A Delta Captain Threatened To Land A Plane To Have A Passenger Arrested Over A Dispute Over A Bottle Of Water

The video is missing some context so here’s the description from the uploader who claims to be the guy filming and says it’s from a Delta flight on 2/10:

I was not contacted by Delta over the video. I did send them a message right after it happened; saying that I had a video and would like for them to deal with it before I release it to the public. They said the inquiry was closed because they already compensated me for the delay with the 10,000 miles (worth $100). I was compensated 10,000 miles ($100 basically) by Delta for the over three hour delay that left us stuck in the plane, at the terminal, without water in the sinks and fuel in the jet. The plane was also not properly cooled (A/C) so people were hot, which brought up the necessity for water that much more.

What exactly happened was the following: I was seated in the middle of the plane, so I got up to go to the back of the plane to ask for water. key detail I did have a red water bottle that I owned, that was empty. When I got to the back of the plane, I did not have that bottle with me, and they just handed me small, half filled plastic cups of water. I drank those quickly, as I was quite thirsty, and asked for more water. They said they would only give me cups of water during the flight. I responded that intermittent cups of water would not suffice, and one flight attendant said she would fill up a water bottle for me, if I had one. I then went back to my seat to get my bottle, and have her fill it up. I was traveling with my girlfriend, so we needed a fair amount of water between the two of us. When I brought back my water bottle, she filled it about 3/4 of the way, and stopped when there was some commotion between the stewardesses. A while after I had the water bottle filled up (3/4th of the way), we were still delayed and in a hot plane, and there was two of us in my party, so I wanted more water. I went back to the back of the plane, asked for more water, and was told that I was asking for too much and they would not give me a big bottle of water.

Lots o’ water talk going on but now you get the picture, the situation supposedly ratcheted up from there until the part we saw. Watching the video it seems hard to me not to take the guy’s side given the captain’s attitude and pretty loathsome reactions like this:

Even knowing that the guy maybe got a little more animated out in the cabin, it’s outlandish the way some airlines treat people now these days. Obviously the main objective is to safely get you from point A to point B in as efficient of a time as possible but the majority of the industry veers way closer to treating people like cattle than it does any sort of civility. If it’s three hours in an unfueled plane sitting where you’re hot and thirsty, that’s practically torture at that point (something the guy also mentioned, saying two people had health conditions on the plane also exacerbated by the plane’s virtual drought). If the guy’s being abusive or an asshole, yeah you’ve got to defend your crew. But I would be just as not surprised if it’s a case of a grumpy captain overstepping boundaries simply because they don’t have the patience to treat people courteously.

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So who ya got, bitchy dehydrated passenger or bitchy Delta captain?