THE American Airlines passenger whose seat was repeatedly punched by an angry man behind her has claimed she was in “took much shock” to move her seat during the incident.
Passenger Wendi Williams filmed the incident while flying from New Orleans to Charlotte, and has spoken out about what happened.
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She told This Morning: “I was in shock. It wasn’t even something I thought about, I just wanted him to stop.”
Wendi added that she wasn’t doing it on purpose to anger the passenger, but was because she has “neck and spine” problems.
She previously explained that she started taking the video because the passenger was punching her seat and flight attendants weren’t doing anything to stop it.
She said to Fox & Friends earlier this month: “I was leaving a teacher’s conference and we got onto the plane and the man behind me, as soon as we got in the air, I reclined and he asked me if … I would put my seat back up while he ate, which I did.
“About 10 minutes later, he was done and I put my seat back down at which point he started full-on punching the back of my seat really hard that I was flying forward.”
She said at that point she “was trying to get the flight attendant’s attention and she wasn’t responding.”
Wendi continued: “So all I could think to do was to video the guy and maybe I thought that would stop him.”
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“I thought, I’m just going to keep videoing this guy because nobody else was doing anything. And I thought he would completely stop but he continued throughout.”
She noted that the “poking” seen in the video “was nothing compared to what he was doing prior.”
Wendi also aimed her frustration at the flight attendant on Monday, explaining that she was asked to delete the video from her cell phone.
She added: “When she finally did come around, she had an attitude with me and said, ‘What?’
“And I said, ‘The guy behind me is repeatedly hitting me’ and she went back to him, like changed personalities, and was the kindest person in the world and said, ‘Oh, are you okay? It’s really tight back here. I’m sorry’ and then she said to me, ‘Delete the video’ and I thought, ‘Why would I delete the video?’”
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Wendi reportedly said the flight attendant threatened to remove her from the aircraft if she didn’t delete the video recording and handed her a “Passenger Disturbance Notice” that warned of federal prosecution.
She is now considering legal action against the airline, adding that the flight attendant should be fired.
Wendi said: “The hits just kept on coming literally and figuratively. From the guy then the flight attendant.
“I tried to talk to [American Airlines] via email and I sent them the video in its entirety and tried to let them know that this was not okay and they basically gave me that same statement like ‘we try to train our employees to do X, Y and Z’ and that clearly didn’t happen.”
American Airlines released a statement, saying: “We are aware of a customer dispute that transpired on American Eagle flight 4392, operated by Republic Airways on January 31.
“The safety and comfort of our customers and team members is our top priority and our team is looking into the issue.”
Etiquette experts have explained that passengers should only recline after meal service, but if you don’t like it, then should fly business class.
New plane designs could end the problem of reclining with “cradle” seats which means they won’t affect the passenger behind.
Last year, Delta Airlines reduced the amount their seats could recline.
A version of this article was originally published by Fox News and has been reproduced with permission.
