Is it just me, or has there been an uptick in airline drama in recent months? First, Alaska Airlines had to kick some misogynist ass — I mean, remove a passenger for catcalling a flight attendant. Then Delta dove straight into a racial-profiling mess by kicking off passengers who were causing "a disturbance," a.k.a. speaking Arabic. And now, Alaska Airlines has removed a passenger for harassing a Trump supporter, Conde Nast Travel reports.
Scott Kotesky was about to fly to Seattle from D.C. after this weekend's inauguration. His seatmate asked Kotesky if he had come to D.C. protest or to cheer. Kotesky posted on Facebook that he had responded with "I came here to celebrate democracy, ma'am." Points for politeness, Scott. It was at this moment that he began filming the interaction.
"She called me names just for sitting down in this seat and saying I came here to celebrate today," he tells the flight attendant in the video. You can watch the entire cringe-inducing scene below.
His seatmate responds: "You pretend you have the moral high ground, but you put that man's finger on the nuclear button. That man doesn't 'believe' in climate change. Do you 'believe' in gravity? Did you know gravity's just a theory?"
Oh, lady. You make such good points. Honestly, I would be saying all those things to this guy, too — in my head. Because it is a rare woman who is not only determined to disrupt and resist, but is determined to do so in a shared three-square-foot space at 30,000 feet for six consecutive hours.
The woman continued her remarks, and Kotesky said she even threatened to vomit on him. Getting a little too extreme, lady. She was eventually removed from the flight and was issued a refund.
Bobbie Egan, Alaska Airlines media director, said that "politics wasn't a factor" in the removal. The decision was based on the amount of disruption the woman was causing all the passengers, the NY Daily News reports.
Moral of the story: A woman's place is in the revolution — a revolution that, preferably, happens peacefully and on solid ground.
Correction: This story originally reported that the unidentified woman had attended this weekend's Women's March; that information is as yet unconfirmed.