Flight From Fame

Traveling can be stressful for a lot of people. Everyday people, hoping aboard a plane, the people you have to deal with, the stress of not being bored to death while traveling are all essential, but stressful things that most people have to deal with. Even celeberties aren't exempt from this process. Although they are treated like royalty when they travel, it seems that they feel they are exempt from normal regulations, and throw a fit when they actually have to follow regulations that are for the plane's safety, not because they want them to be bored out of their mind. Alec Baldwin is most recent example of a celeberty going off because he was forced to do something that was necessary for the planes safety, and then caused an uproar over it.

In the case of Alec Baldwin, he was forced to get off a plane when a flight attendant asked him to put away his iPad because the plane was taking off. Alec, who was busy playing a game on the iPad, refused to put the device up, though it is not clear why the flight attendants kicked him off the flight, though some passengers on the flight claim that he was being rather rude to the attendants.Baldwin later took the scandal to Twitter, stating that the flight attendants were basically 1950's Catholic school teachers that had started working in the air line industry, and that he would never fly the airline again.

I think the problem here is that the Baldwin took the problem too far. He basically refused to comply with airline regulations that are in place to protect the flight, the passengers, and radar safety, due to the wireless interactions of the devices actually interfering with functions. Also, now a days, if stuff goes to Twitter, then it's "serious business," though I think he is over reacting to the whole thing. Just because he is a celeberty doesn't mean he is exempt from flight rules. If someone asks him to put up the device for safety reasons, then he should have put it up, not take it to the world for everyone to read.

What worse in my mind is the media attention that this has received. I'm pretty sure people get kicked off flights all the time for not complying, and yet you never hear about them. Only in extreme cases does the average person getting kicked off the flight gain media attention, and even then, it isn't as instantaneous as celeberty cases.  If the average person posted on Twitter about getting kicked off, I think that it would have to gain such an outrage or make people double take on what they said, or press a law suit. Alec Baldwin posted about it, and even though it is sort of outrageous, if said by any regular Average Joe, I don't think that it would have garnered so much attention.

But this whole case kind of ourages me. Who is he to throw a temper tantrum over having to put up a game? A little kid I could understand. A grown man who people supposedly like, not a chance. People need to grow up and learn they have to do stuff they don't like. Just because a flight attendant asks you to put up a game or device because it might cause issues doesn't mean they are trying to be mean, they just want you to arrive there safely.