As the summer travel spree takes hold of Americans, and the necessity of air travel looms for many, the topic of airline customer service and efficiency becomes a common topic of conversation. There are, of course, those horro stories where planes sit on the runway in 90 degree heat for hours while the passengers inside wait, and complain, and are eventually evicted from their seats when the flight is outright canceled. The FAA has worked to improve regulations on airlines and have largely eliminated those kinds of situations, but of course there's still the heightened security measures, pat downs, lines, check-ins, delays, lay-overs, and all of the other obnoxious trappings of having to fly. Perhaps it was all of these nuisances combined that lead to a mutiny on an Middle EAst Airlines flight at Heathrow Airport on Saturday by passengers.
A 1 p.m. MEA flight to Beirut on Saturday was delayed during a thunderstorm on a Heathrow runway. The 230 passengers were boarded at 5 p.m. at which point the captain announced that they would again be delayed until 7:30 p.m. At this point things began to go awry. One middle-aged passenger reportedly called a crew-member an idiot, the atmosphere grew more tense, and soon there was pushing and shoving between passengers and crew. One businessman reported that he had told teh captain that he had "failed in his duty", to which the captain told the passenger he should fly the plane. Another passenger compared the scene to the novel, 'Lord of the Flies'. Passengers began raiding the galley and stealing food, grappling and engaging in 'fisticuffs' with crew members and one another, and generally raising hell.
The crew had given up attempting to explain the situation to people, although one of the passengers reported hearing a crew member announce over the intercom that the captain was sorry if crew members had been rude, but that they would like passengers to "hold their horses and calm down", all broadcast over the melee. After twenty minutes of the situation escalating 8 police officers boarded the plane to restore order. One Lebanese woman suffered from heart palpatations and another middle-aged gentleman had to be given oxygen.
One of the most astounding aspects of this incident is that that passengers were never disembarked from the plane, but stayed on the runway, with officers, until their eventual 8:00 p.m. departure. An MEA spoesperson reported that the flight arrived in Beirut 5 hours later with no further incidents. Evidently, Heathrow and Middle East Air is much more forgiving of unruly passengers than we are here in the States. Several weeks ago two Muslim men were expelled from a flight in Memphis because the captain felt their attire would intimidate passengers (they were both cleric, adorned in traditional Muslim garb including skullcaps). Josh Duhamel, back in April, was kicked off a flight for arguing with crew members and refusing to shut off his Blackberry.
I can't imagine a situation in which passengers would mutiny the way they did on this Heathrow flight, pushing crew members, stealing food; the threat of lawsuit would be enough, I feel, to prevent much of that behavior. However, it's certainly indicative of a larger issue that people are feeling frustrated with air travel. It's difficult to know what a solution to the many precautions, long waits, and air travel hassles might be, but in the meantime it's up to passengers to practice civility and patience with one another and with the poor crew members that have little or no control over these larger issues.
Photo from www.dailymail.co.uk
Printer-friendly version