals when directed to pretend that it is somehow dangerous to grab something out of the overhead bin in the 60 seconds prior to arriving at the gate, when taxi-ing at 1-2 miles an hour.

I can just picture an enraged flight attendant charging down the aisle to confront the disobedient passenger about accessing the overhead bin. I'll bet Slater used his best command voice, you know the one that people usually only use on a dog, prior to being told off by the passenger. And if he did speak rudely to a paying customer about an obviously meaningless government imposed rule, then he deserved to get cussed out. Good for the passenger.

Sounds like Slater left the cut on his head stay open and bleeding throughout the entire flight, even when serving food and beverages. One report said he is HIV positive, and if it's true, he is criminally reckless for leaving the cut open. Even if not HIV positive, he left the cut open to get attention. Similarly, based on his prior web postings, his X rated tirade and other actions seem to be pre-planned in order to maximize attention on himself. Such a self centered person! It's all very childish behavior and nothing he did is to be admired.