Southwest Employee Hospitalized After Assault by Passenger: Report

  • A Southwest Airlines employee was hospitalized in Dallas after an attack on passengers.
  • A 32-year-old woman was charged with aggravated assault, Fox Business reported.
  • In a statement, Southwest said it has a “zero tolerance policy” for assault.

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A Southwest Airlines crew member was hospitalized after an attack on passengers in Dallas, Texas, the airline said.

A passenger on a flight from Texas to New York hit a ground operations agent after quarreling with another crew member, a Southwest spokesman told Insider via email. The attack occurred during the boarding process for Flight # 4976 on Saturday.

“We can confirm reports that a passenger has verbally and physically assaulted one of our female agents,” said the spokeswoman. “The passenger was taken into custody by local law enforcement and our agent was taken to a local hospital. We have no information on her condition, but we have a ward manager with her full support in the hospital with her Southwest Family sending our thoughts, prayers and love. ”

NBC News previously reported on the attack. Fox Business identified the passenger as a 32-year-old woman and said she was charged with grievous bodily harm.

After a verbal fight near the tail of the plane, the passenger went “to the front of the plane where she had another verbal argument with another” Southwest employee, Fox reported, citing a police report. The passenger then began “punching her on the head with a closed fist,” the report said.

“Southwest Airlines has a zero-tolerance policy of harassment or assault of any kind and is fully committed to our employees in working with local authorities on this unacceptable incident,” the Southwest spokesman told Insider.

In August, the Federal Aviation Administration announced it had logged 3,715 incidents of recalcitrant passengers in the first seven months of 2021. It opened investigations into about 600 incidents, about twice as many as in each of the previous two years.

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