Woman Delays Frontier Flight and Gets Arrested After Saying She’d Refuse to Help While Sitting in an Emergency Exit Row

A woman was escorted off a recent Frontier Airlines flight in handcuffs after she allegedly joked that she would refuse to help in the event of an emergency – a requirement for passengers sat in an emergency exit row where she was sitting.

The incident apparently unfolded as what initially seemed a joke when the woman initially said to a flight attendant: “Oh, I’m not going to save anybody. If something happens, I’m going to save myself.”

At this point, the woman had a choice… either move to a different seat without exit row responsibilities or deplane. Things quickly escalated, and that choice soon turned into an order by flight attendants for the woman to deplane.

Despite the woman’s change of heart and protestations that she would, in fact, help in the event of an emergency, the decision had already been made. She had to get off the airplane and catch a later flight. Something she wasn’t willing to do.

TikTok user ‘Travel With Tia’ caught the aftermath on video in a now-viral post on the popular social media platform. “What’s the problem? We know we have to help you in an emergency,” the woman pleads with the flight attendant.

Several flight attendants, along with a pilot attempted to reason with the woman and get her to deplane, but she refused to budge from her seat and, in the end, the police boarded the plane to ask her to leave.

Despite the threat of arrest, the woman still refuses to get off the plane, forcing Frontier to deplane everyone else so that she can be arrested.

Other passengers voiced their frustration at the woman as they shuffled off the packed Airbus A321 and into the terminal building. Once inside the terminal, however, they got to see the woman being escorted off the plane with her hands behind her back in handcuffs.

The flight incurred a delay as a result of one woman’s refusal to deplane, which ultimately stemmed from a misplaced joke. The biggest advantage of sitting in an emergency exit row is the extra legroom it affords, but that privilege does come with extra responsibilities.

In this case, flight attendants must ask passengers whether they are both willing and able to help in an emergency and no answer apart from a simple “yes” is considered acceptable.