American Airlines is investigating after video went viral showing one of its employees allegedly hitting a mother with her baby’s stroller and nearly hitting the child in the process.
Surain Adyanthaya, a passenger on the flight from San Francisco to Dallas/Ft. Worth, posted the video along with the caption: “OMG. Flight attendant violently took a stroller from a lady with a baby on my flight, hitting her and just missing the baby. Then he tried to fight a passenger who stood up for her.’’
The video does not show the woman being hit but does show her sobbing. That’s when another passenger steps in, saying, “You do that to me and I’ll knock you flat. You almost hurt a baby.”
“Stay out of it,” the employee responds.
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Olivia Morgan was standing in the doorway of the flight when the incident occurred and recalled, “The flight attendant wrestled the stroller away from the woman, who was sobbing, holding one baby with the second baby in a car seat on the ground next to her.”
“He stormed by me with the stroller and I said something like, ‘What are you doing? You almost hit that baby!’ And he yelled at me to ‘stay out of it!’ just like he does in the video,” she said.
Morgan spoke with the mother in the video, who said that a flight attendant had told her that she could look for overhead space to store her stroller, because it folded up small.
“She was looking for space when the male attendant tried to take it away from her… and she said she told him the other attendant had told her it was okay to look,” Morgan said.
American Airlines has since released a statement saying that they will be investigating the incident.
“The actions of our team member captured here do not appear to reflect patience or empathy, two values necessary for customer care. In short, we are disappointed by these actions,” American said in a statement. “The American tam member has been removed from duty while we immediately investigate this incident.”
