American Airlines slammed as hypocrites for throwing Alec Baldwin off a flight

Posted on Thursday, December 08, 2011 at 11:19 AM

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Alec Baldwin

The '30 Rock' actor was kicked off a flight at Los Angeles' LAX airport on Tuesday afternoon after allegedly refusing to turn off his cell phone when asked to do so, but his representative insists the star was behaving no differently to other passengers on the plane.

His spokesperson Matthew Hiltzik tweeted: "@AMERICAN_AA: How come ok 4 other 1st class passengers 2 tweet while @alecbaldwin asked to leave while using his device? #hypocrisy … 1st clss passngers can tweet, but @alecbaldwin asked to leave? (sic)"

Alec has also been defended by boxer Oscar De La Hoya, who was also on the flight and said the incident has been "blown out of proportion".
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Oscar told 'Access Hollywood': “There wasn’t no slamming of doors or nothing like that. I mean, it was, I think, blown out of proportion.

“I don’t know him very well but he seemed like a good guy. He wanted to play his words game! I mean, that’s all he wanted to do!”

Alex – who claimed he was removed from the flight for playing Scrabble-like game 'Words With Friends' on his iPad device while the plane was still at the gate – has now deleted his twitter page, but signed off with a photo captioned "let Alec play".

In their statement following the incident, American Airlines did not name Alec, 53, directly but said they had to deal with an "extremely rude" passenger.

They said: “This passenger declined to turn off his cell phone when asked to do so at the appropriate time.

The passenger ultimately stood up (with the seat belt light still on for departure) and took his phone into the plane’s lavatory. He slammed the lavatory door so hard, the cockpit crew heard it and became alarmed, even with the cockpit door closed and locked.

“They immediately contacted the cabin crew to check on the situation. The passenger was extremely rude to the crew, calling them inappropriate names and using offensive language. Given the facts above, the passenger was removed from the flight and denied boarding.”

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GeorgeDillon | Dec 08, 2011, 02:00 PM EST

I don't know much about Baldwin, but I sure support his contention that airline staff are turning into the new gestapo. A year or two back a Continental flight attendant stuffed into the compartment over my head a bag that a late-arriving fat slob had been allowed to bring on board. During the flight the compartment opened and the fat pig's bag fell right down on me. I don't know what it contained--probably food and over-sied underwear. It stunk. I was furious. I complained to the offending Continental flight attendant (they're some of the most unpleasant in the business). I complained to her boss the chief flight attendant, I demanded to speak to the pilot when we landed. Rather than receiving an apology for the unprofessionalism and recklessness of the flight attendant who caused me injury, I was threatened that "security" would be called. Continental pilots in their intercom spiel usually say that we are being served by "the world's finest cabin team". The truth is that Continental employs ill-mannered incompetents, but unlike other workers in service industries, they are impervious to customer complaint.

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