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Yesterday, I wrote about a passenger smoking weed in the lavatory of an United Airlines flight departing San Francisco International Airport (SFO). Today, we have another incident involving a passenger on an American Airlines flight vaping in the lavatory and then getting into a confrontation with a flight attendant around their behavior. This went as far as the passenger accusing a flight attendant of assaulting him.
The situation arose on American Airlines flight AA 2860 that was heading from Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport (PHX) to San Francisco International Airport (SFO). Peter “Kobe” Nguyen was a passenger on the flight. He is known as a celebrity pickleball coach and influencer. He went to the lavatory in the rear of the Airbus A321 aircraft and allegedly was vaping. A flight attendant forced the door open and got into an argument with Nguyen.
The flight attendant is seen trying to grab Nguyen’s phone while he records her (which is against American’s policies). It does not look like she makes contact even though Nguyen claims that “she put her hands on [him]” and then exclaims that he has 25,000 followers and a lawyer (and that he is also a lawyer). He even goes as far as to threaten calling the police on the flight attendant when they land.
American released the following statement:
A customer on American Airlines flight 2860 with service from Phoenix (PHX) to San Francisco (SFO) was removed from the aircraft upon arrival at SFO due to disruptive behavior. We thank our customers for their patience and apologize for any inconvenience.”
It appears that Nguyen was removed from the aircraft in San Francisco. He admits on his own video to vaping (even if it was just a single puff). The flight attendant should not have lunged at him and should have just had the captain make sure that law enforcement was at the gate upon landing.
Anthony’s Take: The flight attendant overreacted here, but the passenger was wrong for vaping and comes across as looking to play the victim card for his actions. Another incident that makes me wonder why people can’t just follow the rules and make the flight peaceful for everyone.
(Featured Image Credit: @kobe.pickleball via Instagram.)
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Advertiser & Editorial Disclosure: The Bulkhead Seat earns an affiliate commission for anyone approved through the links above This compensation may impact how and where links appear on this site. We work to provide the best publicly available offers to our readers. We frequently update them, but this site does not include all available offers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed, or approved by any of these entities.
1 comment
What is a pickleball influencer anyway?