A flight attendant at a major US-based airline says she has been suspended on suspicion of assault and unlawful detention after she conducted a ‘citizens arrest’ on a coworker who she suspected of stealing a snack box from the onboard shop.
Taking to the social media platform Reddit, the anonymous flight attendant reached out to colleagues from across the industry, seeking advice on what to do after she was hit with the serious disciplinary accusations.
In the post, which now appears to be deleted, the flight attendant explained that she was in the middle of a three-day trip with a group of “very difficult” coworkers – pointing out that two of her colleagues used to work for regional carriers and one had previously been a crew member at an ultra-low-cost carrier.
“I always fly lead, but I like to keep on top of everything that is happening in my cabin, so I went to the aft galley and inspected the carts and made sure everything was packed up and completed according to company policy,” the flight attendant wrote.
“Thankfully, it was which saved me needing to file an incident report, and I counted there were four snack boxes remaining.”
At this point, you would think there would be no cause for further suspicion from the lead flight attendant, but she says one of the ex-regional flight attendants had complained she didn’t pack enough food for their layover and was hungry.
“So to ensure the security of company property, on the descent, I went to double-check the carts and found there were only three snack boxes left.”
“I did not raise it with the crew member but immediately rang the Captain and requested a supervisor meet us at the gate,” the flight attendant continued. “By the time all pax [passengers] had disembarked, the supervisor had still not arrived, so I told the crew they were unable to leave and they were not under any circumstances to touch or move their baggage.”
At this point, however, the hungry ex-regional flight attendant allegedly grabbed her bag and went to get off the plane.
With a supervisor still not in sight, the lead crew member physically took her colleague’s bag off her and then blocked the main cabin door with a service cart so none of her coworkers could get off the plane.
“In the process of securing the evidence, I accidentally knocked the regional girl with her bag and made her stumble,” the flight attendant admitted.
But it turns out that the flight attendant hadn’t actually secured any evidence. When a supervisor eventually arrived at the plane, a search was conducted of all the bags, and no missing snack boxes or any other missing service items were found.
Several days later, the flight attendant got a call from her airline, and it wasn’t to thank her for trying to protect company property from theft but instead to suspend her on suspicion of assault, bullying, and unlawful detention.
Matt’s take – Good intentions aren’t necessarily an excuse
Going into this flight, it seemed as if the lead flight attendant was already suspicious of her coworkers, but suspicion without rock-solid evidence isn’t enough to conduct a citizen’s arrest.
It’s too late now, but her best course of action, if she wanted to follow up on her suspicions, would have been to report the incident and leave it to the airline to follow up its own investigation.
When flight attendants are accused of stealing, it can take many months for airlines to build up enough evidence to call in the police and take disciplinary action, and reports of suspicious behavior are crucial.
Now that airlines no longer stock Duty Free onboard, there’s a lot less reason to worry too much about onboard theft, and US airlines don’t generally take too much notice about missing stock from onboard snack shops.
What a petty thing to do. The airline is not going to re-serve that meal on another flight. At least a reasonable airline wouldn’t do that. Taking liquor from the aircraft poses more serious issues. So, to turn in a coworker has now branded that flight attendant for the rest of his/her career. “Don’t fly with XXX. He/she will turn you in for any infraction.” Poor judgement turned into ruining more than one career.
I agree with Matt. The was handled, according to the post, couldn’t have been done wrong. The FA does not have the authority to be the on board police and detain his/her fellow crew members. He/She seems to already have had a chip on her shoulder from the beginning and appears to be a senior FA who does not like junior flight attendants and feels she is better then they are.
A truly sad event for all involved.
No flight attendant is going to want to work with her – she can’t be trusted. I’m sure the over 20,000 flight attendants at United know who she is. And that is a Bad place to be.
So petty… It’s food, that if don’t use it get thrown away. One should never go after some one for such small amount of food. That food had been paid anyway.
Omg, this takes the cake. I knew she was an idiot the minute she said she said she wants to know everything that goes on in her cabin so she went back to the back galley to inspect the carts to make sure the flight attendants hadn’t eaten a snack box. And then she posts on Redit for advice? Lol.. Stop! You’re embarrassing yourself. Here’s some free advice. Mind your own fucking business! If you go sniffing out trouble in life you’re likely to find it. She’s the only problem here. United would be doing good to get rid of her.
talk about no espirit de corp, and fast way to destroy teamwork, this is more than just control issues, there is a litany of issues, hostile work environment, bullying, possibly even assault, detainment, her job description has protocol to report such suspicions, not taking actions herself, most unions have a professional standards dept. to give a personal “heads up” to fellow employees who may be breaking regulations and procedures, to offer opportunity to learn and or correct behavior without involving management (and management encourages this to solve problems ourselves and deescalate situation. that lead has effectively ended her career, whether fired or not.