Only in America!
Absolutely not only in America. Ask your local Deaf community about discrimination they experience
It all started when “deaf woman A” looked around and thought everyone was doing yoga.
Cut to steward person, yelling at top of lungs: “brace! Brace! Brace!”
The footage, posted by TikTok user legallyswiftie13, captures a tense exchange between airline staff and passengers on the plane as the woman explains she is deaf and had already noted the accommodation on her ticket.
Frontier Airlines says passengers who are deaf or hard of hearing can request assistance either during booking or through the airline’s “Manage Trips” tool.
According to the airline’s assistance page, crew members can work with travelers to, “establish a way to share important flight information,” once they are on board.
The passenger, who is visibly emotional in the video, repeatedly says she is willing to comply, but feels humiliated by the situation.
“I didn’t do anything wrong,” she says in the clip while gathering her belongings.
The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Air Traveler Disability Bill of Rights states that airline staff who interact with passengers must be trained to recognize and accommodate the needs of people with disabilities.
Lawsuit incoming. Or expect MAGA to overturn the ADA.
expect MAGA to overturn the ADA.
This feels likely.
Lawsuit incoming. Or expect MAGA to overturn the ADA.
That’s literally on their to-do list, aka Project 2025.
She can speak?
She’s deaf not mute.
Don’t downvote this person, not everyone knows. The passenger might not have been deaf their entire life.
Even people who have been deaf since birth can learn to speak by reading lips.
Growing up my neighbors were both deaf from birth and they were able to talk well enough for a child to understand without problems. I was friends with their son and a few times went with their family to gatherings at their friends’ houses where the vast majority of attendees were also deaf.
I haven’t thought about this for a lomg long time and now I need to reflect on how that helped shape me into the person I became.
I regret not learning ASL from them when I probably could have.
I don’t know how but everyone seems to agree that if anything requires effort or some level of complex thought away from routine that it should be banned.
Like how did we come to expect life to be so easy?
And the people with power will push it like it is right.Like how did we come to expect life to be so easy?
By it being so easy for so long. How many people do you know that grow any of their own food? How many people do you know that literally never work out and also don’t have a physically demanding job? We are victims of our own success. And we have had it so long that we expected it to unsustainably continue ad infinitum.
Also the whole being nice requires a step above basic instincts thing, and conservatives are lazy both physically and intellectually.
See, its funny cause this is probably why I don’t fit into the modern western world.
Cause I did not grow up easy. I did/do grow my own food, paid my own way through college with 3 jobs and 2 days of sleep a week and when I had to deal with the fact that I was still broke and unemployable after, I sold myself into indentured servitude and had little control over my life for 6 years before I came back to the US.
I truly can not relate to the life of an average american even if I can empathize that the world sucks. I’m 30 and I joke that I’m 300 at heart.
Do you mean 2 days of sleep per week literally?
Yeah. Wednesday and Saturday.
I worked as a telemarketer from midnight to 8am as one of the jobs and the days I had off were sleep in the middle of the week and so I could have Friday nights to hang with friends.
Definitely do not recommend it, I cried a lot at that time and the lack of sleep was not good and I think it left me with permanent insomnia.
Damn that’s nuts. I worked 96 hours a week (5 8 hour shifts at one job and 7 8 hour shifts at another) for a while when I was younger and I was only sleeping 2-3 hours a day on the five overlap days. That wasn’t sustainable at all and burned me out in six months or so. Clearly you were doing even more, I’m shocked you lived. I hope things are better for you now.
I could only last qbout 8 months doing it all. I kinda didnt survive it. Really changed who I was yet again in my life. But yeah I just got on a boat and sailed away from it all. Worked somewhere that gave me food housing and a routine till I could get better and I would say I am and things are. Thank you. Fuck lack of sleep.
I mean, did you ever have a heart attack, or severe accident?
Anxiety attacks and shortness of breath but nope, no heart attacks. Also horrible depression kicked in at some point.
Did get in lots of physical accidents which I partially attribute to the tiredness. After 8 months of that I quit as a christmas present to myself after almost drowning in a bathtub.
I was a teenager when internet chart rooms were first invented.
I have insomnia now, yeah. Oops…
Accommodating people with disabilities is “woke”.
I think it is just an easy excuse and buzzword for “you slow down our max profit efficiency by not being simple” like there is an automated process that all of life needs to fit into. So you punish them out of existence by them either not participating or worse.
So we will pass laws to make it so we don’t accommodate to squeeze out a little more profit. What a dumb addiction.
True. Making a scene and delaying a flight is a solid strategy for maximizing efficiency and profit.
Reality rarely goes the way those that think they can control others think it will when they try. But not never.
DEI, or whatever stupid new buzzword they’re told to use.
Narcoleptics in shambles!
Accommodating people for no material gain is “woke”.
Being empathetic, reasonable and human is against MAGAts and “woke”.
Isn’t having a member of society being able to participate in that society a material gain? They can’t work and become a tax paying citizen if they can’t take part in the system.
Sounds like she was kicked off for an open beverage, and is trying to leverage her disability. Not sure one equals the other. She was not kicked off for being deaf
She had an alcoholic drink in a cup. Which means she got something in the airport lounge and instead of throwing it out she just downed the last of it before getting on the plane. This is not an unusual thing passengers do it all the time.
And regardless of her personality shitty or otherwise. The crew had no right to kick her off the way they did.
Where is the “downed the last of it before getting on the plane” coming from?
Seems like, from what I read (and correct me if I’m wrong)
- She got on the plane with the alcohol in an open cup
- They said she couldn’t do that (limits on outside alcohol, open drinks in general)
- It escalated because she seemed not to be listening
- She was kicked off because of, at least in theory, the drink thing
Sounds like they still overreacted, but don’t get why parent is being downvotes, or why people are inventing details.
“According to the flight attendant directly involved in the matter, the passenger boarded with an open container which she admitted contained alcohol when questioned. Bringing an open container of alcohol on board violates both Frontier policy and federal law. When the flight attendant informed the passenger of the violation, the passenger rapidly consumed the remaining alcohol in the cup before handing it over,” the airline told Newsweek.
If you read the whole article, you tend to get the whole story.
I mean this sounds pretty relatable for me. No more open container, right?
Unless the rule is you can’t drink outside alcohol on the plane. Then, by drinking it without asking first you are obviously doubling down and being insubordinant.
So you feel that consuming a drink is worthy of forcing someone to leave?
Yeah, they sure aren’t equals, but not in the order you think those two are.
No, I’m saying she wasn’t kicked off for being deaf.
It seems a probable case is she misunderstood or misheard what was being said to her as “she needs to finish the drink” and complied with the request she thought was being given to her.
Heck, even as a hearing person, if someone told me I can’t have an open beverage in a space (alcoholic or not), finishing it seems like a reasonable way to be rid of it.
yeah and they sneakily wrote that at the end of the article, and it worked because the whole comment section have been successfully rage-baited. The whole situation have been likely missmanaged, but being deaf have little to do with the story…
How does finishing an airport beverage get you kicked off a plane? I once brought a 5lb loaf of bread on in my lap and nibbled on it for the whole flight.
The disability is the only thing left after you remove the likeliness that she isn’t the first and only person to do this. Personality thrown to the side since rude/dumb people have also existed forever.
I agree it’s not enough to cast judgement here, but it’s enough of an omission for me to wonder what happened before the video starts (what else has been left out), so I’m not comfortable making any judgements. It’s much bigger than bread because bread isn’t illegal and alcohol isn’t bread especially at high altitudes: https://www.fodors.com/news/wine-and-cocktails/why-you-cant-drink-your-own-alcohol-on-airplanes . (The plane hadn’t taken off yet but it would.)
Well, there’s the people on the plane right there who are advocating for her. I rather doubt they would be stepping up to her defense if she was being a complete asshole to the crew.
that plus the gate attendant. but still, the passenger reactions could be explained by them only starting to pay attention when she started to cry (and not whatever before) and we don’t really hear how the flight attendant appeared to exchange, so an unsure partial story
I know airlines must accommodate people with disabilities, but for this flight attendant they should probably make an exception.
Why? I’m following the Reddit convention of replying before I watch the video, but
- a lot can be communicated by gestures and touch
- surely the flight attendant has or can get an effing smartphone to type or translate
In your defense, I didn’t get the joke either, until reading the replies to your comment.
They’re calling the flight attendant the one with the disability lol
Whoosh
You could have at least read the comment you were replying to
I watched the video when it came out. The first couple sentences the woman speaks do sound as if she’s deaf - but then she sounds progressively less deaf as the disagreement goes on. As the public spat continued, I visited her TikTok account and (as of yesterday), she’s pinned this December 2024 video where she says the ear doctor told her she’s losing her hearing, and you’ll notice she’s speaking pretty normally.
I have friends and relatives who have become increasingly hard of hearing as they aged, including a couple that have gone completely deaf, and none of them have that “lost hearing before learning to speak” deaf ‘accent’. That’s because their brain and muscles remember what the movements for those words sound like. They do tend to lose verbal ‘crispness’ over time, but it takes years. So right off the bat, she was implicitly exaggerating her ‘hearing loss’ in the viral video.
Someone on yesterday’s reddit thread commented in part
I went down a rabbit hole of her TikTok, and she’s a disgusting person personality wise. ALWAYS playing the victim. […] We don’t know what led up to this. I hear them constantly bring up “accommodations”. My bet is she was making a scene about her “accommodations” and during that the attendant saw the cup. Rather deal with someone whose drunk […] [they] decided to kick her off so she can […] calm down.
To which someone else replied
I used to follow her TikTok (until I realized she is super annoying) and she is both a law student and is rather litigious in general. She’s involved in a variety of legal issues with her HOA (which was the story that initially got me to follow, admittedly but it’s no longer interesting).
I’m betting that this isn’t the only person who’s found her annoying and the HOA storyline now boring and she’s lost followers, and this is her latest attempt to
recoup followersgrift.I mean, possibly (I have heard dumber shit before), but that’s a huge stretch. I’m physically disabled myself, and to hatch a plan for staff to agitate me over a small issue, wasting hours of my time in the process and possibly spending/not recouping hundreds of dollars, so it can escalate and theoretically begin a legal battle, capturing an audience in the process… Nah, that’s way too far out there. That’s Dale Gribble levels of planning, I tell ya hwat.
I never said it was planned, just that I have doubts that the story she’s presented on her video channel is the full story.
Validism is real
Unfortunately I’m not even remotely surprised. Deaf and hard of hearing people are often targets of people who can’t handle someone not doing what they say. Once those people feel their words aren’t being shown proper deference some of them can’t/won’t stop their emotional response to regain dominance. Inability to comply (especially in someone who appears capable) becomes refusal in their eyes, and they’ll just stretch it back to something we should have done to prevent them from feeling insubordinated. Cops are notorious for it.
I’d never even thought that one might need to tell an airline that you’re Deaf. It’s a difficult experience as someone hard of hearing, but it’s difficult in the way dealing with the DMV is. Ideally you have a hearing person with you, and if not you bring a pen and paper to communicate when you need a shoulder tapped, and just run by context cues and writing for the rest.
I hope this lady consented to being recorded and posted
the video caption is first-person
I hope this lady consented to being recorded and posted
the video caption is first-person
I’m not sure how that answers the important question.
first person implies she uploaded the video herself
Big lawsuit in Seattle some years back as a police officer shot a deaf man in the back for noncompliance.
Let me guess, judge ruled in favor of the cop?
Sounds like a plot from a cheap comedy.
Like most of our lives right now anyway.
Bitch!
The whole thing is so silly. Wasting everyone’s time instead of ignoring a single drink someone walked on. Is it truly worth 20-30 minutes from 100+ people, yourself included, if a person has a drink? That stewardess must have had a rough week to have made such a fuss over an inconsequential lie by omission. Even worse if she did this *GAG* for the company.
instead of ignoring a single drink
We have no idea how many drinks she had before getting on the plane. Perhaps the flight attendant didn’t want to deal with an argumentative, potentially drunk passenger in addition to her other duties.
There is always someone who takes the side of the oppressor over the victim under the guise of “we just don’t know for sure”.
Am I not allowed to look at her video history where she’s always the victim, note the fall in the number of her followers (until this video came out), look at the video that she edited and put online, notice discrepancies in that video, and think, “There may be more to this than just what she’s chosen to show us”? Because that’s where I am.
Correct. You cannot make an assertion about whether someone had more drinks prior based on their Tik Tok history.
What if their whole tiktok history is them discussing their journey to consume more alcoholic beverages before a flight, and they’re currently at a 7 drink record?
Watch the video. She’s apologetic, quiet, and pretty candidly sad. Her speech is a bit peculiar, but that’s solely to do with her deafness, which would cause most people to reassess the situation. Were I watching this unfold, deaf person or not, I’m counting the entire situation as worth less than none of my time. Post-deafness realization, I’m asking a coworker to cover that side of the plane for me.
I have watched the video, and I’ve watched a couple others on her channel. She doesn’t speak like that normally, she’s exaggerating it for the views. And the only video we’ve seen is the one she’s chosen to put online (with her own edits), which will naturally portray her as in the right.
Apparently she’s a law student, very litigious, and has been losing followers because her ongoing saga with the HOA board has become “boring”.
That’s a reasonable point. When the entire video eventually makes its way out, I’d be able to offer a more comprehensive moral opinion. If video of her being belligerent begins circulating, I’m with the stewardess on the ejection.
But as it stands, my holistic impression is just to let things like this pass. It’s not worth putting yourself in a quagmire for a company.
But if we kicked all the drunk people off of planes who would fly it?
Yeah, even if she downed an open beverage before/while boarding I don’t get how that is different from all the other people practically doing shots with added anxiety meds at every airport I have ever been too.
Disposal by aggressive rapid consumption is like an American right of passage.Exactly. If she had downed it 3 mins earlier, it would have been 100% kosher? Not worth my time.
Task failed successfully?
Wow. Terrible experience but she just won the lottery, that lawsuit will allow her to retire comfortably.
I train guide dog puppies. From the moment they start training they are legally guide dogs. When they are with me, I’m considered legally blind. In this country, denying entrance into a public/commercial space carries a minimum 6.000€ fine. Judges can go up 5 figures.
5 figures is not “set for life” money like everyone seems to be suggesting
“Allow her to retire comfortably”
The debatable part is if they meant immediately retire. Which 5 figures will not let you do. But will it allow her to retire eventually comfortably?
10 year US bond is 4.2%
Let’s say she is 30.
Retirement age is 67. So 37 years until retirement.
6,000€ ×5 is ~$35,000
$35,000 at 4.2% interest for 37 years is $160,388.66 (This isn’t taking into consideration reinvesting the 4.2% interest after 10 years, but also ignoring things like taxes)
But getting $160k when you retire would allow a lot of people to retire comfortably.
mmm catfood
Inflation will eat a good of that
getting $160k when you retire would allow a lot of people to retire comfortably.
you expect to live 20 more years on $160K?
@wavebeam Are people actually suggesting that?
Is that retirement money? Because that’s what was stated above.
“Allow her to retire comfortably” is what was stated above.
The debatable part is if they meant immediately retire. If she saves it for retirement then it is “retirement money”
But will it allow her to retire eventually comfortably?
10 year US bond is 4.2%
Let’s say she is 30.
Retirement age is 67. So 37 years until retirement.
6,000€ ×5 is ~$35,000
$35,000 at 4.2% interest for 37 years is $160,388.66 (This isn’t taking into consideration reinvesting the 4.2% interest after 10 years, but also ignoring things like taxes)
But getting $160k when you retire would allow a lot of people to retire comfortably.
That’s like 4 years of income at a poverty level…
Having 160k + Regular retirement > Regular retirement
Yeah so not retirement money lol
In the footage, a gate agent appears to advocate for the passenger while the flight crew insists she must leave aircraft.
Pretty sure I’d get up and walk off the plane. Not sure I wanna be on that flight with that flight crew.
Not sure what these douche bags were thinking. Great advertisement to NOT fly Frontier though.
Frontier is the Spirit of budget airlines lol
I’m a pilot (not commercial) and if you’re still flying Frontier then that is kind of on you.
If you go to a party, how will you know which person is a pilot?
If they don’t flat out tell you, it’s usually the drunkest one there
As a former flight attendant I can attest to this. If people knew how often their pilots used the cockpit O2 to cure hangovers there would be a lot less people comfortable with flying. At least in the US, that is. I can’t speak for other countries.
I dont know, how?
I dunno if you’re being facetious, but it’s their entire personalities and all they talk about… In my experience, in general. No offense to pilots who don’t do this. How people describe marathon runners and vegans.
I use Arch, by the way.
(I don’t, I used Debian. It just fit.)
I was trying to set you up for the punch line, but this works too, lol.
“They’ll tell you”
I don’t fly often… like maybe once every few years. And when I do my boss usually books the flight since It’s work related and it’s usually American or Southwest.
Is Frontier that bad?
Yes. The last time i flew Frontier they had such a long delay it would have been faster to walk. No that is not an exaggeration.
I have to ask what the flight was
Slc to smf. Detour in Denver, delayed 12 hours, got into a different flight to oak instead of smf, delayed another 6 hours.
I am ungenerous with my accounting, but I can make it on foot from oak to smf in 18 hours and that’s what I’m counting (it’s just under 100 miles, I am assuming I will die the next day like all ultra marathon folk)
F - tier Only time I flew with them I had a layover. 1st flight was late. My wife was visibly, 7 months pregnant. Hurried to the connection’s gate. They closed it as we approached. People waiting in line to board on the other side of the gate, about 20ft away. Wouldn’t let us board.
No flight till 24hrs later. Said they’d cover the hotel but never got us vouchers. Had to get the credit card company to dispute the charge. Next day they charged us for carry on that was free on the first flight. Trip was for my grandma’s funeral. Made the funeral but lost an entire day with extended family.
IDK if I’ve ever hated a company or it’s staff more than that. So many layers of incompetence from different staff. Clearly a systemic problem.
Flying in the USA is the worst. Your airports are shit, your airlines are shit, your TSA is shit, it’s all just a gigantic pile of shit over there.
It is a low cost airline like Spirit.
So yes.
Pretty sure I’d get up and walk off the plane. Not sure I wanna be on that flight with that flight crew.
IANAL but it might be better for the future lawsuit to be forced off.
No I meant just as a sympathetic passenger.
You’re likely totally right about the deaf person.
Oh durr, yep, agree…not the flying experience I’d want.
But you still paid money for that flight and you don’t get to your destination?
I’m sure one could stir up enough of a shit storm in this situation to get a different flight
Oh geez, frontier claims she brought an open container onboard and that’s why she was removed, not because of being deaf.
Wonder who’s side of the story is true, witnesses’ will come forward and this lady may get a huge lawsuit, or nothing. Only time will tell.
