Salon.com > Steven Slater

JetBlue: Passenger accounts differ from Slater’s

Fri, 13 Aug 2010 16:44:07 +0000

An internal memo from JetBlue condemns flight attendant Steven Slater's deploying of a plane's emergency slide and says the airline still doesn't know what prompted his now-famous exit.

In a memo obtained by The Associated Press, JetBlue's chief operating officer says the airline is still investigating the incident, but that no one has yet corroborated Slater's version of events.

Slater's attorney says an uncooperative passenger prompted his behavior. In the memo, JetBlue, based in Forest Hills, N.Y., says several passengers on the Monday flight "have given interviews that tell a different story."

Slater has been hailed as a hero on social networking sites for what seems to be the ultimate "take this job and shove it" moment.

The occasional Steven Slater shouldn’t surprise us

Thu, 12 Aug 2010 01:01:00 +0000

The story of Steven Slater, the renegade JetBlue flight attendant who slid his way into infamy, is a strange sort of commentary on the stresses of air travel -- stresses that affect frazzled fliers and airline personnel both. (Ironically, this is something I touched on just a couple of weeks ago in my own story -- the one about Angry Dude and Lulu the Loafing Stewardess. The Slater incident, though, with its blogosphere-perfect theatrics, has millions of people talking.)

Let's take the airline worker first. Over the past decade crew members have seen wages fall by as much as 40 percent. Benefits have been slashed, pensions gutted. A certain occupational disillusionment has crept in, leaving many employees feeling battered, cheated and worried about the future. As for flight attendants specifically, I cannot speak personally for the job's many challenges, protected as I am, so to speak, by the flight deck door. But consider for a minute what it is that flight attendants do for a living: Their primary responsibility, as we all know, is one of safety. In practice, however, the bulk of what they do revolves around managing and supervising a very large number of suspicious, agitated, uncomfortable people -- some of whom are any combination of intoxicated, belligerent and scared out of their minds. The occasional Steven Slater should hardly surprise us.

Before flying was bad: My glory days as a flight attendant

Wed, 11 Aug 2010 23:45:00 +0000

The men came in dark suits, striped ties, white shirts. The women wore suits too -- with floppy ties and high-collared blouses, or wide-legged pants and tunic tops. Even the children dressed up. Little girls in party clothes, boys in sherbet-colored Polo shirts and khaki pants. This was 1978, when flying was still an occasion, a special grand event that took planning and care. I worked as a TWA flight attendant then. I stood in my Ralph Lauren uniform at the boarding door and smiled at the passengers through lips coated with lipstick that perfectly matched the stripe on my jacket. Mostly, the passengers smiled back.

For eight years I walked the aisles of 747s and 707s and L1011s in my high heels, handing out menus and magazines, playing cards and stationery. Back then, cocktails came with a red stir rod shaped like a propeller and there were three choices of entrees on flights over four hours -- in coach. We served after-dinner drinks on a cart topped with dry ice we'd sprinkled with water to create fog and passed pale green mints on a silver tray. In first class, we laid the linen napkins on tray tables, making certain the TWA logo was in the bottom right corner, mixed martinis and dressed lamb chops in gold foil stockings.

Traveler: Jet Blue flight attendant’s curses drew laughs

Wed, 11 Aug 2010 22:56:00 +0000

Passengers on a plane on which a flight attendant infamously had a meltdown gasped and then giggled after he dropped the F-bomb repeatedly over the loudspeakers, a traveler aboard the flight says.

The seatbelt light had gone off for the JetBlue flight from Pittsburgh to New York, and most passengers were scrambling for their carry-on bags when the announcement came over the intercom. Using three obscenities, the flight attendant told a passenger who he said had cursed him out exactly where she could go, Kati Doebler said.

"Everyone kind of gasped," Doebler told The Associated Press on Wednesday. "The passengers all started to giggle a little bit."

Doebler, a Pittsburgh website developer, didn't see who was speaking on the intercom at the end of JetBlue Flight 1052 on Monday. She and most others now know it was Steven Slater, a 38-year-old airline veteran who prosecutors say followed up his comments with a quick exit down the plane's emergency slide.

Slater's, uh, unusual departure from his job has made him a cult hero to some, for leaving in a way that many only dream of. It also brought him legal trouble, as he was charged with criminal mischief, reckless endangerment and trespassing.

JetBlue attendant could get prison for grand exit

Tue, 10 Aug 2010 22:22:00 +0000

No fed-up worker has ever said "I've had it" quite like Steven Slater.

Prosecutors say the JetBlue flight attendant flipped out over a fight with an agitated traveler Monday, cursing at the passengers before grabbing some beer from the plane's galley and making a grand exit down the emergency slide at Kennedy Airport. He has been charged with felonies and elevated to folk-hero status by thousands who shrugged off allegations that Slater endangered others and praised him for his take-this-job-and-shove-it moment.

Slater, whose father was an airline pilot, wore a slight smile Tuesday as he was led into a Queens courtroom to be arraigned on charges of criminal mischief, reckless endangerment and trespassing, counts that carry a maximum penalty of seven years in prison. The judge set his bail at $2,500, which remained unpaid late Tuesday afternoon.

The 38-year-old airline veteran, who lives steps from the beach in Queens a few miles from the airport, had been flying long enough to see much of the gleam of the air travel experience tarnished by frayed nerves, rising fees, plummeting airline profits and packed cabins.

Steve Slater: Working-class angst goes viral

Tue, 10 Aug 2010 15:11:00 +0000

Steven Slater is the Susan Boyle of fed-up employees. On Monday morning, he was just a regular underappreciated working stiff. By evening, he was a viral sensation, the man who stepped up to a microphone and did what so many of us have dreamed of doing -- only bigger, better and more dramatically than we'd probably ever imagined. Oh, he dreamed a dream, all right.

But as you've no doubt read via the news story forwarded round the world, Mr. Slater is no shy British lady with musical aspirations. He was, until very recently, a JetBlue flight attendant. While a flight from Pittsburgh to New York was taxiing on the runway around noon yesterday, as is the custom on planes everywhere, a passenger jumped up to get her belongings from the overhead before the captain had turned off the seat belt sign. Slater asked her to sit down. The passenger refused, and her luggage hit Slater in the head. And when Slater's demand for an apology was allegedly met with a "Fuck you," he didn't respond with a tight-slipped smile and a "Buh bye."

Steven Slater, folk hero

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 23:10:00 +0000

On Monday afternoon, Steven Slater, a 38-year-old JetBlue flight attendant, quit his job at Kennedy Airport by opening a plane's emergency exit and jumping down the escape slide.

Reports claim that as the Embraer ERJ-190 taxied to the gate after landing, a passenger stood up and began pulling his luggage from the overhead bin. When Slater asked the man to be seated, the man refused. Slater approached, and as the man continued removing his bags, one of them inadvertently struck Slater in the head. A "heated exchange" ensued in which the passenger called Slater a "motherfucker."

Slater then walked to the back of the plane, cursed at the man over the public address system and opened a rear exit, automatically deploying the inflatable escape slide. After jumping down the slide, he walked into the terminal and made his way to employee parking, throwing his company necktie to the ground. Then he drove home.

Slater was arrested shortly afterward, charged with reckless endangerment, criminal mischief and trespassing. (The latter presumably refers to Mr. Slater's unauthorized excurision onto the tarmac.)