Cabin crew salute NY hero Steven Slater who slid out of job

Mumbai: Each time an aircraft's inflatable emergency evacuation slide is deployed, it has to make news. But no slide has ever been rolled down to arrest the salaried lot's attention, the way the one on Jetblue's flight 1052 did after cabin crew member Steven Slater deployed it to make the most dramatic walkout an employee must have made from a job.
If you have not yet been clued in on the latest commoner-who-turned-hero- overnight episode, then here is the story. Jetblue's flight attendant Slater instructs an errant passenger to sit down after she gets up to retrieve her luggage. The passenger defies him. He walks up to the passenger only to get hit on head with the luggage that was being pulled out. Slater demands an apology and gets verbally abused instead. He goes to the aircraft's public-address system and curses the passenger for all to hear. Then, after declaring that 20 years in the airline industry was enough, he activates the inflatable evacuation slide at a service exit, grabs two cans of beer, exits and goes home.
Overnight, Steven has become a cult icon in America. New York Times asked its readers to write in their meltdown moments. On Facebook, Slater has been cruising at an incredible speed of 100 friends a minute.
Slater's unique way of fighting the blues has struck a chord with the employed lot worldwide. In India, it is only in training school advertisements that the job of a flight attendant is considered glamorous. The real life as seen from behind those thick mascara-ed eyelashes is anything but rosy.
"Slater is our icon. He has done what I could only think of. We all have our lists of horrible passenger incidents,'' says a 24-year-old flight attendant working with a low-cost airline. "What no one spoke about is the attitude airlines have towards problems faced by flight attendants when dealing with passengers. We are asked to turn a blind eye. The Jetblue passenger who started it all has got away, though she broke rules,'' she adds.
12/08/10 Times of India

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Categories: Foreign Aug 2010