A woman was kicked off an American Airlines flight after an attendant allegedly smacked her with her baby’s stroller, according to fellow passengers.
A video uploaded by a passenger named Surain Adyanthaya, showed a woman weeping while arguing with a flight attendant over her stroller.
Surain wrote underneath “OMG! AA Flight attendant violently took a stroller from a lady with her baby on my flight, hitting her and just missing the baby. Then he tried to fight a passenger who stood up for her. AA591 from SFO to DFW.”
This moment isn’t seen on camera but the woman is clearly distressed as she pleads with flight attendants to give her back her stroller, clutching her baby with tears streaming down her face.
But when a man steps in to help the woman, things turn even nastier. The male passenger addressed the attendant saying: “Hey bud, you do that to me and I’ll knock you flat.”
“You stay out of this,” the attendant fires back.
The man then takes a step forward to confront the attendant who taunts him. “Hit me, c’mon, bring it on!” the attendant shouts. “C’mon, you don’t know what the story is.”
“I don’t care what the story is, you don’t hurt a baby,” the passenger responds.
The woman was eventually escorted off the flight but the male attendant involved in the altercation was allowed to stay onboard.
The video of the incident was later uploaded to Facebook where it has had 485K views.
American Airlines later released a statement saying: “What we see on this video does not reflect our values or how we care for our customers.
“We are deeply sorry for the pain we have caused this passenger and her family and to any other customers affected by the incident.”
The airline said the woman and her baby were able to board another flight bound for an international destination. The attendant has been removed from duty pending an investigation.
The airline said they were “disappointed by the actions” of the attendant, according to NY Daily News.
This disturbing incident comes only a few weeks after a 69-year-old man was beaten and dragged off a United Airlines flights by airport police at Chicago airport.
The flight was overbooked and the man had refused to give up his seat to an airline employee who needed to catch a connecting flight.
