With the rush of holiday travel now in full swing, flight attendants are increasingly reminding passengers to be considerate of both the crew and their fellow passengers — while the soaring rates of bad passenger behavior have been a consistent problem throughout the year, the holidays are often a time when frustrations can come to a head.
Tyesha Best, who has worked as a flight attendant at JetBlue Airways (JBLU) -) for the last nine years and is the president of the Orlando branch of the Transportation Workers Union Local 579, talked to TheStreet about some of the more egregious things they have seen in the air (one passenger peed in an empty bottle in front of everyone and called the flight attendants who told him to stop the c-word) as well as what airlines should be doing to stop such behavior.
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Tyesha Best
'The stress of the holiday season has increased tenfold,' flight attendant says
TheStreet: The last decade has been a particularly turbulent time to be a flight attendant. Have you seen a lot of change in the nine years you've been at JetBlue?
Tyesha Best: The flights are fuller but the attitudes are also fuller. I saw a significant change during covid. The stress of covid itself played an adverse role in how customers behave on the aircraft. At one point, almost all the airlines removed the ability to purchase alcohol on flights because they saw that as a major contributing factor to the aggressive behavior of customers.
Covid actually compounded the day-to-day stresses of commuting to airports, the delays and cancelations. We have brought back alcohol but it still seems that the aggressive behavior escalated in terms of egregiousness. We are looking to see how we can better combat the situation and I'm using the word combat in an interesting way because again when you have customers physically assault our airline employees it does become a fight or flight situation that's crucial to address.
TheStreet: What are some of the worst incidents you've seen?
Best: We've seen a lot of mentally unstable people cause a disturbance which also contributes to an increase in diversions. There was one flight in particular on the JetBlue side, I believe from London to JFK, that diverted to Boston because a customer became so unruly about wanting to use the restroom that he used the restroom in an empty bottle and called the flight attendants the c-word. We're fully prepared for that kind of plane behavior for the holiday season because the stress of the holidays has increased tenfold. You're dealing with family, you're dealing with inflation.
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I do feel that compassion towards service members and hospitality members in general has decreased in ways that have not benefited anyone.
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TheStreet: Are many flight attendants feeling stretched thin from the rush of post-pandemic travel and industry-wide understaffing?
Best: I feel like we are getting better at the staffing. I think the issue is pushing the companies to force better communication on behavior of the customers and also just making a campaign to the national team that addresses the assaults and unruly customer behavior. That is something that we've been doing for at least two to three years and it's bringing awareness to not only what is currently the behavior, and the statistics and the data, but also what can be done to avoid it.
Take a breath before you say some words that you will regret later. Make sure you have food and water before you leave for the airport. I'm sure some people are just hangry while delayed but situational awareness in general is very, very important.
There's a legislative push and a lobbying from our union for the airline to address customers who have egregiously and repeatedly proven not to be safe to be put on something like a domestic no-fly list to protect not just our flight attendants but flight attendants on other airlines from possibly experiencing the same incident. We're really passionate about it because safety is our number one priority.
TheStreet: Any reminders or requests for those flying during the busy holiday period?
Best: I do want to wish all a Seasons' Greetings. This is the season of joy and happiness and family. As much as we want to connect travelers with their families, they also should understand that we are airline employees that would also like to connect with our families when we come home from work. That becomes difficult when we are subject to assault and therefore have to stop for medical care which drives delays and not only affects the operations of the airline industry but also the customers on that aircraft and the customers who could possibly be waiting on that aircraft to go to their destination.
