Authorities met the couple at the gate when the plane landed.
A couple was met by authorities at the gate and “fined” after a man fell asleep and forgot to wear his mask properly on Southwest Flight from Oakland to Saint Louis, Missouri on Friday. His girlfriend’s face mask was allegedly down over her nose too during the flight. She was sitting directly behind him.
The pilot announced before the plane landed that “several passengers” would be met by authorities at the gate and “fined” over this.
It is still unknown how many people were met by authorities and fined but video shows two passengers removed from the plane when it landed.
One of the passengers on the flight told The Gateway Pundit about the incident and said it was a complete overreaction.
Read the excerpt below:
Jim, I’m sitting on this flight 20 mins from landing. The crew kept announcing mask warnings at the start of the flight because the guy next to me had his mask down before take-off. He was eating and drinking, to be fair, but it was down a long time.
The last warning was that the flight attendants would “wake you up” if your mask wasn’t over your nose and mouth to put it back on.
The guy fell asleep just before take-off, and flew the three hours with his mask down. The flight attendants never woke him up. Apparently, his girlfriend was sitting directly behind him with hers down, too.
Just now, the pilot announced that “several passengers” would be met by authorities at the gate and “fined” over this. I have no idea how many people to whom this might apply, but I caught most of the announcement on a recording.
Here’s the first recording of the pilot’s message:
Unfortunately, I didn’t catch as much as I’d hoped.
After we landed, we stopped at the gate, but the pilot didn’t turn off the seatbelt light. He instead asked us to remain seated a minute, and we waited for the police to meet the plane and escort the couple off the plane. They were the only people punished.I got a video of that, but it’s not that dramatic:You can see the girlfriend tried to jump up but went back to her seat. Then the cops and gate agents came down to meet the plane and they pulled the couple off before letting us go.The couple were less-than-pleasant people. I had to listen to his phone calls where I knew all their plans in St. Louis to meet friends and party while they were here for his sister’s wedding. And the guy was one of those rude fliers who put his feet up on the bulkhead wall, kept bumping me, etc. But to be fair, the flight attendants did say they’d “wake them up to put on their masks”, but instead ratted them out and tried to get them in trouble with the cops.I don’t know if they were cited or fined, but it was a complete over-reaction. It’s not like there was any confrontation where the flight attendants spoke to the couple directly and the couple refused to comply.
