An OMAAT reader shared an experience with me that he had on Qatar Airways, whereby the very loud guy seated across from him became verbally abusive, down to telling him to “shut [his] f**king mouth.” He asks for my take on this situation, so let’s get into it…
Loud Qatar Airways passenger called out, becomes threatening
An OMAAT reader who asked to remain anonymous shared the following experience with me, about a disruptive group seated near him in Qatar Airways business class, who refused to quiet down, and even became (what I’d consider to be) pretty verbally abusive:
Upon boarding my Qsuites flight to Jakarta, I settled into to the rear cabin. I had a truly excellent crew, which I knew off the bat. Then come along six Saudis taking up the middle seats, rows 8, 9, and10 (center section). They were talking extremely loudly to the point where the FA came over to tell them to lower their voices (keep in mind it’s 2AM at this point). One minute later, they continue, and I ask them politely “I say this with respect, but it’s 2AM, do you kind please not shouting, thank you”. They replied “no problem”
All okay right? Nope. As we pushback, these people are strolling around the aisles shouting again. I’m shattered. Then they sat down. Then they got back up as we started our taxi and I flagged down the FA. FA told them to sit down. Tw0 minutes later, he’s back up and hovering around my Qsuite and I politely said “the plane is moving, do you mind sitting down and getting out of my personal space.” Now here is where it gets good.
His response: “shut your f**king mouth, you’re not the commander. Shut up now.” At this point he was standing maybe one foot away from me screaming this in my face. He kept going on and on until the cabin crew told him to sit down.
Now, I fly 150-160x per year to war zones for my job, but this was the first time in my life on plane where I felt scared. Truly scared. I talked to the purser about returning to the gate as with a full flight, and sitting across from him, I did not feel safe. At all. While they were very happy to do so, I decided against it for the sake of not delaying 351 souls onboard, even though I’m still wary sitting in this seat.
Cabin crew were amazing. Truly. The purser kept coming back and apologized profusely for their behavior even though I kept saying “it’s not your guys fault,” but she said her policy is unless it’s physical, she can’t do anything.
So I guess my question is, how on earth is any of this allowed? It’s no fault of QR crew here, but if someone verbally threatens you, they should be disembarked, no?
Purser has logged it, FA heard it, my only regret was not returning to the gate. Hearing a volatile individual screaming at me to “shut my f**king mouth” sitting next to me is beyond me. This isn’t against the crew; but these things should be taken more seriously at QR I guess.
What can we make of this uncomfortable interaction?
Yowzers, this sounds like an unpleasant situation. I’d like to address this more from a practical standpoint of how things are, rather than how things should be:
- Personally, I never engage directly with passengers if I have an issue, and always go through the crew, for exactly this reason; it shouldn’t be that way, but you never know how crazily people will respond to something, and a confined metal tube where someone is seated just feet from you isn’t the place to find out
- As great as service can be on Qatar Airways, there’s definitely a bit of a culture of fear in terms of enforcing rules, and the potential repercussions if people complain; this is one of those situations where you almost wish you were on a US airline with a no-nonsense crew
- While the claim is that the passengers in question were Saudi and this was on Qatar Airways, there’s no denying that “local” (or in this case, regional) guests generally get more respect from crews, or at least are more feared
- I have to be honest — Qatar is a place where I wouldn’t want to return to the gate and potentially have the police get involved in a dispute, given all the stories of that not ending well for foreigners, non-Arabic speakers, etc.
So this passenger did nothing wrong, and he was for sure the victim here. While I wouldn’t have made the comment directly to the passenger in the first place (not because it was unreasonable, but because I’d fear exactly this outcome), I would’ve otherwise handled this the same, and wouldn’t have tried to push for a return to the gate. I totally get how he felt uncomfortable, and it’s a shame that there was no way to be reseated, or anything along those lines.
I really feel bad for the situations Qatar Airways crews are sometimes put in, where they almost fear being punished if they enforce basic standards. As much as I dislike the lack of deescalation skills some flight attendants in the United States have, there’s something very satisfying about true jerks getting kicked off planes.
Bottom line
A Qatar Airways business class passenger asked the person seated across from him to quiet down (after being told to do so repeatedly by the crew), and that caused a hostile response, telling him to “shut [his] f**king mouth.”
Nobody should have to tolerate this kind of behavior, but some people are just extremely rude, and you ideally don’t want to find that out in a confined metal tube, before you’re about to sleep next to that person for hours.
For me, this is a reminder of why I never directly confront other passengers. And also specifically in the Gulf region, I’ll do anything to avoid conflict with someone from the region, anything that could lead to the police getting involved, etc.
How would you have handled this situation?