Two separate embarrassing travel-related blunders raised eyebrows yesterday – a flight attendant is said to have been so intoxicated passengers became “scared for their lives” and a major newspaper reportedly confused Tahiti with Haiti.
Both of these unsettling incidents happened in the US.
The Los Angeles Times has reportedly offered Tahiti Tourism a full page of free publicity (worth up to USD 100,000) to make amends after the paper distributed a supplement that confused Tahiti with Haiti.
Radio1 in Tahiti reported that the LA Times bought the article from an external agency and published it in June, according to a report by RNZ (Radio New Zealand).
The supplement was prepared for the LA Times and distributed by the newspaper, but it did not involve LA Times editorial staff. It’s hard to know quite what the error was, unless you have a physical copy of it – which may by now be a collector’s item. The online version was immediately corrected.
To atone for the error, the paper is now reportedly offering a full page of publicity for Tahiti.
The two destinations are very different, to put it mildly. Tahiti is an idyllic South Sea island paradise. DFAT recommends: “Exercise normal safety precautions.”
Haiti – on the other side of the world, near Cuba – is riven by violent protests, roadblocks, high levels of crime, fuel and food shortages. DFAT recommends: “Reconsider your need to travel.”
IN A SEPARATE INCIDENT, equally embarrassing for all concerned, criminal charges have been filed against a flight attendant after a video emerged of her apparently drunk on a United Express flight Thursday.
Above: Tahiti, definitely not Haiti
The attendant, aged 49, has been formally charged with public intoxication, according to a County Prosecutor spokesperson quoted by ABC Eyewitness News in the US.
The incident took place on a regional US domestic flight from Chicago, with the attendant slurring her words, apparently unaware of where the flight was headed and sounding incomprehensible over the microphone. She is then said to have passed out.
The flight attendant is no longer flying for Air Wisconsin, which operates as a regional feeder carrier for United. She was said to be a probationary attendant, on the job just a few months, and to have tested five times over the legal alcohol limit for flight attendants.
The attendant has been bailed to appear before court on 29 August 2019.
Court documents say passengers became “scared for their lives” due to her apparent condition after departing Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport.
Written by Peter Needham
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