British carrier EasyJet is seeking answers after a Nice airport worker allegedly punched an airline passenger — who was holding a baby — in the face.
The incident was photographed and posted to Twitter by passenger Arabella Arkwright.
She said a fellow passenger went up to the airport worker to ask about baby food after a 13-hour delay of their flight, which was bound for Luton.
“The man with the baby … went over and talked to the Frenchman and the Frenchman didn’t reply, he just smiled and smirked and then whacked this guy on the left side of his face,” she told BBC Radio 5 Live.
Arkwright said her husband helped restrain the airport employee until help could arrive.
“My husband, who’s 64, had to pull the man off him and hold him against a glass door. Everyone was appalled,” Arkwright told the Daily Mail.
Another passenger confirmed Arkwright’s report on Twitter.
On Twitter, EasyJet said the man in the photograph was an employee of French company Samsic, which provides special assistance for the Nice Airport.
“We had a serious problem with someone of staff from our subcontractor Samsic,” Jean-François Guitard, a director at the Nice airport, told CNN.
Guitard noted Samsic said the employee had been suspended.
“Clearly it is a misconduct situation. We apologize strongly about this situation regarding this passenger. There is no reason for a staff member to fight a passenger,” Guitard said.
The incident is just one of several violent acts against airline passengers over the past few months.
Last April, Kentucky doctor David Dao was dragged down the aisle of an overbooked United Airlines flight.
Just a few weeks later, American Airlines issued an apology to a female passenger following the release of a video that showed an airline employee in a heated exchange with a passenger after he allegedly grabbed a stroller from a mother in an aggressive manner.
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