American Airlines is circling the wagons and apologizing to a New Jersey couple after an employee called the husband “a killer” after learning the man was a police officer.
The April 19 incident happened at Memphis International Airport when a worker for Envoy Air, a wholly owned subsidiary of American Airlines, got into a heated debate with the Tirado family over a piece of lost luggage.
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airline-employee-called-cop-husband-killer” target=”_blank” rel=”nofollow noopener noreferrer”>According to Ventrice Tirado, she and her husband Michael and their two children were looking for help at a customer service desk after their flight was re-routed to Memphis due to weather.
One thing led to another when Michael Tirado told the Envoy worker he was “basically useless to us.” The back and forth continued and Michael Tirado told the employee that he was a police officer. “You’re a cop. That means you’re a killer. … He might kill me because he’s a police officer who called me useless,” the employee said.
The incident was captured on video and posted in a since-deleted tweet.
American Airlines spokeswoman Leslie Scott said, “We are investigating because this is not the conduct we expect from our team members.”
Separately, American airlines-apologizes.html” target=”_blank” rel=”nofollow noopener noreferrer”>issued a statement to NJ Advance Media saying it has apologized to the family.
“We apologize to the Tirados regarding the interaction they had with an Envoy team member at Memphis International Airport during their travels last month. What we see in the video is extremely concerning: In our culture, every interaction with a customer or team member should be grounded in respect. That’s not what we saw here,” American said. “As soon as we became aware of the issue, we reached out to Mrs. Tirado directly to let her know that we take this very seriously. We have spoken to both Officer and Mrs. Tirado and have assured them that we are taking steps to make things right with them and ensure this doesn’t happen again.”
