A Southwest Airlines flight was delayed more than an hour after flight attendants refused to let the plane take off until a pile of rice was cleared from the aisle.
Passengers said the confusion erupted almost immediately after travelers boarded planes from Atlanta, Georgia to Houston, Texas on Saturday.
Jennifer Schaper, who tweeted the incident, wrote: “The flight attendant yelled, ‘Who spilled rice?’ and walk up and down the aisles. They refuse to leave the gate until someone clears the rice.”
No one would admit to spilling the food and staff had to fetch a broom to clean it up before the flight could finally take off.
It comes after Southwest suffered a widespread technical glitch earlier this week and was named the second-worst airline last year for exclusive data delays.
Passengers said the chaos erupted almost immediately after people boarded planes from Atlanta, Georgia to Houston, Texas on Saturday.
Schaper tweeted the ordeal, “#RiceGate,” tweeting, “Me and people in my line are giggling right now and she’s looking at us suspiciously.”
While the flight crew waited for a broom to clean up the mess, Schaper posted a video of the flight attendant apologizing to the passengers for the delay.
“We clean this rice so you don’t have to walk through it and it’s not an eyesore,” she said over the loudspeaker. “Our apologies, but again, I don’t think you want to go through this, so let’s just get this over with before we go.”
Alongside a photo of the mess finally being cleaned up, Schaper tweeted: “Rice is being cleaned up but she is MAD. She let us all know we weren’t raised right and she is disappointed in all of us.”
To make matters worse, Schaper added that the flight was further delayed because “an unwitting passenger used #RiceGate to go to the bathroom and further delayed the flight.”
She later joked that she and her battle buddies did Nickname of the flight “The Voyage of the Damned”.
When the flight finally landed in Houston, Schaper took to social media to provide an ‘update’ and joked: ‘There were some bumps so they didn’t give us drink service.’ I think it was punishment.’
Schaper later told KHOU she doesn’t hold the staff responsible for the ordeal. “It was the end of a long day and there was apparently a complete crew change. I’m sure they were tired. There was a delay and we were tired,” she said.
She added that whoever made the mess should have confessed and taken responsibility for it, but she couldn’t help but see the funny side of the incident.
“The whole thing was very strange and I saw the bright side of the situation. We’re all stuck there, might as well make fun of it,” she said.
Passenger Jennifer Schaper live-tweeted the ordeal
South West also suffered a widespread technical fault this week which caused thousands of delays
Servants had to fetch a broom to clean up a mystery passenger’s mess
It is the latest tale of woe in a long line of incidents that have plagued the struggling airline in recent weeks.
A man had to be escorted off a Southwest flight by police when it landed in Orlando, Fla., on Wednesday after throwing an epic tantrum over a screaming child.
The passenger was taken screaming into the air and claims the baby cried non-stop for 45 minutes.
The ordeal occurred when the flight was forced to stay in the area outside Palm Beach due to a bad weather front.
Southwest grounded all flights nationwide on Tuesday after a technical error, which led to 2,400 flight delays.
The delay in departures caused traffic to back up Denver airport services to New York City and came just months after the airline experienced an epic systemic crisis during the December holiday rush.
Exclusive data for DailyMail.com this week showed Southwest was one of the top offenders for flight delays in the past year.
From April 2022 to April 2023, Southwest experienced delays on a quarter of its flights — second only to JetBlue Airways with a 31.6% delay, according to flight tracking platform FlightAware.
A spokesperson for Southwest Airlines told DailyMail.com: “This appears to be a normal departure and we have no reports of flight irregularities or details of passenger claims. It is not unusual for a flight attendant to request a broom from our airport staff so that the crew can clean the aircraft before departure if necessary.”
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James is an author and travel journalist who writes for The Fashion Vibes. With a love for exploring new cultures and discovering unique destinations, James brings his readers on a journey with him through his articles.
