No excuse

In court Aug. 10, the JetBlue flight attendant who became angry at a passenger, cursed out the whole plane, opened the door, and then slid down the inflatable emergency slide to the tarmac at New York’s Kennedy Airport, defended his actions as a blow for courtesy.

In court Aug. 10, the JetBlue flight attendant who became angry at a passenger, cursed out the whole plane, opened the door, and then slid down the inflatable emergency slide to the tarmac at New York's Kennedy Airport, defended his actions as a blow for courtesy. "This is an example of how airline civility is missing," the lawyer for Steven Slater, 38, told the court, claiming Slater became incensed by a passenger who failed to apologize after accidentally whacking him with the door to the overhead storage bin. And, indeed, much of the coverage of the event portrayed Slater as a put-upon drudge who refused to take it any more - a workplace hero.

Workplace danger and miscreant, perhaps, but no hero.

JetBlue, which happens to be the leading airline at Logan Airport, needs to explain how it came to employ this emotional firecracker in what is, at bottom, a public-safety position. Flight attendants have played key roles in helping defuse deadly terrorist attacks on many flights, including as recently as last Christmas. Moreover, flight attendants are often charged with calming the nerves of those who suffer from fear of flying - not provoking them with outbursts of their own. JetBlue needs to examine its personnel screening - not least because Slater reportedly was on the airline's "in-flight values committee."

Slater can get out of jail by posting $2,500 bail on reckless endangerment charges. That's fair enough, but the court is right to take his offense seriously - and judge him harshly.