The beginning of our story goes something like this...Our heroine is on a business trip to Seattle, a place she has begun visiting often because of a project she's working on. Alaska's flights between Los Angeles and Seattle are almost always delayed, at least in the afternoons. Everyone who travels the route often enough, knows and anticipates this, despite the gross inconvenience. Our heroine, let's call her "Michelle," because that's really her name, boards her flight (delayed an hour and a half) yesterday (Thursday, July 26, 2007) at approximately 6:15pm (it was supposed to board at 4:55pm). After sitting on the tarmac for another 40 minutes, we begin to move away from the gate, finally.
As is usual, the flight attendants make the announcement that we must be safely buckled-in, electronics turned off, tray tables stowed and seats in their upright position. This is where the story gets interesting! After this announcement is made, a teenaged Lindsay Lohan wannabe puts her seat all the way back, almost hitting Michelle in the face as she was rummaging around in the seat pocket. After looking at the two men on either side of her in disbelief, she leaned up and addressed the girl ahead of her through the triangular space between the seats. "Excuse me, can you please put your seat up? We're about to take off and I think we're supposed to put them up." The girl looked at Michelle and turned back, opening her magazine. An obvious rebuff. Again, the look of disbelief clouded the face of our heroine, but rather than pursue the matter, figured it was up to the flight attendants to take care of safety in the cabin and if something bad happened, it would be their responsibility.
The Chinese man to Michelle's left wasn't so easily dissuaded, obviously annoyed the the girl so blatantly ignored his neighbor. He tapped on her chair three times with his index and middle fingers, just hard enough for her to notice it. She looked at him as he asked, "Can you put your seat up? We've already been delayed an hour and a half and it's federal regulations that we all have our seats upright, so do it now." She stood up in her seat and screamed, "YOU'RE NOT MY FATHER AND YOU CAN'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO!!!" All three people in the row behind her were shocked at the response and chalked it up to her being very spoiled or unstable, or both. Her seat was still back, so Michelle tried to flag down a flight attendant to talk to the girl, but the girl immediately put her seat up and acted like she wasn't doing anything. The man on the other side of Michelle commented, "wow, she has some serious daddy issues to scream something like that!" The whole row nodded in agreement and began a conversation about spoiled kids, narcissism and selfish behavior.
The folks behind the girl thought everything was find as the plane began moving across the tarmac, but this was incorrect. Several minutes later, the girl grabbed a flight attendant as she walked by and said that the Chinese man had, "beaten on her seat and threatened her." As the folks behind her looked on in horror, Michelle stepped up to his defense and explained, even demonstrated, what happened. At this point, the girl started crying and the flight attendant looked at the Chinese man and Michelle and said, "you two are traveling together, right?" It must be disclosed now that Michelle is half Chinese, but was not traveling with the man next to her. The flight attendant assumed that the two Asians sitting together MUST be companions. The Chinese man grew furious as this assumption and brought it to the flight attendant's attention. The attendant looked at the two of them as if they were terrorists and had truly beaten on this young woman (she had to be at least 17). This was about the time the girl started crying, this time saying, "they both threatened me," but could not say how or with what they had threatened to to her. The flight attendant asked the girl, "oh honey, are you traveling by yourself?" Michelle defended herself saying, "all I did was politely ask her to move her seat up so we could take off, if that is a threat then I must be crazy." The flight attendant told Michelle not to speak to the girl, to which she replied, "I was speaking to you, or am I not allowed to speak to you, either?"
The girl was moved to another seat across the aisle and began sobbing and making a scene, pleading her case to the woman next to her. Michelle and the man were still completely shocked by the turn of events. The flight attendant would not listen to the simple explanation of what happened because she had made her mind up in favor of the sobbing girl and told the pilot, who had stopped the plane in the middle of the tarmac. The flight attendant informed Michelle and the man that "specialists" were coming to speak with them. Michelle said, "what about the person who started all this? Who will hold her accountable? How do I get blamed for asking a simple, polite question?" to which the flight attendant turned away without answering her. Michelle then said, "I just want to go home, why is a child being allowed to hold up all our lives?," and the flight attendant angrily responded, "it's YOU who are holding up over 160 other passengers!" Michelle and the man were aghast, her words making them realize that the flight attendant had made her mind up about them already.
As the "specialists" boarded the plane, Michelle and the man were asked to follow them onto the gangway to "talk." Michelle asked what the problem was and why she had to keep repeating the same couple of sentences? She informed them that she was a frequent flier, was on a business trip and works with Alaska Airlines as a vendor and wouldn't dare ever cause a scene on a plane. She wanted to know why she was being unfairly targeted and why they were giving the Caucasian girl preferential treatment? One of the specialists then assumed the man and Michelle were traveling together, which agitated the man beyond belief and he started threatening to call his lawyer because of this gross discrimination. Michelle asked, "if they were allowed to make such assumptions then would it be equally acceptable to assume the flight attendant and the girl could be related since they're both white and brunette?"
At this time, a second flight attendant brought Michelle's backpack and knitting to the front of the plane and the Pilot, having heard her side of things said, "don't bring her stuff out." As the second flight attendant began to retreat and replace the belongings, the first flight attendant huddled with the pilot and stopped the second attendant, all the while looking at Michelle with a horrible expression. The second attendant then dumped Michelle's belongings on the floor next to the plane entrance, taking no mind that there was a $2000 camera in that backpack, and went back to retrieve her suitcase and was demanding a detailed description of the case. Apparently, Michelle saying "it's a blue and grey Eddie Bauer case with orange trim in compartment 11 on the left side" was too much for her and she kept shouting, "what parts are orange?," without ever going to look. Michelle then told her, "you might THINK I'm full Chinese and don't understand your English, but I don't know how much more description you need...go look and you'll see it. This was all your guys big idea to kick me off so take care of it for yourself!"
She finally appeared with her bag and Michelle stormed off the gangway towards the gate telling them that they've made a huge mistake and that she would be writing letters to senior management about their racial profiling and discriminatory actions. At the gate, an employee named Alex Legler, found them seats on a flight leaving in 15 minutes. Another gate agent or "specialist" named Bruce West, came and said that he couldn't let us back on our original plane because, "six other passengers said that the girl was telling the truth and they would feel unsafe with us on the plane." Michelle called him a, "liar," and stated that it was impossible because he was only our of her sight on the plane for 2 or 3 minutes and the rest of the time was standing next to the pilot or on the gangway, staring at Michelle and the man. She then told him to keep his pathetic lies to himself and not to speak in her presence again or she'd have him personally sued for defamation of character.
Michelle and the Chinese man were put on the next plane, which actually did leave the gate only 10 minutes after the other plane. One interesting footnote to the story is that, after making her way through LAX and while waiting for her airport shuttle outside the terminal, Michelle heard someone shouting, "DON'T TALK TO ME LIKE THAT!," on their cellphone and the sound of a violent snap of the flip-phone closing. She looked up, being on the phone herself with her stepmother, and uttered, "you're fucking kidding me?," as she laid eyes on the source. The shouting and slamming phone had come from none-other than the girl who caused all the trouble on Flight 468. Michelle really wanted to punch her in the nose, but instead stared until the girl realized who she was. After a flickering smirk, the girl realized she would not get away twice with that attitude and quickly focused her eyes on her own feet as she walked past. Michelle could not resist giving her a few choice words before the girl fled across five lanes of traffic to avoid a confrontation that she knew could not possibly end nicely for her.
A little background on Michelle...she always travels on Alaska Airlines because United sucks and has bumped her one too many times. She has been flying on Alaska for at least 11 years and her great-grandmother ONLY flew on Alaska. Sadly, this incident is going to leave her with only American Airlines, but that's better than flying with racists!
