Under the United Airlines subreddit on Reddit, a user posted an interesting thread about a passenger vaping on the plane being ignored, which lead me to think about the importance of notifying a flight attendant if you ever agree to switching seats on an airplane. RELATED: Are you obligated to switch seats on an airplane?
Redditor @bepsigir wrote: “I fly every week and this was a first for me. I just landed BOS —>ORD. Dude on flight vaped in the bathroom mid flight, setting off alarms. When we landed he left the plane early with his travel companions because of a flight connection. No police, no acknowledgment that he did anything wrong. As I exited I asked the flight attendant if it wasn’t a federal crime anymore. She laughed and said “I guess not!”. Is this going to be the new normal?
What I found most interesting about all of this wasn’t the fact that someone had been vaping on an airplane or that they had set off the lavatory alarm or that they weren’t met by police on landing. Rather, it was some comments from flight attendants saying that the individual probably had been reported without the man even knowing it since they had his seat number.
“These types of reports “smoking/vaping” go directly to the FAA at my airline via our reporting app. We don’t need the police (who do nothing anyway) unless there is damages and we want/need to file a police report. Usually the crew will silently follow the person so they can get the seat number and then file the report. The FAA is the one who follows up and issues any fines.” ~ @tvlkidd
Another flight attendant commented: “You’d be surprised how much we can report, and write up, without needing any info. I’ve reported bad behavior by a passenger more than once.” ~ @FlyDogWiner70
A doctor who attended to a passenger replied, backing this claim up: “For real, I’m a physician and responded to a medical incident. At least the way I was taught Good Samaritan laws, we’re not supposed to accept any type of payment to stay protected and the FA was pretty much, we have to document who responded and we have your seat and FF account, so you’re getting miles or a flight credit whether you like it or not.” ~ @lfisch4
But what if he had switched seats? The flight attendant obviously doesn’t know who everyone is by name so if passengers are switching seats on an airplane and the other person starts to vape in their seat or in the bathroom, is the person originally in that seat going to get a notice from the airline or FAA that they’ve been banned or worse? As @randomusername1919 commented, “Another good reason not to swap seats when someone asks…”
I’d never thought of something like this happening but it’s good to know. However, it looks like the flight attendants only take vaping lightly but take smoking cigarettes or something else much more seriously, as @tvlkidd replied: “Smoking (an actual cigarette) is worse (than vaping) and the FAA takes those extremely serious. Of all the things that can and do go wrong on an airplane, FIRE is the absolute worst. Doing drugs … if injected or swallowed is more of a medical issue …. Doing drugs that requires lighting & smoking something .. that would also be very bad.”
An Airbus pilot commented: “As a pilot of an Airbus I can tell you that if you set off the alarm it also alarms in the cockpit. Things that set off alarms in the cockpit are digitally recorded on both the cockpit voice recorder and the data recorder. The last time this happened to me I called the FA and was told it was a teenager that did it. I asked the FA to let him know if he did it again we’d be stopping prior to our destination to let him off and he could vape there to his hearts content. He remained in his seat the rest of the flight and gave me the sheepish nod as he got off the airplane at our destination.” ~@scott5355
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