Kaptin M. it’s good thing you’re not an inquisitive kind of person huh?
But since you’re asking; here’s the story.
About 50 mins after TO from CUR a pax got bothersome. At the time I was assistant Purser on the wide bodies and as such responsible for the tourist class on this 747-300, so the male FA working in that area asked for help. Talked to the pax several times, he promised to behave each time. Things culminated during the dinner service and the FA declared an ”emergency”. I rushed to the back with the purser on my heels, him a bit slower due age and not being able to squeeze past all the food trolleys. Got there just in time to see the guypreparing to throw a punch at a young lady sitting across the aisle from him. Not wanting any of that sh!t in
my tourist class, I jumped in between. This sent the guy berserk, and he started hitting me around the face. The Purser went down for the count from the shock of seeing me hit, but thank god 2 burly male pax jumped into the fray and peeled the attacker off me. Meal trays flying everywhere, people screaming, and first signs of general panic.
I shouted at the FA on the oppsosite aisle to run to the cockpit for the cuffs, ran to a phone with my head still spinning and told the captain she was on her way, pls give her the cuffs no discussion and I’ll report back asap.
Put the rager in handcuffs while he was held by the 2 blokes, and reseated him to last row. Got the FA’s going with the meal service again, scraped the Purser from the floor, figured he had an attack of hyperventilation and got him to his work station to recover under the tender ministrations of a Business class FA.
Called the cockpit, told the FO what had happened, and asked for the tie wraps to tie the ragers feet to the seat since he was trying to kick the seat row in front of him out of it’s rails. 1 of the FE’s came down with the wraps and was brave enough to dive in between the seats and fasten the ragers feet. All this under a continuous stream of invective from the rager, and with him biting and spitting and kicking.
Put a cloth with some ice cubes against my face, did a walk around and calmed the pax, told the jittery FA’s they could all cry later but please finish the meal service first and don’t be stingy with the after dinner drinks!
Checked on the Purser who was recovering nicely, switched the lights to ”night”, and asked him to go and lend his shoulder to the shaken FA’s in the back, which he did, and much better than I could have done.
Went to the cockpit where the FO, SO and 1stFE were on duty. Other lads were in their rest chairs. Was informed by the FO that he had planned to land on USA soil to offload the rager, that he had gotten permission from the comp to do so, but that the captain had vetoed this and that we regrettably would carry on to Europe as we were. Never did see the captain during the rest of the flight, but the lads in the cockpit were both kind and apologetic about the situation.
Flight pretty horrendous, what with the rager never giving up his screaming of murder threats, trying to bite everybody who had to og past him to og to the toilets and the FA’s being to scared to be in the cabin if I didn’t stand beside the rager. Arriving at home base, rager was taken off board by the local police and the comp’s security people. Iwas asked if I wanted to press charges, and even if that was the last thing I felt like doing, I figured that would be giving in to the idiots so I when the pax had disembarked, I went to the police post and filed.
That took hour and a half after which the kindly constable told me ”Lady, this is all fine and dandy but the captain of your flight does not want to press charges, so this will not lead anywhere”. This news, while not surprising after the attitude he had shown, did shock the hell out of me.
Got back to the Crew Centre, were the entire entire cabin crew, and an embarassed loooking cockpit crew minus the captain was waiting for me. Hugged & kissed the lot of them, thanked them for all the help and caught a flight home.
5 hours later at home I was still so mad about the captain’s spineless attitude that I called the crewing department and enquired if they could please get the comp’s Chief Pilot to give me phone call ASAP?
He did, I told the story, he told me he would investigate.
Got a few very kind phone calls from the FO and the FE, but not a word from the comp the next 4 days, which made me feel like sh!t. So with a face turning all the colours of the rainbow, I got behind my PC, and mailed a report of the happenings to everybody and their uncle in both the company and the FA’s union.
By the time my leave was over, I still hadn’t heard from my direct boss, but the boss of the Cabin Crew Department and the Chief Pilot had both mailed me back and said the matter would be sorted, and that the captain had ”seen the error of his ways” and had filed charges after all.
Next trip was to Japan, and with a lot of panecake on my face to cover the bruises I set off. Stilll not a word from anybody in the comp. Returned to homebase 7 days later with a 12 hours delay, got hit by lightning during approach and made two go arounds due windshear. Pax screaming
again, plus a lot of puking, praying and crying.
Went to my boss next day, explained what had happened on board and asked if the cabin crew could possibly get some follow up? Someone to call them at home and ask how they were doing? Seeing how all of has thought we were gonna die and all that.
Flew home, and once again total silence from the comp. This absence of reaction from the company that had employed me for 19 years punched my lights out. I called in sick on advice of an MD friend. Good advice and I used the time to start a company wide e-mail campaign to see if I could get some farking recognition & support from
somebody. (a friendly captain also sent me a link to pprune to while away the time but that’s another story
)
The mail campaign did the trick, and for the first time in it’s history the company decided to file for compensation on behalf of a crew member.
Even if I did not and would not expect a pilot to physically assist during a fight in the cabin, it would have been nice if the captain had put on his jacket after it all was over and had showed both crew and passengers ”the flag”.
I was unlucky with the captain on this trip; 99.99% of the blokes in our company would have reacted very differently. I know that for a fact.
Looking back now, I feel that the company stood by me in the end, and even if it took some time to kick-start the whole thing, that is probably only normal for a big company.
I had 6 weeks of hassle-free sick-leave, the company shrink sorted out my scrambled head, and the captain in question got his just desserts.
I guess I am bl**dy minded, but I still love my work, even more so now that I’ve made Purser. And no creepy pax is ever again gonna scare me or beat up on anybody on
my watch!
PS:
Kaptin M, you
did ask........
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Singularly Simple Person........