Congratulations! You have an exit row seat for your flight. All that sweet, sweet legroom is yours, and now the only thing standing between you and actually being able to stretch your legs out is just saying, “Yes” when the flight attendant comes over to make sure that you are willing. and can help in an emergency that almost certainly won’t happen. Easy right? Good, as an independent reportit is not easy for a person Border Airlines The passenger was actually arrested before takeoff.
The video recording the incident was recorded by the Travel with Tia account and posted to TikTok. The video doesn’t pick up on the very beginning of the argument, but the Independent offers an explanation of what happened to Tia herself:
This woman right here, when she first got on the plane and looked out at the emergency exit row, she said, “Oh, I’m not going to save anyone.” She went on to say, “If anything happens, I will save myself.” That was her attitude throughout the entire sitting down process. And I knew something was up when she had that attitude.
You could argue that the woman’s reaction could have been an attempt at banter, but neither takeoff nor landing is a great time to joke around with flight attendants. Furthermore, even if she considered it a joke, once she noticed the flight attendant wasn’t smiling, that was her signal to apologize and promise to behave. Unfortunately for her and every other passenger on that flight, the woman in the emergency exit row decided to double down instead.
Now, even if she really doesn’t realize that arguing with a flight attendant is a great way to ruin your day, you would think that the pilot would come out on the loudspeaker to say, “Dear ladies and gentlemen, we will be here soon, we have to solve this problem Law enforcement is coming,” perhaps making it clear that it was time to pack up and beg for leniency. Instead, she turned to trying to get other passengers on her side by claiming the flight attendant was lying about her non-compliance.
Considering the fact that this woman was wasting everyone’s time and potentially delaying the flight, the crew was much more enthusiastic than you might expect, even giving a final warning to she. A crew member told her: “I will ask you again, please get off the plane, otherwise we will get off the plane and the police will come and escort you away.” However, instead of getting off the plane, she continued to complain and announced that she would call her lawyer. If they pick up the phone, you can only assume they’ll ask her to comply with the crew member’s instructions because, well, duh.
Eventually, however, her flight circuit phase ended and the courtship phase began in full swing. After the pilot returned to try to get her to voluntarily disembark, police boarded the plane to escort her out, forcing all passengers to disembark as well. The woman, whose name appears to have not been released, was handcuffed and taken away.
It’s unclear what charges she faces, although we can’t imagine she’ll be flying Frontier again. However, if you’re on a Spirit Airlines flight in the future, you might want to keep an eye on her. She can also ruin your travel plans.
