What to Know
Traveling on an airplane is stressful enough these days. When you book a flight, you never know if it’s going to get canceled at the last minute or if you might get stuck at your destination and have to try and find another way home. Once you’re on the plane and seated, that’s when you should be able to take a moment to breathe. Frustratingly, that was not the case for a woman on a Frontier flight who has gone viral. Things quickly took a turn for her after boarding a flight when she was kicked off for “not listening,” even though she says it was stated on her ticket that she is deaf. Are you as confused as we are? Because, if that’s true, this seems like all sorts of wrong!
In a clip that’s gone viral, a visibly upset Deaf woman is kicked off a flight after being told she wasn’t ‘listening’.
Frontier flight attendant has deaf passenger removed for “not listening”
by u/AsherGray in TikTokCringe
We’ve all been there before. You’re finally seated on a flight and maybe it was a long few hours at the airport and you don’t really have it in you to fully listen to the in-flight safety instructions. It can sometimes be a challenge to stop, engage, and really pay attention, especially if you’ve done it all before.
In this TikTok Cringe thread on Reddit, a viral video was posted of a Deaf woman being kicked off a Frontier Airlines flight for not “listening.” The clip begins with the woman in tears, along with a friend she was traveling with, trying to explain to a flight attendant that she’s deaf, and it even says so on her plane ticket so she would be given proper accommodations.
So yes, there may have been a moment when she wasn’t aware of what was being said by a flight attendant because she has legitimate hearing issues!
The captioning throughout the video explains that she was kicked off by both Frontier flight attendants and the pilot, even though the gate agent who checked her in noted her hearing impediment listed on her ticket. The Deaf woman in the video can be seen crying as she explains that this type of “discrimination” is so “embarrassing.”
This just doesn’t make any sense. Could it be that there was something else at play here?
A rep from Frontier Airlines is telling a bit of a different story.
If you’ve watched the viral video, you know that it’s a very uncomfortable watch. The woman can be seen bawling as she says, “it sucks being deaf.” Seriously, this whole thing does not make Frontier Airlines look very good at all.
That being said, a rep from Frontier Airlines gave a statement to the New York Post that showed the whole situation in a much different light. “According to the flight attendant directly involved in the matter, the passenger boarded with an open container which she admitted contained alcohol when questioned.” The representative went on to explain that this behavior is a violation of federal law and airline policy to bring alcohol aboard a flight. Okay, if this is true, they may have a leg to stand on.
The rep went on to say in their statement that “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 explains that flight crew made the decision to remove the passenger from this flight and rebook her on another.
But what about their treatment of a passenger with a disability? The airline also disputes that there was any disability status listed on her booking or ticket and the woman appeared to be “conversing” with the crew just fine. So, now we’re in the business of surveillancing people’s disabilities? This entire incident takes us into incredibly awkward (and potentially dangerous) territory.
People in the comments tend to side with the passenger who felt discriminated against throughout this uncomfortable incident.
Half of the entertainment value in this sort of viral video is heading to the comments to see what other viewers have to say about the matter. Come on, you know it’s true!
A lot of people in this Reddit thread simply cannot get over the confusion of what was actually happening here. One person said, “Idk. Also, one of the employees was backing her up saying she was deaf, yet Frontier is saying there was no indication of that. It’s not adding up.” Something does seem fishy here.
Another person takes the side of the “little guy” when they state, “I trust the low ranking employee risking her job defending her over the multi-billion dollar company’s legal team cover their a–es.” Honestly, fair point!
Others in the comments can’t get over how “freaking rude” and “discriminatory” this whole interaction was, especially because they noticed that the woman in the video is wearing hearing aids.
Hopefully the woman in the viral video received some kind of apologetic words from the airline after this incident. If we were her, we would not be flying Frontier Airlines again!
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