Nicolas Economou/NurPhoto via Getty Images
- A Delta passenger accused a flight attendant of telling his wife she had a “stupid face.”
- The passenger says his family was ultimately kicked off the flight from Florida to New York.
- “We’ve been in contact with this party to offer further apologies and compensation,” Delta said.
A Delta passenger alleged that an “out of control” attendant on a flight from Florida to New York “verbally assaulted and threatened” him and his wife — and told his spouse that she had a “stupid face” before the family was “wrongly” booted off the plane.
Thomas Todd recently spoke out via Facebook about the November 7, 2022, ordeal aboard Flight 1260 from Orlando to LaGuardia Airport in which he accused a flight attendant of telling his wife, Jen, that “her face looked stupid” twice.
“We were threatened and informed she is from the Bronx,” Todd said of the flight attendant in a January 30 post on Facebook. “She had the plane turned around and we were told to get off.”
“Our two kids were also removed from the plane and watched as we were verbally assaulted and threatened,” he said.
Todd posted a video to Twitter showing the flight attendant saying, “I will turn this plane back and get you off.”
“Don’t do it. Don’t press my buttons. You got the wrong one today,” the attendant can be heard saying.
Todd replied, “I have you on video saying my wife has a stupid face,” prompting the flight attendant to say: “I don’t care. You’re being rude, rude, rude since the moment of the back.”
According to the blog View from the Wing, the commotion began after Todd and his wife, who were seated in Delta’s Comfort Plus, tried to use space for carry-on bags in the overhead bins reserved for first-class passengers.
The couple was told by a flight attendant that they were not allowed to use the first-class storage space, according to the blog.
—Thomas Todd (@TTTwitty74) January 30, 2023
Todd told View from the Wing that as the flight safety instructions were about to begin both in-person and on video, the flight attendant told him it was “very rude for me to watch the video and I might learn something” from watching her.
“So I pointed out that I was indeed watching the TV in front of me to the left,” the man said. “So then she looks at Jen and says, ‘don’t look at me with that stupid face.’ Jen looks at her and ask [sic] her what she just said and then the lady says that she is from the Bronx and you don’t want this.”
That’s when Todd says he began recording the confrontation, and shortly after, the family was kicked off the plane.
Delta told Insider in a statement on Tuesday: “We apologize for the delay in travel for all customers on flight 1260 from Orlando to LaGuardia on Nov. 7, 2022, after the flight crew made the decision to deplane some customers shortly after departure.”
The airline added, “Those customers were rebooked on another Delta flight and we’ve been in contact with this party to offer further apologies and compensation.”
Initially, after the incident, Todd accused Delta on Twitter of “dragging their feet” when responding to the incident.
On Facebook, Todd added, “It seems all they wanted to do is let time play out and hope we forget and go away.”
Todd did not immediately return requests for comment by Insider on Tuesday.
