Spoiler alert: it doesn’t. Another horrific travel freakout was recorded when several JetBlue passengers who’d been waiting in line for 5 hours completely meltdown, slinging racist slurs, and nearly coming to blows. The travel freakout is, sadly, a near-daily occurrence people as having a hard time traveling these days and tensions are running hot. This incident, which unfolds mere feet from a small child in a stroller is but one in a long line of passengers behaving badly.
Earlier this week, JetBlue fell victim to extreme weather cancellations leaving thousands of passengers stranded and angry. While the weather certainly isn’t JetBlue’s fault, passengers took to various social media platforms to express their displeasure with the poor customer service they were receiving during the delays. And things got heated at one airport.
At a NYC area airport things boiled over when passengers who’d been standing in line for 5 hours engaged in a racist tinged verbal altercation that eventually became physical.
The video picks up with an African American woman apparently defending a white male who is in line near her (although it would seem they were not together). Another female, standing outside of the main customer service line, slings a few racist slurs at the man which doesn’t seem to set right with the aforementioned black woman who seems to defend the man. Chaos unfolds after that.
Both women are ultimately held back by other members in their party while the one who was using racist slurs challenged the other to meet her outside.
As we’ve reported on countless times, unruly passengers incidents are up in a big way for 2021 and although stiffer penalties seem to be bringing some of that under control it’s still nowhere near pre-pandemic levels.
What is driving the preponderance of incidents? Mask-wearing. According to the FAA, nearly 73% of all incidents are related to face masks.
As noted by some of the social media posts related to JetBlue’s bad day, some argue that the airlines may be contributing to some of the chaos. This is a thin argument at best, but mask rules aside, there is no excuse for poor customer service or violent freakouts.
