‘Hit Me’: American Airlines Flight Attendant Challenges Passenger to Fight

It’s been a pretty terrible month for airline companies, and an even worse one for their passengers.

This time the controversy is centred on American Airlines, who have suspended an employee and are investigating after he allegedly snatched a stroller away from a mother and her children and then challenged another passenger to fight him.

The confrontation took place in San Francisco as American Airlines Flight 591, which was due to fly to Fort Worth, was boarding. Passenger Surain Adyanthaya was on the plane and started filming shortly after the alleged stroller incident happened, Adyanthaya then posted the video to Facebook.

“[An American Airline] flight attendant violently took a stroller from a lady with her baby on my flight, hitting her and just missing the baby,” wrote Adyanthaya in the post accompanying the video. “Then he tried to fight a passenger who stood up for her.”

In the video, you can see a blonde woman holding a child crying at the front of the plane. In response to the attendant’s actions, a male passenger stood up, went to the front, and demanded the his name. Shortly after, the attendant in question re-enters the plane again where he was then challenged by the passenger.

“Hey bud, you do that to me and I’ll knock you flat,” you can hear the passenger say to the attendant in the video. This sets off the flight attendant who points at him and tells him to “stay out of this.” In response the passenger stands up and confronts the much smaller man face to face while the attendant goads him.

“Why don’t you try it? Hit me. Hit me,” he says. “Come on, bring it on.”

The flight attendant and passenger square off. Photo via Facebook screenshot.

Afterwards the attendant angrily tells the passenger that he doesn’t “know the full story” to which the man responds with, “I don’t care what the story is, you don’t hurt a baby.” The video ends shortly afterwards with the man back in his seat and the woman and attendant escorted off the plane—during the entire duration of the video you can hear the woman crying in the background.

The video comes out less than two weeks after the treatment of airline passengers was under the microscope when David Dao, a United passenger, was violently dragged off an overbooked flight for refusing to give up his seat.

According to a statement by American Airlines, the woman elected not to fly on that particular flight to Fort Worth. For their part, the company stated they have suspended the employee and have pledged to immediately investigate the incident. In a statement, American Airlines said this does not reflect the company’s”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.”

Follow Mack Lamoureux on Twitter.