On May 23, a Southwest flight attendant was repeatedly punched in her face after allegedly asking a passenger to keep her seatbelt fastened, leading to her lose two of her teeth, CBS News reported. This is the latest incident in a series of recent on-flight assaults and difficult customer behavior since passengers have returned to travel.
The flight attendant is seen in the obtained video approaching the assailant, identified by CBS News as Vyvianna Quinonez. The passenger then gets up and immediately begins punching her in the face multiple times.
A Black male passenger stepped in to put an end to the assault, yelling at Quinonez, “Sit down! Don’t you dare touch a flight attendant like that! Sit the f*** down!”
Video obtained by CBS News shows the moment a Southwest Airlines flight attendant was punched by a passenger after asking her to keep her seat belt fastened during a flight from Sacramento to San Diego Sunday. https://t.co/gQusevodYC pic.twitter.com/oOYvPdwCFj
— CBS News (@CBSNews) May 27, 2021
The Southwest flight attendant was seen in the video with blood smeared across her face. Quinonez was removed from the flight, arrested and charged with battery after it landed. According to USA Today, the 28-year-old has since been officially banned from boarding any future Southwest flights.
“As we’ve communicated previously, we do have a process to permanently restrict passengers from traveling on Southwest, and please know that the passenger involved in the most recent incident has been advised that she may no longer fly on Southwest Airlines,” Southwest official Sonya Lacore stated in a memo, according to USA Today.
Witness says Southwest Airlines flight attendant provoked violent incident https://t.co/q0tVIMNTGB
— FOX40 News (@FOX40) May 26, 2021
Michelle Manner, the eyewitness who recorded the assault, told a different account of the incident, alleging that the flight attendant provoked Quinonez. She told KTLA, “Vyvianna had said to her three times, that we could hear, ‘Get off of me. Quit touching me. Get your hands off of me.”
Manner added that the initial confrontation was unrecorded but allegedly also involved the flight attendant threatening to call the captain on Quinonez.
“It was so unnecessary,” she continued. “In the first altercation, she had said that she was going to call the captain. And she should’ve just stayed there in her back cubby. But she came back out screaming at them again.”
As many Americans adjust to traveling again after social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic, airline workers have had to deal with tough customers. As many as 2,500 FAA reports have been filed by airlines across the nation in 2021 alone, stating that most passengers have had public blowups over mandatory mask mandates.
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Others have taken things a step further by threatening and assaulting airline workers.
In February, a JetBlue passenger followed a flight attendant to the first-class section and “assaulted the flight attendant by hitting him with her body and almost pushing him into the lavatory,” according to the FAA. A January incident involved an Alaska Airlines passenger who “pushed and/or shoved a flight attendant when flight attendants walked down the aisle to document which passengers were not wearing facemasks.”
Lyn Montgomery, a Southwest flight attendant union official, told CBS about the numerous incidents, “We are asking our carrier, the government and the flying public’s help in ending this epidemic of aggression and assault. Flight attendants are first responders in the sky who are focused on safety.”
“As people return to the skies, we are asking for everyone’s help in complying with flight attendant requests to help ensure a safe and fun atmosphere for all.”
