Air travel is, generally speaking, the worst. The last flight I took made me feel like livestock. Economy class felt more like freight class. It’s just not a comfortable, dignified experience. But that doesn’t mean that the flight crew want it to be an uncomfortable, undignified experience.
It’s best for everybody trapped in an aluminum tube 30,000 feet above the ground to get along as much as possible, and the flight attendants do their best.
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But there are certainly some things that they shouldn’t have to do to keep everybody happy.
At a recent press conference, a flight attendant on an EVA Air flight from Los Angeles to Taipei, Taiwan described a disturbing incident involving one of the passengers.
The flight attendant, who declined to provide her name, accused a passenger of sexual harassment and criticized the airline for its lack of support after the passenger forced her to help him in the bathroom.
The passenger, who was not named, was overweight and used a wheelchair, and during the flight he requested three seats to accommodate his size.
Because the flight wasn’t full, the crew was able to meet his request. However, he made a request for help with the bathroom two hours into the flight, saying he had injured his arm, and that’s where the trouble started.
Saying he was too big for the small economy-class bathroom, he first demanded access to the business-class bathroom.
They did so, and then he asked the flight attendant who made the complaint, and two others to help him with his underwear.
Even that was outside their comfort zone.
“I felt that as a flight attendant, removing a passenger’s underwear was beyond the scope of my responsibilities,” the deputy cabin service head said, according to Focus Taiwan .
But, with no male crew members on board to help the man, it was up to the women, who reluctantly did as the passenger asked.
So, not wanting things to get any more uncomfortable than absolutely necessary, the flight attendant grabbed a blanket to cover him up.
“As the passenger’s genitals were now exposed, one of my colleagues brought a blanket, which I used to cover his modesty.”
“But he very angrily slapped my hand away, saying he didn’t want it and only wanted me to remove his underwear so he could use the toilet,” she said.
While they struggled in the tight confines of the business class bathroom, the passenger demanded that the door be left open because otherwise “he couldn’t breathe.”
The flight attendants did manage to keep the door closed, surely much to the relief of the business class passengers.
And they left him to his business, hoping their ordeal was at an end.
However, the worst was yet to come. When he was done, the passenger spoke up again, asking the crew to wipe his butt and refusing to leave the business class bathroom unless they did so.
Of course they balked at the idea, but then the passenger started making threats.
“I told him we couldn’t help him, but he started yelling. He told me to go in immediately and threatened to relieve himself on the floor,” she recalled .
So, with little other choice, the flight attendant donned three pairs of latex gloves to clean him up.
Another flight attendant, who was holding the passenger up, says she heard the man start “moaning in pleasure.”
“He said: ‘Oh, mmm, deeper, deeper,’ and then accused my chief attendant of not properly cleaning his backside, requesting that she do it again.”
Only after she had wiped him three times did he let them put his underwear back on and get him back to his seat.
She reportedly then went to the crew area to vomit, sob, and consider resigning. “I never thought I’d see this day, never thought about wanting to resign so desperately, never felt so violated.”
In the wake of the incident, the flight attendant is urging the airline to ban the passenger, who apparently has been in trouble on previous flights for similar behavior, but somehow hadn’t been blacklisted.
That’s right, this guy is apparently a repeat offender, known to the airline.
Focus Taiwan reported that on a May 2018 flight he had “defecated in his underpants,” but was still allowed to fly, leaving “frontline flight attendants to deal with the man every time he flew with the airline.”
EVA Air did issue an official statement regarding the incident, saying that flight attendants aren’t required to accede to inappropriate demands from passengers.
However, it did promise to investigate the matter and take appropriate measures both against the passenger and to do more to prevent similar situations in the future.
The airline also stated that the crew would be provided with counseling services and will provide assistance to sue the passenger.
However, the flight attendants’ union said the big problem is the service-focused culture that frowns on those who fail to meet the customer’s demands, and called on the airline to start hiring male cabin staff as well as banning troublesome passengers.
