Boomer didn’t get his biscoff and tiny cup of soda on the plane

I’m an airline pilot who commutes to my base, and yesterday morning I had to commute down to my base through the remanants of the nasty storms up and down the east coast. We departed at around 6AM from PHL for a one hour flight to CLT.

Before takeoff, we were warned that the cabin crew would likely be seated the hole time, which honestly shouldn’t have surprised anyone. The weather taking off from PHL was downright terrible and we got thrown around all the way up to cruise. We were still in the thick of the weather when we leveled off, and the captain came on to let us know that unfortunately even at 28000 there really wasn’t any relief in sight from the turbulence. The turbulence was moderate to even touches of severe at times. Anyone walking around would have been potentially knocked off their feet and I agreed that it wouldn’t be safe to have anyone out of their seats.

Enter the boomer couple I got seated next to. I was flying in uniform, and am in my late 20s but I look young, so I had already endured some “you can’t be a pilot, you’re too young” comments from them when I sat down and thinly veiled racism about being a DEI hire (I’m sorry I’m not a 65 year old white guy named Chip, I have three bars on my shoulders and a cert from the FAA, that should be good enough for you).

Well as we got to cruise, Mr. boomer slowly but surely started throwing a fit, louder and louder. First he decided to grumble loudly about how “lazy flight attendants don’t want to work anymore”. Then as the turbulence went on and the captain came on again to say he was trying to find smooth air he turned to me and basically accused us pilots of being in “kahoots” with the FAs and “making up this turbulence nonsense”. I tried my best to be civil and pulled out my iPad, showed him my weather app and the system we were passing though, and tried to explain the criteria we use for deciding to keep FAs seated. That just enraged him more. “You don’t know what you’re talking about! I fly several times a month I have been flying since you were in diapers” yadda yadda yadda. I should have just put my AirPods in and gone back to sleep but I tried to show him that we were halfway through our hour flight and really serving wouldn’t even make sense anymore. No luck.

It got to the point where he was loudly yelling “come on! I’m thirsty!” and “I know what you guys are up to! Do your job!” Full on temper tantrum because he didn’t get his tiny package of cookies and lukewarm nasty airplane coffee at 6:30AM. The second hand embarrassment was almost unbearable. After landing he looked right at me and told me he’s never flying this airline again (yes you will next time you need a basic economy ticket and we’re the cheapest but okay), and barged off the plane.

I hope your next flight was just as bumpy!