Check those seat pockets thoroughly.
CREDIT: Getty Images
Absurdly Driven looks at the world of business with a skeptical eye and a firmly rooted tongue in cheek.
The worst job in the airline business currently may be PR.
The best, however, is surely lawyer.
After airline staff repeatedly managed to behave like recalcitrant jailers from a despotic nation, some passengers discovered that legal action — occasionally supported by video evidence — might work.
Here, then, is Delta’s latest legal kerfuffle.
According to legal papers seen by TMZ, a man claims that he put his hand inside the seat pocket in front of him to get his wallet.
As he did, he felt a sharp pain and discovered that his finger had been pricked by a needle.
People put their wallets in the seat pocket? I’m sorry, that was an involuntary digression.
Gabriel Ybarra insists that his finger bled profusely, that he had to go to the doctor for tests, that the doctor prescribed medication to protect against — among other things — HIV and that the drugs caused him to endure headaches, dizziness and “explosive diarrhea.”
All this allegedly occurred on a flight from LAX to Atlanta in 2015.
It’s odd, then, that the lawsuit has only come to light now. Could it be that litigants and their lawyers now see a greater opportunity to succeed in lawsuits against airlines?
After all most corporate lawyers have one strong tactic: stonewalling.
I contacted Delta to ask for its feelings on the matter. A spokesman told me: “While we cannot comment on the specifics of this pending litigation, Delta is dismayed by what this customer describes in the suit. The safety and security of our customers and employees is always Delta’s top priority.”
Still, Ybarra claims that his “life flashed before him” and that he couldn’t enact “his duties as a husband to his wife for months,” after he suffered the alleged wound.
Might there not be flight attendant statements or witnesses to these events? The facts as Ybarra presents them don’t sound edifying.
Anyone who flies knows that aircraft cleanliness can leave a little to be desired.
More than once over the last year, I’ve had to brush down my seat or discovered odd things in seat-back pockets. Never, though, a needle. Once, on the other hand, a dirty handkerchief.
Perhaps as this tale unfolds we might learn more.
In the meantime, the clear advice is to not reach blindly into the seat pocket in front of you. Planes sometimes enjoy snakes, you know.
The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.