Despatch, you would have to have been there to witness the incident to comment on it properly.
I stayed calm and professional throughout the incident, unfortunately the pax did not. I did not raise my voice at any time to the passenger, I kept my voice at a calm level and emphasised words where needed. When the pax made the comment "Go tell the Captain to switch off the seat belt signs" he thought I was out of ear shot, and I made him aware that I was not by then saying the comment "The Captain is in command etc". His wife screaming at me is irrelevant to my comment, I think she really screamed because her husbands behaviour was actually embarassing her!
You say you would have avoided the situation by contacting the Captain immediately - that was my intention to, the offer to speak to the Captain was there to resolve the situation, however I am not going to go and speak to the Captain for a couple of minutes on the interphone and leave a pax standing in the aisle when the seat belt signs are on. Are you saying you would have left him standing there? When he says to me after I have offered to phone the Captain "Good, You do that" I replied with "I will, but not before you do as I say and sit down", he then sat down and I walked away and it was at that point he made his comment of "Go tell the Captain to switch off the seat belt signs". If he had not made that comment, the Captain would have been phoned earlier, if he had sat down when I first offerred to phone the Captain, the Captain would have been phoned earlier. The pax was just deliberately trying it on and I am not going to leave a 40+ year old man standing in the aisle, unsecured when there is a thunderstorm off the side of the aircraft that could cause turbulence (I knew we were expecting thunderstorms after take off as the Captain had briefed us to this effect and I informed the pax that we were expecting turbulence, but he still chose to ignore the instruction).
You feel that I am not open to feedback and am not an active listener, for your information I often request feedback from my crew after an event onboard as we are all still learning whether you have been flying for 6 months or 20 years. Regularly if there has been (for example) a medical emergency I ask my crew in the debrief "Could I/we have handled that better?" if there is a disruptive pax, "Could I have handled that better?" and encourage the crew to be honest and open with their opinions. This man was a pompous ass who felt that owing to his experience of that route (flying it weekly from seat 6D in the cabin) that he knew when it was safe to move around or be seated.
Just to give you a bit of background, this flight was an easyJet flight - one of the combined GB Airways and easyJet flights that are currently running. The man was an ex GB-Airways passenger who is now being 'forced' to fly easyJet. easyJet crew are having lots of problems with these types of pax as they are all being rude to crew because they blame us (the crew) for them losing their nice British Airways style service. Unfortunately on a lot of these combined flights the pax are doing their utmost to make the flights as unpleasant as possible for the crew by being rude, disobedient, deliberately leaving a nasty mess, deliberately talking down to crew and trying to make crew members cry! Pax can do what they like as far as I am concerned with all of the above (ONLY if aimed at me), but they will not disobey safety instructions on my flights. The seat belt sign in an instruction from the Captain and it should be obeyed.
You say you would have said to the pax "I am afraid the captain have informed me that is to dangerous to use the toilets could you hang on for a minute?" - what would you do if the pax said "No, I need to go now!"would you then say "Sorry sir, the toilets are out of use and you can't go?", or would you then say "Oh, ok sir - by all means go to the toilet". Saying "Could you hang on for a minute?" to the pax might sound nice and customer orientated, but what happens when the seat belt signs are still on in 15-30 mins time? Instead of saying "Could you hang on for a minute?", I would have said "I am sorry, The Captain has just informed me that he feels it is too dangerous for you to use the toilets at the moment, he has said to me that a few aircraft infront are reporting a fare amount of turbulence and therefore he will not be switching off the signs until we are clear of the bumpy weather, as soon as we are clear he will switch off the seat belt signs", doing it that way shows that you empathise with the pax, that the Captain is aware of the pax's circumstances and that he will switch off the signs as soon as he feels it is safe, whilst pointing out to the pax that the signs are on for their safety and making them aware that it could get quite bumpy very soon and that way you are not providing any possible false hope of the signs being only on for a minute or two longer.