A wild slugfest ensued at an airport this weekend that saw an airport ticket agent and a male passenger get into it. While many details are still unknown, the gate agent appears to take the brunt of the damage and gets up bloodied.
In the initial video that was shared on social media, we see the gate agent strike first before getting knocked over some luggage. In this clip which is edited carefully, we see that it appears the ticket agent is the instigator…however, the clip shared later in this piece tells a different story.
However, another slightly longer video has emerged that shows the passenger getting a few punches in before the initial video starts up. We still don’t know what caused the overall altercation or who might have been the primary instigator.
Bottom line: scant details are known about the incident at this time. We will continue to look for additional information about the incident as it becomes available.
Stay tuned for more information.
3 comments
The passenger definitely started that altercation!! Cannot make up the second video. I really hope that the second, longer version gets shown over and over again!!
Generally speaking, people don’t walk around recording all the time. What typically happens is something starts happening, a bystander realizes something is happening, gets their camera out and starts recording. So the beginning never gets captured on video.
First video shows the agent slapping the customer. Second video shows a few seconds earlier and we see the customer assaulting the agent. But the reality is that something happened to start the whole event and that was probably not recorded.
In all my years of traveling I have never seen something this bad. So it is hard to have an opinion on who started it.
I have seen agents who handle things very well and never take the job personally. In that case, it might be the customer who takes things personally. But the agent remained calm and no punches where thrown.
Have I had agents who have had a bad day and choose to take it out on me when I come to them with a problem? Absolutely. I always stay calm and work through the situation. Sometimes it escalates and managers need to be called in. In one case, authorities were called it resulting in the agent being suspended, fined $10,000 and the airline put on notice by CBP. Did I want to assault the agent? Yes actually. Did I? Nope.
The key in both situations is that one person stayed calm. Agent takes things personally and I stay calm, no one is assaulted. Agent stays calm and the customer takes things personally, no one is assaulted. This is what I have usually seen.
My gut says that the agent and the customer both took it personally and got emotional. Who is ultimately at fault? Really, that is for the court to decide. We’ll never have the full picture from incomplete video clips on the internet.
Personally, I’d be curious how the airline handles it. Things go wrong. Traveling, on average, 300 days a year means it isn’t IF things go wrong. It is more about when things go wrong. How does the airline (a business that shouldn’t be taking things personally) fix the issue. The agent probably needs some training on how to de-escalate the situation. If the customer started it, the customer needs to suffer consequences (banned from flying on the airline, maybe).
Darrell, Well Said. Someone needs to be calm and try to de-escalate things. In the end one of=r both individuals loose.