An Alaska Airlines Adventure

I flew on Alaska Airlines from Chicago to Portland on Saturday. Two rows behind me, there was a young man with severe mental illness. He was alone in the very back row; I was on the aisle ahead of him.

He had symptoms of acute mania: agitated, speaking rapidly, making sounds that sounded like a hybrid of scat singing and speaking in tongues, having ideas of reference about other passengers (he believed a certain man about halfway up the aisle was talking about him under his breath.) Periodically, he’d shout, or jump out of his seat and run up the aisle toward the front.

The flight attendants and other passengers were terrified. Their fear was increased, I think, by implicit/explicit bias: he was about six-foot-five and African American. The crew and most of the passengers were white.

My interpretation was that the young man had good insight about what he needed. When he boarded, I heard him ask to move into the back row to “help with my anxiety.” He was relatively calm back there until people started lining up for the bathroom, many of them scowling at him. I interpreted his bizarre rhythmic speech as his way to try to focus and control his agitation. While he struggled to manage his symptoms himself, I feared that the crew or another passenger would bully or intimidate him as an attempt to “control” him.

I talked privately in the back galley with the flight attendants, identifying my training as a psychologist and offering to help them and the young man. I named the illness, described what behavior to expect, and gave them suggestions to engage with him gently, verbally, as they would any other frightened human being. I urged them to consider and have empathy for the fact that he was probably far more afraid than they or the passengers were—because he was aware that his brain wasn’t working right.

For the rest of the flight, when he’d run up the aisle, I’d go with him, partly in case the guy he thought was talking about him needed help, but mainly to be a buffer to protect him from aggressive passengers. And each time the flight attendants went by me on their errands around the cabin, they’d ask me for feedback. I coached and encouraged them to maintain a calm, matter-of-fact approach, and to continue their friendly conversation with the scared, agitated young man.

I urged them not to arrange an emergency landing with police and ambulance meeting the plane. I encouraged them to reflect on how his agitation and their own fear had been reduced by simply interacting and being kind with him; to consider how they might feel and react if confronted by police only because they had a frightening illness. I was concerned that given his agitation, an emergency landing somewhere in South Dakota could result in an “emergency beat down,” or worse, from the local police.

Toward the last hour of the flight, his sprints up the aisle became more frequent. The captain called for seatbelts, due to “expected turbulence.” The turbulence didn’t materialize, but the captain’s genius call enabled the flight attendants to cajole the young man into staying in his seat to obey the lighted sign.

We made it to Portland and all was well. Several airline bigwigs with walkie-talkies came on board to debrief the shook-up crew and follow the young man out, but they left him alone. No confrontation, no wrestling, no arrests. Whew!

Monday, I got this email from the airline:

“The special assistance you offered to your fellow passenger has been brought to our attention. Your display of kindness truly made a difference.

On behalf of our Alaska Airlines Flight Crew, please accept this gesture of our appreciation...” and they gave me a free ticket.

Please understand, I’m proud that I could help. I’m proud that we all were able to reduce his fear, calm his behavior, and reduce our own fear. I’m proud that it ended without violence. I’m pleased that I was recognized with a free ticket. But I want to say this:

Neither I nor the flight crew did anything “clinical.” Perhaps my clinical training gave me the credibility and confidence to persuade and support the crew to take a non-confrontational, non-violent approach. I believe the happy outcome wasn't about me; it was because the flight attendants recognized the human-ness of a frightened person, and helped him—as a real person, not a symbol of fear—to connect with other human beings. By frequently engaging him, regularly comforting him, being consistently kind to him, the flight attendants helped him feel safer, real, valued, and less scared for the rest of his flight. 

I imagine that almost every day, each one of us has opportunities to make lives better around us by being more kind, more understanding. Especially when we encounter people with mental illness or most any kind of emotional distress: the situation can get a lot better when we decide to operate out of kindness and caring rather than fear.

It's something anyone can do. Be a person. See the other person. Be kind.