Commercial airlines carried more than 3.8 billion passengers and generated more than $501 billion in revenue worldwide last year, according to the International Air Transport Association. Here’s how travelers and airline employees are behaving this year:
1. Delta Air Lines employees curses at traveler
The airline issued a public apology after a video showed a customer getting screamed at by an employee at the Portland International Airport. The customer, 37-year-old Ruhul Amin from Honolulu, was traveling to Portland when his flight was delayed twice. He was trying to retrieve his luggage when the altercation ensued.
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“The actions displayed by this employee do not in any way reflect the standard of customer service and professionalism we expect from our employees,” Delta Airlines said in a statement. “This conduct is unacceptable and we have reached out directly to the customer and apologized.”
Here's the video.
2. Florida couple cited for stowing cat inside of luggage
Two Florida residents were cited after a cat was found without "food, water or air" inside their luggage, according to the Erie Times-News. A 6-month-old female cat was discovered inside a piece of luggage filled with clothes and other items, according to Erie International Airport Police. The flight was headed from Erie to Tampa. The two were cited with a summary count of transporting animals in a cruel manner.
3. Co-pilot slaps female captain mid-flight
Two Jet Airways pilots were involved in a mid-flight altercation on New Year's Day during an international flight. The flight to Mumbai had taken off on its nine-hour journey from a London airport when the altercation occurred. The pilot slapped a female co-pilot, who left the cockpit, ndtv.com reported.
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4. ‘Belligerent’ passenger charged with disorderly intoxication
A 58-year-old man was charged with trespassing and disorderly intoxication after he caused an incident on a Spirit Airlines flight at Southwest Florida International Airport in Fort Meyers, Florida. Passenger Dante Bencivenga allegedly boarded a flight intoxicated, according to a police report. A flight attendant told a gate agent that a passenger had urinated all over the plane’s bathroom floor and toilet.
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Bencivenga became "belligerent" when he was asked to disembark the plane, the Miami Herald reported. He was asked to leave the concourse or he would be arrested. "Put the bracelets on me," he told police. Read the full story.
5. American Airlines saves two girls from human trafficking
A customer service agent at an airport in Sacramento, California called the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department Airport Bureau after sensing two girls were in danger of a human trafficking scam.
Customer Service Agent Denice Miracle noticed two girls in the airport, and there were immediate red flags: There was no adult with them; they had no identification; the tickets were one-way and multi-leg; they were booked in First Class; and the credit card used to reserve their seats was in neither of their names. In fact, it was flagged as fraudulent.
The girls met a man they knew as “Drey” on Instagram, and he invited them to New York for the weekend to earn $2,000 doing some modeling and performing in music videos, American Airlines . Without their parents’ knowledge, they went to the airport. They told deputies they believed their tickets were round-trip. When the deputies shared that the tickets were in fact one-way, the girls were described as “shocked.” His Instagram profile disappeared. Authorities are investigating it as an attempted human trafficking ploy.
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