In my 17+ years of blogging, this is a first. And if this is all true, I certainly feel bad for the guy, as my goal is never to impact someone’s livelihood. But I’m also not sure what lesson I should take away from this?
Flight attendant claims I got him fired from JetBlue
Back in February, I shared my experience receiving bad service in JetBlue Mint. In the past, I’ve had nothing but praise for JetBlue’s amazing Mint flight attendants, which were somehow in a league of their own. But the flight attendant on this flight was downright unfriendly, based on my experience, and I was curious if there was a general service shift in JetBlue Mint, or if I just got unlucky.
Fast forward nine months, and someone just left a comment on the blog (on a random post from months ago) with the username “the asian male flight attendant you complaint about.” The comment read as follows:
back in February this year you flew jetblue from LAX to FLL redeye, you wrote an article here complaint about you dislike and hatred towards an asian male flight attendant with the intention of getting him fired. why are you racist against asian?
At first I was confused if this was serious, since this just seemed so bizarre and out of left field. But I thought back to the flight, and yes, the flight attendant looked like he could be Asian, so I guess that checks out, since I didn’t mention that detail in the post (of course I didn’t, because it wasn’t a factor in my perception of the service).
Suggesting that I’m racist toward Asians, and particularly that I’m racist toward Asian flight attendants, is kind of wild. I mean, just look at my list of the airlines that I think have the best flight attendants… all five of them are from Asia!
So I responded as follows:
@ the asian male flight attendant you complaint about — I’m not sure if you’re actually the flight attendant I had on my flight (are you?), or are just trolling. Either way, my impression of the service had nothing to do with the ethnicity of the flight attendant, and I don’t know what could possibly give you that impression? Also, my goal is never to get anyone fired. I share my travel experiences online, both good and bad, and I’d hope (especially at a unionized US carrier) that the worst case scenario is that someone gets called in to their manager’s office to discuss the incident, and maybe get a warning, but nothing more.
Then he responded with the following:
not surprised to hear that, that’s what racist do best, hide behind excuses. Just because I refused you to record or use my image, you turn to your platform and falsely accused and wrote negatively about me with the intention of having me fired. Coming from someone who have no legit aviation training, that’s rich.
Wait, what?!? “Just because I refused you to record or use my image.” Let me be 100% clear — I wasn’t reviewing this flight, and that interaction never happened. Period. I just went back to my camera roll, and I took exactly one photo on the flight, which you’ll find below (it was just a picture I was sending Ford to say that I’m in my seat, basically, as I often do).
I wasn’t going to write about this since I didn’t want to get the guy in any more trouble, but then it escalated further, and he commented this:
that shows how little you actually know. because of your article they fired me. they used your article as their reason to which opens your up as liability that caused me harm. your actions caused me harm.
So I responded as follows (at this point he changed his username to tmfa, but was using the same email address and IP):
@ tmfa — When did I try to record you or use your image? That simply didn’t happen, and I don’t know what you’re talking about. And I feel really bad for you if you did in fact lose your job… that’s shocking. They fired you exclusively because of my story? There were no other contributing factors, and you had no previous issues? Did your union try to appeal the decision?
I’d reach out to this person to get more information, but he didn’t use a real email address, as the address he used was my name with some numbers at the end.
I don’t want anyone to lose their livelihood, and I’m confused
It goes without saying that reviewing airlines is one or the things that I do for a living. While I have plenty of criticism for large corporations as such, I think most OMAAT readers would agree that I take an overwhelmingly positive tone with individual, frontline employees. I frequently call out flight attendants by name in a positive way, because I think they deserve recognition, and they work really hard.
My point is to say that it takes a lot for me to write about bad service from a flight attendant. For example, to to the best of my knowledge, my previous post about bad service on an airline involved Oman Air, and a situation that escalated onboard, and got quite awkward. That was in very early 2024. Given how much I fly, I’d say that’s pretty infrequent.
If this flight attendant truly was fired exclusively because of my blog post, then I’m really sad to hear that, and also shocked. I struggle to come to terms with that, since flight attendants at JetBlue are unionized, and a single piece of negative feedback shouldn’t cause someone to lose their job. After all, people have bad days, and maybe he was having a bad day… I get it. People deserve grace.
If this is all true, and he was in fact fired, I would have assumed it’s because of repeated complaints, and maybe my report was the last straw. I don’t know.
So I’m not sure what to make of all of this. I’d like to think that I’m a pretty compassionate person, and that I try to learn from stuff that happens in my life. But I’m sorry, I can’t bring myself to think “well, in the future I just won’t say anything if there’s bad service.”
It’s one thing if I were someone who does anything possible to create drama (not that I can think of anyone like that!), in which case some soul searching might be in order. But that’s not me.
Bottom line
Earlier this year, I wrote about some bad service I received in JetBlue Mint. I fly a lot, so if service stands out so much that I write about it in a negative light, then you really know it wasn’t great. Over nine months later, someone who claims to be that flight attendant is commenting on my blog, claiming my complaint was racially motivated, and that I hated him and wanted to get him fired.
I’m shocked to hear all of this. Yes, the service was bad, but I wouldn’t expect that any US airline would fire a flight attendant after a single piece of negative feedback.
I wish I could follow up with this person, but he hasn’t left a real email, and it’s not like the airline will tell me anything about an internal discipline matter. And this seems to be legitimate and not a prank, in the sense that the flight attendant appeared to be Asian, a detail that’s not relevant and that wasn’t disclosed, but that’s mentioned in the comment.
What do you make of this strange situation? Is there any chance this guy otherwise had a good record, and was fired over my negative post?
