A Mile High Clubbing

July 20, 2004 10:53 AM

Flight crew beat up passenger: Drunken passengers often give air crews trouble, but Russia's leading airline today reported an 'unprecedented' reversal: a passenger was assaulted by intoxicated flight attendants. (via failure)
posted by fizz-ed (11 comments total)

Russia isn't exactly known for warm and friendly customer service (when McDonald's opened up in Moscow they had a hard time convincing employees that they should smile at customers) but this really takes the cake.
posted by orange swan at 10:57 AM on July 20, 2004

Just ... can't ... resist ... 'In Soviet Russia...' line ... struggling ... to ... pull ... self ... from ... keyboard ... AAAAARGH!
posted by syscom at 10:58 AM on July 20, 2004

It's kind of nice to get back to "normal" air travel news like this.
posted by DrJohnEvans at 10:59 AM on July 20, 2004

posted by jon_kill at 11:07 AM on July 20, 2004

In Soviet Russia Drudge report link posts you!
posted by xmutex at 11:10 AM on July 20, 2004

She said the crew belonged to another airline, Aviaenergo.

Dannenberg said that the plane was carrying out an Aeroflot flight, but both the aircraft and the crew belonged to Aviaenergo.
Seems the passengers were booked on one airliner yet were flown by another. Heck, how often in the work place is work done well when it was sloughed onto another co-worker.
posted by thomcatspike at 11:30 AM on July 20, 2004

As someone who enjoys black humor, I'm tempted to laugh at this whole scenario, but the alcohol abuse statistics and number of deaths-by-consumption in Russia every year are just tragic. A fews after the USSR crumbled I remember reading about "bodies in the street" belonging to dead alcoholics that had to be swept up, and in the more povery-stricken areas it was said that stories about cannibalism "didn't even make the news anymore". This is not to say these stewards were alcoholics in that sense, but it's just a reminder of what an epidemic that exists there.
posted by dhoyt at 11:58 AM on July 20, 2004

Seems the passengers were booked on one airliner yet were flown by another.

"Aeroflot has been contracting out from Aviaenergo since August 2003"

This is a relatively common practice, even in the US. I think it's pretty unfair to use this as an excuse for the behavior. The fact that this has been going on for almost a year with no other incidents makes it even worse.
posted by esch at 12:00 PM on July 20, 2004

jon_kill, that's not even a soviet poster originally. It's British, and it reads "women of britain, come into the factories." I know that because there's a framed copy of it in my living room.
posted by Mayor Curley at 4:15 PM on July 20, 2004

I bet there are a lot of people who work as aircrew cheering about this, after having to control their own impulses to throttle some arsehole so many times.
posted by dg at 7:10 PM on July 20, 2004

Mayor Curley, I neither agree nor disagree with you, but will point out that that girl is clearly bored with Russia.... bored with Russia, hanging out in Stalin square, I said she's bored with Russia, bored with Russia, you don't talk and I don't care...
posted by jon_kill at 6:02 AM on July 21, 2004