A PREGNANT woman claims that she was thrown off her flight alongside her husband, their disabled child and the rest of the passengers after a “grumpy” air hostess accused her of being abusive.
Siobhan Foster had been ready to jet off to Ibiza from Belfast, Ireland last month alongside family to attend her brother’s wedding when she says she was singled out by an air hostess.
The mum from Newtownabbey, Belfast claims she had asked a stewardess if there were any more overhead lockers which prompted a curt reply of “clearly not” from the staff member.
Despite her pleas being shot down by the hostess, Siobhan says she was quickly accused of being abusive to staff, resulting in her and her family being asked to disembark from the plane.
Shocking footage shows a large number of disgruntled passengers collecting luggage and bags as they appear to be leaving the plane.
A member of the wedding party who is filming can be heard saying to the staff: “Everybody’s seen it. The whole plane.”
The pilot can be seen standing in the doorway as someone repeats: “Walk off.”
She replies: “We’re willing to walk off with yous [sic]. The whole plane is, because of that one person.”
Siobhan, who is holding her one-year-old daughter Florence, walks to the exit as the camerawoman says: “Hey Florence. Getting threw [sic] off the plane today, are we?
“Because of somebody thinking they’re better than everyone else? Yeah. Because of this one person.”
The air hostess in question can be seen turning her face away from the camera as she repeats “Bye, bye” in an effort to seemingly shush the family.
The woman filming then pans the camera to show the plane void of passenger as she warns: “This is going all over the internet, all over. Believe you, me.”
After disembarking, the camerawoman can be seen comforting Siobhan who is in tears, reassuring her: “Bs. Don’t be crying, come on. As everyone else said on the plane, it’s nothing to do with you.
“Don’t be crying. Easy f***ing jet.”
Further footage shows the slew of passengers waiting in the airport as they await the next flight to Ibiza.
Siobhan later explained that the passengers – many of whom were part of her brother’s wedding party – were asked to leave the plane alongside her after chanting to instead evacuate the stewardess.
Siobhan claims that the traumatised family were escorted off by airport police, with approximately 180 passengers left in the lurch for several hours at Belfast International Airport.
She then went on to allege that as a result of the ongoing issues, staff had worked over the legal number of hours and passengers to Ibiza would therefore have to wait overnight to board a flight the next morning.
The family claim that they managed to find another flight which would get them to the wedding on time ,but had to fork out an eye-watering £1,500 – including a bus to Dublin Airport where they caught the new flight.
Siobhan took to social media to share the shocking footage last month alongside full context, writing: “I will never fly with easyJet again I understand why people call them sleezy jet.
“We were flying to Ibiza for my brother’s wedding, me, my husband and Florence got on the plane and we were at the first seats as we paid for extra leg room as I’m seven months pregnant.
“This particular flight attendant had such a grumpy look on her face. James sat down with Florence and I asked her was there any more space in the overhead lockers, her reply was a sharp ‘ Clearly Not’.
“So, I asked could you help me find somewhere, her reply was ‘You’ll need to find somewhere yourself’ even though there literally was nowhere.
“So, I said ‘Can you please help me I’m heavily pregnant and my husband has our daughter’. Her response was ‘You’re being abusive and its not my job to help you’.
“Then another air hostess – an older lady – approached me to say ‘Look this isn’t our job to help’ so I said any other airline I’ve flown with have been more than helpful with me as I’m pregnant etc.
“So of course, then she said I was abusive. Writing this I understand it would make you think well was I being abusive, but I honestly wasn’t and the whole plane can vouch for me.
“I found somewhere for the bag, put it up myself, sat down and the next minute two of the crew came over saying I was being aggressive – bearing in mind I’m heavily pregnant, I’m not going to stand and be aggressive.
“I decided to ignore her and she started raising her voice saying ‘Look at me!’. First of all, I’m not a child to be spoken to like that, and I was ignoring her as I was so upset at the way I was being treated.
“Then her and another approached us to say we were being thrown off the plane – we asked why as we literally hadn’t done anything, once again she said we we’re being aggressive.
“My brother and mum spoke to her asking exactly why we were being put off and again they couldn’t answer the question as they were in the wrong.
“After roughly one hour the whole plane was asked to get off, every passenger on there was chanting to get this air hostess off who in fact said she was the manager.
“Everyone went back inside and three police cars arrived, it was like something I’ve never experienced before.
“We all went down the stairs to find roughly eight police officers and two people from Swissport who said we are not getting back on the plane – this was easyJet’s decision, not the police.
“So that whole day we were in Belfast Airport from 1pm to 9pm with our child – my legs were so swollen and sore with being on them all this time, I was crying uncontrollably.
“I’m so traumatised to the point I don’t know how I’ll ever fly again.
“Every person on that plane is putting complaints in – some actually stood up on the plane to say to the pilot it was that air hostess who was being aggressive towards me, not me at all.
“So, I have a full plane of witnesses who are willing to tell how unfairly we were treated.
“A lot of the passengers have videos to prove this and took pictures of this particular air hostess to have proof of her disgusting behaviour.”
The post received over 780 likes, and hundreds of comments from users left disgusted by Siobhan’s alleged treatment.
Carol Kidd wrote: “Absolutely disgusting. No one deserves to be treated like this. Siobhan, take it further as that was uncalled for.”
Naomi Morrison said: “What the actual f**k did I just read? Oh my God, I’m stunned. Babe are you okay? How awful at any time but heavily pregnant with wee Florence too…she needs sacked.
“They acted disgracefully.”
Leanne Finlay commented: “What the f**k. My blood’s boiling for you. This is absolutely disgusting actually, I couldn’t believe [it] reading that. Shame on them.”
Debbie Oo added: “This is an absolute disgrace love, and you should most definitely take this further.
“No human should have been treated the way you [have] been treated. Disgraceful especially from such a large European airline company, clearly no customer service skills needed for this airline.”
A spokesperson for easyJet today said: “We can confirm that flight EZY3003 from Belfast to Ibiza on 19 August was attended by police before departure due to a group of passengers behaving disruptively at check in and then onboard.
“EasyJet’s cabin crew and ground agents are trained to assess and evaluate all situations and to act quickly and appropriately to ensure that the safety of the flight and other passengers is not compromised at any time.
“Whilst such incidents are rare we take them very seriously and do not tolerate abusive or threatening behaviour towards our crew or other passengers.
“The safety and wellbeing of our passengers, crew and ground agents is always easyJet’s priority.”
