Eva Air stewardesses lauded for bravery after breaking up mid-air scuffle between 2 men
The life of a flight attendant is not all glitz and glamour. Oftentimes, the job entails dealing with unhappy passengers with a smile on their face.
Three Eva Airlines air stewardesses, however, recently went the extra mile to de-escalate a fight between two male passengers.
About three hours into a 11.5-hour flight from Taipei to San Francisco on Tuesday (May 7), two men were prevented from exchanging blows by the three cabin crew, reported TVBS News.
In a video posted to X (formerly Twitter) by user Alex Pierce, a stewardess can be seen with her arms locked around the shoulders of a man in a white shirt as he swings his fist aggressively at a passenger who's seated. Amid the fracas, the flight attendant appears to get elbowed in the face.
A second stewardess assists her from behind while a third female cabin crew stands in front of him, holding him back.
The man can also be seen trying to pry the stewardess' arms off him while shouting, "don't hold me".
Another male passenger wearing a blue striped shirt then comes into frame and lunges at the first man in an attempt to punch him, but narrowly misses.
He gets pushed back by the third stewardess, who plants herself between the two men with arms outstretched to keep both parties apart.
[embed]https://twitter.com/AlexNewsweekly/status/1788108779135082740[/embed]
The man in blue is seen getting restrained by another passenger as several others jump in to intervene. In the background, passengers can be heard screaming as they try to move away from the altercation.
Even then, the man in white repeatedly shouts at the other party to "move", aggressively yelling while pointing to another passenger who's seated.
Eva Air said in a statement to Taiwanese media that the mid-air brawl occurred after one of the men had taken the other's seat as he thought it was empty.
According to the airline, the passenger was feeling uncomfortable as the person beside him was coughing and decided to switch seats.
This led to the seat owner confronting the man, with the situation escalating into a physical fight.
The captain of the flight contacted San Francisco authorities soon after the incident and the two men were handed over to airport police once they arrived in San Francisco, reported The Liberty Times.
In its statement, Eva Air also said that it has a zero-tolerance policy towards passenger nuisance incidents and praised its staff's quick intervention.
"The flight attendants swiftly followed operating procedures to pacify the passengers and moved the two men to seats in two separate areas of the plane to avoid further conflicts," said the airline.
It added that it will continue to check on the physical and mental state of the cabin crew who were on duty and follow up with rewards accordingly.
Several netizens who saw the video of the incident shared how impressed they were by the bravery of the cabin crew.
"Kudos to the air stewardess of Eva. Not easy to handle two agitated men," wrote one Facebook user.
Another netizen commented: "Well done to the flight attendants for intervening."
"Hats off to the flight attendants’ professionalism and quick intervention," said another user on X.
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bhavya.rawat@asiaone.com
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