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What: Jetblue Airbus A320-200 en route from West Palm Beach to Boston
Where: en route
When: Mar 27 2010
Why: On the return flight coming home from her son’s funeral, 76 year old Renee Rappaport was returning to her seat after visiting the bathroom, and found the aisle was blocked by a beverage cart, and a flight attendant who told her to wait. She tried to squeeze by to get to her seat, and wouldn’t fit. The woman was arrested on arrival in Boston for shoving the flight attendant, and charged with assault.

Is rudeness an arrestable offense?

A 76 year old woman arrested for trying to get back to her seat.

It sounds like something out of Golden Girls, with Beatrice Arthur getting arrested for being her usual pushy self (although unlike our 76 year old airline passenger, Beatrice Arthur was in her 60’s when it was filmed, only 70 at the end of the series.)

Even though I don’t know all the facts, the bare bones of the situation are enough for me to feel that if I were the kind of person who started writing campaigns, I would start one now. I would inundate Jet Blue’s mail boxes with letters demanding more respectful treatment of the elderly.

Is this bizarre escalation some Jet Blue policy or a flight attendant’s strategy not to get written up?

There is something wrong with a 76 year old woman being arrested for assault while on a plane trying to get back to her seat. One wonders if the flight attendant could not have backed the cart up, or done something in a courteous fashion during or after the event. Even if the elderly woman were a female version of the governor of California, is she not entitled to some courtesy?

I have come across both belligerent flight attendants and hospitable flight attendants. I think I can safely speculate that a little graciousness on the part of the flight attendant would have prevented the situation from happening, certainly from escalating to arrest. At the very least, such an arrest is frivolous, and a waste of the police force’s valuable time.

Maybe it marks me as old fashioned, but I believe a flight attendant’s job is not an entitlement; but an elderly passenger is entitled to some degree of courtesy and understanding.

If Jet Blue’s policy is to arrest in this situation, they deserve all the bad press they get.

On the other hand, if Renee Rappaport is capable of a serious assault, I can get her some gloves and schedule a grudge match against the flight attendant in Las Vegas.