American Airlines has been forced to publicly apologise after an onboard incident between a passenger and flight attendant was filmed, posted on social media and subsequently went viral.
In the video posted to Facebook – which has been viewed nearly four million times – footage shows a mother-of-two at the front of the plane sobbing as she holds her baby. Initially, it’s unclear why the woman is upset.
However, Surain Adyanthaya, who posted the video to Facebook, said that before the footage, the flight attendant had “violently” taken the stroller, hitting the woman in the process and “just missing her baby”.
In an another post, Adyanthaya wrote they “escorted the mother and her kids off the flight”, letting the flight attendant back on despite the fact he had “tried to fight [another] passenger”.
Another passenger, Olivia Morgan, told KTLA-TV the flight attendant in question was “violent” when taking the stroller.
“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,” she told the news outlet.
“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.”
On its website, American Airlines says a customer is able to carry a “small, collapsible and light stroller” onto the plane. However, any stroller that is “non−collapsible must be checked at the ticket counter”.