Passenger berates flight attendant before he’s kicked off plane in dispute over crying baby

A Qantas flight attendant has been filmed having a tense interaction with a passenger, who claims the staff were being rude to his wife and children.

The fiery clash, which was filmed by a passenger and shared on social media, took place on a flight waiting to leave Bali’s Denpasar Airport for Sydney on September 20.

In the footage, the man claimed there was an altercation between the cabin staff and his wife and young children, who he says was teething at the time.

During the argument, he claims the interaction left his wife in tears.

“They made her cry and she’s crying because they were being rude to her. With a newborn baby,” he can be heard telling the flight attendant in the original video.

The argument escalates to the point where the attendant can be seen holding up her hand to the man, while repeatedly asking him to: “Stop”. However, the man continues to demand an apology from the staff.

In a longer-second video shared by the same social media user, the passenger continues to clash with the attendant and refuses instructions to leave the aircraft.

“Unless you carry my kids out, force them out, we’re not leaving,” he says.

At another point, he tells the staff member to: “Bring the police here,” to which the flight attendant responds: “We are.”

The man then continues to argue with the flight attendant, who says he swore and was rude towards the staff.

“I told you sir, you were swearing at my crew,” she says.

“You can’t upset my crew.”

In response, he says: “You’re getting angry at my wife because both of them (their kids) are double teething.”

He then says: “You can’t upset my family and kids. What are you talking about: ‘You can’t upset my crew,’ my wife is crying.”

“Tell security to come and take me by the balls,” he later adds.

Finally, he tells the flight attendant to: “Get out of my face,” before the staff walks away for what appears to be the second time.

In a statement to news.com.au, a Qantas spokesperson says the family was eventually removed from the aircraft after “abusing our crew a number of times prior to the flight departing Bali”.

Under airline procedure, incidents involving abusive or inappropriate behavior is referred to a panel that will decide on further action, which could include a travel ban.

“The safety of our customers and crew is our number one priority and we do not tolerate any kind of abusive behavior,” the spokesperson said.

“We ask customers to follow the direction of crew for the safety and comfort of everyone on board.”

In the comments, users were mixed in their response, with some siding with the airline, while others stated the man was defending his family.

“Idk who’s in fault here, but generally speaking. Airlines quality of service & customer care (towards economy class) are just getting worse every day,” one comment read.

“I would like to see what happened beforehand, but this flight attendant was trying to rev him up!” commented another.

Others disagreed and said the Qantas crew had no choice but to ask the family to leave the flight.

“Do people not realize there is other ways to handle this? She was crying [and] yelling & swearing & holding up the entire plane is the way to handle it?” one comment read.

Agreeing, another user wrote: “People don’t understand that once you start yelling you become a flight risk. They cannot depart with you on board.”

Earlier this month, 1500 of the airline’s domestic cabin staff threatened to go on strike in protest of new enterprise agreements that would increase shift times and decrease rest periods between flights.

The Flight Attendants Association of Australia (FAAA) said two groups of domestic cabin crew had filed applications at the Fair Work Commission to undertake work bans and strikes, that could take place from November 18.

The new agreement could see shifts extended from 9.45 hours to 12 hours for staff working on Qantas’ yet-to-be-launched Airbus A321XLR aircraft, with cabin crew working up to 14 hours in the event of a disruption. Rest periods between shifts could also be reduced to 10 hours, with FAAA national secretary Teri O’Toole fearing the changes could impact the health and safety of passengers and crew.

She also believed the changes would lead to higher leaves of absenteeism among staff due to fatigue, which in turn would create more disruptions across the airline’s flight network.

“Thankfully crew take their first responder responsibilities for passenger safety seriously and are calling out the dangers of this proposal for fatigue management and the devastating impact it can have for safety on aircraft,” she said.

“Workers are already exhausted trying to keep up with demand on a skeleton workforce following cuts to crew numbers per flight and an overenthusiastic redundancy scheme to cull workers and cut costs despite Qantas being the largest recipient of JobKeeper payments.”

In response, a Qantas spokesman previously told Newscorp that negotiations “in good faith” and were still continuing.

“Our focus is on reaching agreement with our people. It’s not our plan to outsource this work,” he said.

“We’re going to keep negotiating in good faith on these agreements because we want our existing crew to operate the new aircraft when they arrive.”