A courageous flight attendant from Tui took a stand against a group of unruly and racist passengers who were causing disturbances during a flight. She firmly asserted, ‘enough is enough,’ addressing the disruptive individuals.
She firmly instructed, ‘This is a family flight. Everybody needs to quiet down, stay calm, and behave properly. If I hear any more inappropriate comments, I will contact the pilots, and law enforcement will be involved. I will not tolerate any more misbehavior. Keep it down, behave, or I will take action.’
The attendant’s bold response, supported by those present, was captured on video by a passenger. The passenger informed MailOnline Travel that the group had caused disturbances throughout the flight and directed racist slurs towards her and her British-Iranian fellow travelers, using derogatory language and telling them to ‘go back to their own country.’
The Christmas Eve 2023 flight, from London Gatwick to Lanzarote, ended for this group with a police escort to their hire car.
They then had to fly back with the bullying passengers – and claim that Tui’s response has been ‘appalling’.
The filmmaker, whose social media handle is @Zaypip and who posted the clip to her TikTok account for the first time earlier this month, told MailOnline that while her group – her six-year-old niece, husband, brother and sister – received racist abuse, from the outset ‘no-one was happy with the way these passengers were behaving’.
She explained: ‘They occupied several rows, including the one immediately behind us, and their kids were running along the aisle and the adults were shouting across to their kids and each other.
‘The passengers on the flight were not comfortable to begin with. Everyone was looking at them.
‘We normally talk in English but switched to Farsi for a minute. They started called us “P***s” and being very rude because we changed our language. They were swearing and telling us to go back to our country.
‘They were threatening to beat me up, break my glasses. And they had been kicking and punching our seats. Everyone was sick and tired of it. We just wanted to sit in peace and enjoy our holiday.
‘We’re regular travellers and we’ve never been on a flight like that before. The abuse had been going on from the very start of the flight. The airline should have done something about it.
‘We had to wait for everyone to get off the plane. And we had to wait for the police to escort us to our hire car in case they attacked us.’
During the holiday, Zaypip’s niece and sister then saw the bullying passengers during a camel ride experience, with the group sent into a panic that they would be targeted again.
Zaypip said: ‘We were petrified that this group would smash our hire car up or something.’
On the journey back, the party of bullying passengers sat around Zaypip’s group at the gate, so she alerted staff and the flight crew were informed.
They were told by the captain to board first and that the plane would immediately divert at the first hint of trouble.
Tui has since been in contact regarding the incident, but Zaypip and her group feel it hasn’t adequately addressed what happened.
She said: ‘The way the airline handled it was appalling in our opinion.
‘On a phone call, they merely said “thank you for your feedback, there’s nothing we can do, sorry for the inconvenience this has caused”.’
And Tui apparently described the reason for the call as a response to the ‘potential racism’.
Zaypip added: ‘It wasn’t “potential”, you can hear it.’
In a letter to the group, Tui said: ‘We understand you were disappointed with the service and behaviour of some passengers. We acknowledge that you felt uncomfortable during the flight, leading you to report the behaviour of these customers to the cabin crew and we are very sorry for any inconvenience or distress that this may have caused.
‘I have ensured that the events you have brought to our attention have been fully investigated and that due consideration has been given to the experience you have had and we have passed the feedback onto the relevant departments for review.’
Tui has also offered compensation of five per cent of the total cost of the £500 flight booking, the equivalent of £25, which Zaypip said ‘amounts to a few coffees’.
Flight attendant Jay Robert, who posted the clip to his Fly Guy’s Cabin Crew Lounge network, told MailOnline: ‘We’ve seen countless videos showing how quickly this kind of bullying and antagonising can escalate into violent cabin brawls, forcing emergency landings and disrupting hundreds of travel plans.
‘In this case, it seems the crew member initially used a calm and reasonable tone, but when that approach failed, she raised her voice to assert authority and restore order and keeping that peace is exactly what we, as cabin crew, are trained to do.
‘Sometimes, we must switch gears and take a firm stance to ensure passengers understand that we are in control and disruptive behaviour will not be tolerated.’
Tui has been approached for comment.
