Delta Pilot Slaps Woman During Jetway Altercation
You'd think they'd know better by now, but airline personnel continue to get involved in altercations with customers.
Video has emerged from TMZ showing a fight breaking out between two women disembarking from an aircraft in Atlanta earlier this month. As the women roll around on the floor, a Delta pilot intervenes, at first by attempting to pull them apart for a moment, but then by slapping one of them. The pilot then seems to think better of his involvement by walking away.
A representative from Delta told TMZ that the pilot had been relieved of duty during an investigation of the incident, but was now back at work because the airline found the pilot had "deescalated" the situation. It's not clear how that conclusion was reached.
The incident is just the latest bad news involving problematic behavior between airline passengers and airlines. Earlier this month Chicago police dragged an already seated passenger from a United aircraft so the airline could instead fly its own crew members in the now infamous #BumpGate episode. Then last weekend, an American flight attendant got into a shouting match with a passenger after aggressively taking a stroller away from a woman with a baby.
In this case, there's no denying that the two female passengers in the video were engaged in an entirely inappropriate fight in the middle of the jetway, and while the pilot appears to want to stop them, he obviously shouldn't have engaged in any aggressive behavior of his own. Undoubtedly the best course of action for the pilot would have been to call the police to handle the situation and TMZ reports that law enforcement eventually did arrive, but neither woman was willing to file charges against anyone involved.