American Airlines has now banned a passenger from future travel after they wrote an “offensive and derogatory” note to a flight attendant on the back of an air sickness bag because they had been asked to wear their face mask in accordance with airline rules. A photo of the note has since gone viral after initially being shared on a private flight attendant Facebook group.
Describing the flight attendant as “nothing more than a glorified maid,” the passenger also calls the crew member a “mask Nazi” and a “nobody”. The abusive note had been prompted by the flight attendant’s decision to ask the passenger to wear their face mask over both their mouth and nose. The full transcript of the note is below (NSFW).
“You may have heard about an incident involving a customer passing an offensive and derogatory note to one of our flight attendants after she enforced the face-covering policy,” wrote American’s head of in-flight service, Jill Surdek in an internal memo on Friday.
“I want to let everyone know that we will not tolerate mistreatment of our flight attendants or any other team members,” the memo continues. “This customer’s travel on American has been suspended, and we are fully investigating the incident”.
Surdek did not say how long the passenger will remain on American’s no-fly list or whether the decision was prompted by the passenger’s refusal to wear a face mask properly or because of the note.
“Over the last few months, we have been adding more and more customer to our face covering refusal list,” Surdek says before thanking flight attendants for taking the time to complete incident reports about passengers refusing to comply with the rules.
“It’s important to point out, most customers overwhelmingly support our face covering policy. By asking people to put their masks on, you are helping keep everyone safe. I appreciate everything you are doing and want you to know we fully support you.”
American Airlines originally told flight attendants not to enforce its face mask policy but has since asked crew to challenge passengers who aren’t complying with the rules. While flight attendants can’t force a passenger to wear a mask, they are asked to issue a warning letter and then complete an incident report.
Although American has declined to say how many passengers have so far been banned from future travel over the policy, Delta Air Lines recently told its staff that over 270 passengers had been added to its no-fly list.
A number of airlines, including American, Delta and United, introduced tough new penalties for face mask non-compliance in June after a small but significant minority of passengers refused to wear a mask. More recently, American has introduced a zero-tolerance policy, telling passengers who can’t wear a mask for a legitimate medical reason to find an alternative airline.
The controversial note
“You mean shit in life. You are nothing but a glorified maid who needs to jump down off her high horse and learn how to speak to ppl (people). Nobody cares about your stupid seat policies or your nose issues. We pay your salary and your attitude is unnecessary.
The very fact that we have to listen and kowtow to a nobody who does shit except collect our trash and serve crappy food makes me absolutely ill. You are a mask nazi and a cunt and if it wasn’t for this you, you would be cleaning motel room for $2 tips and meth.
I made sure to write this on a bag labelled as to what I think your life actually is… A WASTE.
Warm regards, a person who hates your guts.”
