United Flight Attendant Refuses To Help Disabled Woman With Bags

Hello All BlkAv8tor2003 Checking In!!!

As if things in the airline industry seem to sound more strange everyday, here comes another incident where a passenger needed assistance and a flight attendant refused to assist the passenger. It sounds like a situation of a crew member giving a passenger a hard time and being very direct in her reasoning about it but if you read the whole story then the tables seem to turn the other way. I posted a link to the full story after the excerpt from the passengers blog. You really should read the passengers full story to get an idea of what happened.

As a former flight attendant and customer service manager, it's sad to hear such a response was given from a crew member! The airline should have had a better response to the situation than that...at least sound caring or concerned! I read the passengers story and it sounded like it was full of tiring situations!

The rest of my comments are after the passenger excerpt.

(Excerpt) I boarded the plane and made my way back to my aisle seat where I set down my special seat cushion and lumbar brace before looking around for a flight attendant to help me put my luggage in the overhead compartment. The attendant standing in the front section of economy was a blonde woman probably in her late 40s-50s and I called her over to explain that I needed her assistance because I wasn't capable of lifting my luggage due to my disability.

To my surprise, the attendant rejected my request while excusing it by saying: "If I helped everyone do that all day then MY back would be killing me by the end of the day!" I asked her how I was supposed to get my luggage stowed and her answer was: "You'll just have to wait for someone from your row to come back here and ask them to give you a hand." When I asked what would happen if no one would, her response to me was: "Well, normally a passenger is around to overhear something like this and they'll offer to help with it on their own. You'll just have to ask someone when they get back here." Then she turned back around and went up to the front seats where she waited to "assist" other passengers.

I was completely flabbergasted, but with no other option, I sat down to wait and pulled my carry-on suitcase as close as I could to try to get it out of the way of the aisle. As I'm sure you're aware, however, your aisles are considerably narrow and even my best efforts left half of even my small carry-on suitcase in the aisle. What's more, rather than help me, most of the passengers simply knocked into my suitcase and shoved past me on the way to their own seats. Every time they hit the suitcase, it in turn hit me and jarred my back more and more with each strike.

The plane wasn't even half boarded and it already felt like the pain medication I'd taken less than a half hour prior to entering the airport had worn off as though I hadn't taken it at all. Finally, it was too much and I dropped my suitcase down into the aisle to stop the flow and ask one of the men passing me for help before he went looking for his seat. As he was lifting it, he asked me if I was all right and I told him about my injury. He apologized profusely for my condition and tried to make me feel better by assuring me I would be okay eventually. I doubt either of us believed it, but at that point, it was nice to hear that, even from a total stranger. Full Story Here

("Evilpuppy", is the passenger's blog name) "Evilpuppy" was not exactly the perfect passenger.

This is the problem that passengers run into when they "assume" what the flight attendants, pilots, customer service agents or the airline can and cannot do for you. Flight attendants are truly not there to put your baggage in an overhead bin. It is up to you the passenger to load and unload your baggage in and out of the overhead bins. If you can't lift your own luggage above your head then what makes you think the airline provides someone to do that for you? This is what I mean when I say most passengers don't really know what the job or the duties of the flight attendant are.

"Evilpuppy" has a known disability or injury and you’re carrying on a roll-a-board suitcase? You knew before you left that you would not be able to lift your bag and you assumed it was the flight attendant job to put it in the overhead bin for you. Then when she refused you acted shocked! Now how she refused is wrong in all respects and is not excusable but you should have thought about your disability when packing your luggage. If your back disables you from lifting your own suitcase into the bins, then you should have checked your suitcase and not rolled it aboard and carry on a much smaller bag with your necessary essentials.

United's overall response was just crazy and unfortunately I do believe that a flight attendant and an agent would possibly respond to a passenger the way they responded to you! Your case is not singular and not the last one people will read about. I know as a flight attendant you have to be very careful when dealing with passengers regarding visual and non-visual disabilities. Passengers also must be proactive with their disabilities and give the people around them ample warning without assumptions that help will always be provided or assumed. Just because a passenger is in a wheelchair doesn't mean they want or need help to move about but the person able to offer assistance may not know that.

So I suggest that "Evilpuppy" you may need to be more proactive with your disability seeing how it's not visual. It will require you to change your thought process about the way you travel so that people that are available to help you know that you’re not exploiting their services with your disability and you actually need help. Again the experience you had was all the way wrong and it should have been handled much better.

The flight attendant was wrong to a point in her actions and what she said but you did get on the plane assuming that the flight attendant would do the lifting for you. So in the future you may want to find another way to get your baggage to your destination i.e.. Checking your baggage, ship your baggage ahead via UPS or FedEx and only carry-on your absolute necessities that you can manage without difficulty.

I'm not trying to bash you (the victim) but this situation can be avoided well before passengers get on the plane. Hopefully in your future travel plans you’re more proactive and the crew on your flights will be much more accommodating to you and your disability.

The airlines as a whole are having a tough time surviving in today's economy and finding good people to run the airline is easily found and also easily forgotten. The airlines need to go back to what use to work and passengers need to understand that flying on the airlines is a privilege and not a right even though they may have payed for a service. Things like this don't happen everyday and hopefully they will be few and far between but they will happen again and I hope whomever reads this will think ahead to lessen the chances of this happening to them.

As I always say: Be Proactive Not Reactive and Enjoy Your Flight!!!

BlkAv8tor2003

The First African-American Flight Attendant in the United States.

The First African-American Flight Attendant in the United States.

On February 11, 1958, (Actually December 1957) Ruth Carol Taylor was hired by Mohawk Airlines, becoming the first African-American flight attendant in the United States.[4] Only six months after breaking one historic barrier, Taylor's career ended due to another discriminatory barrier: the airline's marriage ban, a common practice among airlines of the day of dismissing flight attendants who became either married or pregnant.

Racial Desegregation in December 1957, Mohawk Airlines hired the first African-American stewardess in the United States, Ruth Carol Taylor. Within months, TWA announced that it would hire a black stewardess, making it the first large airline to break the color barrier in passenger service. Neither flight attendants nor their union representatives deserve credit for promoting the desegregation of cabin service.

Credit goes to the African-American applicants, overqualified except by their race, who finally broke down airline resistance and their allies in civil rights organizations and state anti-discrimination agencies, especially the New York State Committee Against Discrimination.



The breakthroughs of 1957-1958 were followed only by forced token integration on some other airlines in the early 1960s. Even after several airlines began to hire more African American women for stewardess positions by the mid-1960s, other forms of racial discrimination continued for several years.



Hello All BlkAv8tor2003 Checking In!!!

This is just a small tribute to the first African American Flight Attendant to fly for the airlines back in the late 50's till now!

Ruth Carol Taylor was that woman who broke the racial barrier and made it so many of us who are now flying and past flight attendants could enjoy what she loved and that was the desire to fly!

It's days of glamour and exotic destinations have changed a bit and now the flight attendant is a intricate part of the flight crew and flight attendants have come along way. From the days of being an unmarried, single, nurse qualified individual and being called a stewardess if you were female (or "Stew") to the flight attendants of today who are multi-talented crew members and even move on in the industry to become pilots and eventually fly the plane they once served drinks and meals on!

In the late 1920s, some airlines employed male crew members, known as aerial couriers, cabin boys, flight companions, airplane attendants, or stewards, on their flights. These men, who were usually teenagers or men of small stature, loaded luggage, reassured nervous passengers, and helped people get around the plane. Stout Airlines, which later became part of the United Air Lines group, is credited with hiring America's first male flight attendants in 1926 for its Ford Trimotors on the Detroit to Grand Rapids route.

So I tip my future Captain's hat to Ms. Ruth Carol Taylor for going through what she had to go through to make a way for the rest of us!!! Martin Luther King and now President Barack Obama I'm sure as well as all of the flight attendants that followed in your flying footsteps would be proud and we thank you!

Always Be Proactive and not Reactive When You Fly and Enjoy Your Flight!

BlkAv8tor2003

Woman Accidentally Smothers Infant on Transatlantic Flight

British media sources report that late last month, a woman who fell asleep while breastfeeding her infant accidentally smothered her four-week old child while on a United Airlines flight.

United Airlines B777-222 wearing the Oscar's logo up front

United Airlines flight 982 was a 777 en route from Washington Dulles to Kuwait City, and somewhere over the Atlantic, she reportedly awoke to find that her child had been smothered. The crew was alerted by to the situation by the screams of the 29-year-old mother.

A doctor traveling on the flight treated the baby, and the aircraft diverted to London's Heathrow airport, landing on the morning of November 25th. The baby was transported to a local hospital, where she was pronounced dead on arrival.

An autopsy has been performed and the authorities are awaiting results. At present, the death is considered to be from unexplained causes, and police and the Child Abuse Investigation Team are investigating the circumstances of the death.

http://www.airsafenews.com/2009/12/woman-accidentally-smothers-infant-on.html