EasyJet is “urgently” seeking answers from Nice Airport after a man holding a baby was allegedly punched by a member of staff as he endured a more than 13-hour wait to board a flight to London. A spokesman said the airline was “very concerned” after a picture of the incident, taken by fellow passenger Arabella Arkwright, was circulated online.
Mrs Arkwright was returning home to Warwickshire with her husband Johnnie and their children when the altercation took place. She said their flight had been scheduled to take off at around 11am on Saturday but an accident during refueling meant the passengers were kept on the tarmac for two hours before being told to return to the terminal to wait. Eventually, at around 10pm, the passengers were told to queue up for the flight but after half an hour nothing more had happened, prompting the wife of the passenger who was allegedly assaulted to complain to airport staff. “The couple were showing some irritation, which was perfectly understandable in the circumstances, but she was not threatening and was just saying ‘we’ve got children’ which is quite a normal thing to say,” said Mrs Arkwright, 49. “Then suddenly this man lunged at him and whacked him. My husband was standing beside them took the man to one side and the the police arrived and both of them were taken away. “We said ‘we’re not not leaving without him’ and later when he was returned to the plane, I’m pretty sure everybody on board applauded.” The baby the man was holding is believed to be nine-months-old.
Mr Arkwright, 64, who runs the Hatton Estate with his wife said: “The man’s wife was remonstrating with officials but was not rude. “She was understandably irritated as you would be having waited 13 hours with children and been treated like an animal. But the airport official smiled and smirked and then lashed out. “I happened to be on the other side of him and then collared him and asked the people who were there to get the police. But when they arrived they took away the man who had been hit saying that he had been in a fight.” He said the man who was hit suffered a mark on his face but was not seriously injured. He added: “This would not have happened if easyJet had treated their customers properly”. Mrs Arkwright added: “We should treat people as we want to be treated ourselves. We run a pub and we treat our customers as guests.”
A video later emerged of the incident in which an irate woman passenger is heard saying “this is a disgrace, we’ve got children, babies screaming, no nappies, no food” adding: “You are appalling.” The airport worker then appears to knock something out of the man’s hand, who in turn pushes him away, before the employee punches the passenger. In an open letter to easyJet CEO Dame Carolyn McCall, Mrs Arkwright described the whole experience as a “disgrace” and called for the company to “write personally to every person on this flight with a full explanation”.
Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/07/30/easyjet-passenger-punched-nic…
