Am I Blue? (Jet Blue, that is)

Blame is influenced by a number of situational variables. One of those variables is the blamer’s degree of empathy with the situation. If the blamer is very familiar with a situation and the circumstances around it, the degree of blame attributed to the “culprit” is likely to be lessened or eliminated altogether. So, in Wisconsin, when someone slides their car off the road in a winter blizzard, most local folks don’t get too worked up about it because many have been there, and everyone has almost been there. They understand how it can happen.

In contrast, when a situation is foreign and unfamiliar, blame tends to be more severe. If a pilot slides his airplane off the runway in the same blizzard, even without noticeable damage or injury, a lot of finger pointing takes place. Most people aren’t familiar with the cockpit environment, and they don’t realize that it’s much harder to control a large airplane at 150 miles per hour on an icy runway, than a car at 50 on an icy road.

This week when a JetBlue flight attendant blew his cool, cussed at a passenger over the intercom, then opened the airplane door and jumped out the escape chute, reaction by the general public was pretty forgiving. Flight attendants are trained to be calm and collected, and are supposed to be the vanguard of in-flight passenger issues, coping with any kind of emergency that arises. Well, Steven Slater wasn’t. He also violated some pretty serious airport security regulations by running out onto the tarmac.

But instead of blame, the public made Slater a momentary folk hero. Within the day a Facebook page was set up honoring Slater, and thousands of fans weighed in. News commentators on all the networks shared humorous quips about the incident. Why? Because anyone who has flown more than once or twice can relate with the crazy intensity that accompanies boarding and de-planing on today’s airlines. Even a routine flight requires a solid dose of patience to cope with people cramming the overhead bins with their oversized carry-ons, then trying to jump out of their seats 15 seconds before the plane docks to grab that carry-on and heave it to the floor (before anyone else can even stand up). So, even though Slater is the one who lost it, most of us have secretly harbored thoughts of playing out similar reactions.

If a baggage handler who got fed up with overstuffed bags popping open on the tarmac decided to park his tow motor in front of an arriving airliner, and blocked it’s access to the gate, we might be more inclined to blame him for his actions. We’re simply not as familiar with the frustrations of the job.

I certainly don’t blame Slater for his actions. They’re perfectly understandable to me. And the passenger involved in the altercation probably had it coming. However, you can have accountability without blame. And this is a good example.

Slater was a 20-year veteran of a job that requires enormous self-discipline. His actions totally disregarded the interests of all the other passengers on the plane. We can all appreciate the exhilaration of the moment. But Slater should be terminated from his job, and pay whatever appropriate consequences result from his security infractions.