Congratulations! You got a seat in an exit row for your flight. All that sweet, sweet extra legroom is yours, and now the only thing that stands between you and actually being able to stretch your legs out is to simply say, “Yes,” when the flight attendant comes by to make sure you’re willing and able to help in the event of an emergency that almost definitely won’t happen. Easy peasy, right? Well, as the Independent reports, that wasn’t so easy for one Frontier Airlines passenger who actually managed to get herself arrested before takeoff.
Video of the incident was recorded and posted on TikTok by an account called Travel with Tia. The video doesn’t begin quite at the beginning of the altercation, but the Independent has the explanation of what went down from Tia herself:
This lady right here, when she first got on the plane and acknowledged the exit row, she said, “Oh, I’m not going to save anybody.” She went on to say, “If something happens, I’m going to save myself.” That was her attitude throughout the seating process. And I already knew something was about to pop off when she had that attitude.
It’s possible that you could argue the woman’s response might have been an attempt at a joke, but neither takeoff nor landing are great times to joke with flight attendants. Plus, even if she meant it as a joke, once she noticed the flight attendant wasn’t laughing, that was her signal to apologize and promise to behave. Unfortunately for her and every other passenger on that flight, the woman in the exit row decided instead to double down.
Now, even if she really didn’t realize that arguing with flight attendants is a great way to ruin your day, you’d think the pilot coming over the loudspeaker to say, “Ladies and gentlemen, we’ll be underway here shortly, we gotta take care of this issue. Law enforcement will be arriving,” would have made it clear that it was time to pack things in and beg for leniency. She instead pivoted to trying to get other passengers on her side by insisting the flight attendant was lying about her not complying.
Considering the fact that this woman was wasting everyone’s time and potentially delaying the flight, the crew was far more accommodating than you might expect, even giving her one last warning. “I’m gonna ask you one more time, nicely, to get off, if not, we’re going to de-board the plane and police will come and escort you off,” one crew member told her. Instead of simply getting off the plane, though, she kept complaining and claimed she was going to call her lawyer. Had they picked up, you can only assume they would have told her to comply with crew member instructions because, well, duh.
Eventually, though, the fuck-around stage of her flight ended, and the find-out stage kicked off in full swing. After even the pilot came back to try to get her to deplane voluntarily, police came on board to escort her out, forcing all passengers to deplane, as well. The woman, whose name does not appear to have been released, was taken away in handcuffs.
What charges she’s facing are also currently not clear, although we can’t imagine she’ll ever fly Frontier again. If you’re on a Spirit Airlines flight in the future, though, you might want to keep an eye out for her. She just might throw a wrench into your travel plans, as well.