Scary run-in with Air NZ

There I was, with my family at LAX waiting to re-board our Air New Zealand flight. I could see our aircraft through the windows and noticed what appeared to be a crack in the nose-cone. I mentioned it to a member of our flight crew (captain or 1st officer) who was passing at that moment, but he seemed rather haughty and wasn’t interested in having a look. I persevered as I thought it could be important and I thought I owed it to my children to be thorough about a potential safety issue. I chased after him and asked him again to have a look; this involved retracing his steps about 10 metres and looking at the aircraft through the terminal window. He reluctantly followed me back and had a very quick look at the possible damage to the nose cone. He turned away and started striding back down the hall calling out that there wasn’t a crack or damage & that I must be imagining it. His attitude amazed and offended me, that he could be so dismissive of a customer’s concerns. As he strode off I called out that I wasn’t imagining things and that being an ex-pilot I know a bit about aircraft. He called back that I was entitled to my opinion, I replied that in my opinion you’re an idiot (yes I know, I shouldn’t have said it but it just came out). It got very ugly at that stage, he came towards me looking very angry and I thought he would hit me. He said “what did you say?” I didn’t reply but he started to make a very big deal about it, saying he was going to call security and get me booted off the plane. This was all taking place in front of the plane load of passengers, including my wife and two children. I have to admit I was scared, embarrassed, humiliated, and upset. My wife was pleading with me to apologize, my children were cowering, and the other passengers looked shocked. The “idiot” then called an airport security official who came over to have “a word” with me. After I explained what had happened the official seemed rather surprised at the reaction of the pilot and I could tell she sympathised with my predicament. The pilot stormed off saying he wouldn’t allow me to re-board the plane for the next leg to London, one of the other security officials (there were 3 of them by this stage!) suggested that I apologise to the pilot even though she agreed he was over reacting. In the end I apologised to the pilot (via one of the security officials) and we were allowed to continue the flight. I apologised not because I thought I was wrong about him being an idiot, but because I really hadn’t meant to say so out loud, and because my wife and children were very upset and I didn’t want to ruin our holiday. If I had been travelling on my own I would have stuck to my guns. Imagine if he had gone through with his threat to throw me off the flight, they would have had to delay the flight in order to locate and off-load my luggage, and then back at base he would have had to explain it all to his bosses. “The passenger tried to point out a potential safety issue to me, but I was too busy/important to pay attention so he called me an idiot”. Would he have been justified in throwing me off? Am I the idiot? Maybe, but I had paid approx $6000 for our airfares, and he was just an airline employee – I was indirectly paying his wages. I suspect that most firms having just sold an item for $6000 would make sure their employees treat the customer with a bit more courtesy and respect, and perhaps even overlook it if they get called an idiot.

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