SUDDEN HERO: Steven Slater, above right with boyfriend Ken, bears a head wound from his bag battle as he’s released from jail last night. (Pete Whittle)
The JetBlue flight attendant who flipped out after his plane landed at JFK and then escaped using the emergency chute is a self-professed “bag Nazi” who was furious over a passenger’s oversized luggage, authorities said yesterday.
“I hate to be a bag Nazi when I work a flight, but I feel if I am not, then I am letting down all those who cooperate and try to help out as well,” fussy flight attendant Steven Slater wrote several months ago on Airliners.net, an aviation Web site on which he uses the handle “skyliner747.”
But the 38-year-old wing nut appeared to be much more tolerant of people last night.
After he was sprung from a Bronx prison barge, the livery cabby he had hired to drive him away suddenly freaked out amid the media circus and dumped him back out on the sidewalk — but Slater took it in stride.
VIDEO: FLIGHT ATTENDANT GONE WILD
“It was attention he wasn’t prepared to deal with,” a smiling Slater said of the cabby as he stood back behind the gates of the lockup to wait as guards called him another car around 10 p.m.
Several hours earlier, Slater had pleaded not guilty to reckless endangerment in Queens Criminal Court for his Monday shenanigans, and was finally sprung on $2,500 bail at 9:30 p.m.
When he got into a silver livery van outside the jail’s gates, two producers from ABC’s “Good Morning America” hopped in, too. But they were let off a block away, saying Slater had kicked them out.
The jittery driver then took off — only to return to the gates within minutes to dump Slater.
Asked jokingly if he had forgotten something, Slater quipped, “My dignity.
“The food was just too good,” he added with a smile. “I’m tired. I want a hot bath and a good meal.”
Slater, a sudden Internet sensation, said he “greatly appreciated” the support he has received.
“I think some things about this resonated with people,” Slater added, referring to the fact that he essentially told his employers to take their job and shove it after his tussle with a rude passenger over her large amount of baggage.
An admirer put a poster on his Slater’s home in Belle Harbor, Queens, declaring, “Steve Hero!”
Asked about his plans, Slater cryptically said, “I have some things lined up,” adding that he was looking forward to “a little down time, a little beach time, enjoying the rest of the summer.”
The bizarre jailhouse drama occurred as a clearer account emerged of the JetBlue incident, which began with two women arguing over overhead space as Flight 1052 sat on a Pittsburgh tarmac, according to Slater’s lawyer, Howard Turman.
One of the women had two bags, one of which was too large to fit — which is Slater’s pet peeve. He told her it would have to be checked, Turman said.
She then flipped out and began cursing at Slater — at one point slamming the overhead bin door down on his head, Turman added.
The woman’s bag was ultimately checked, and she remained unapologetic, sources said.
Once the jet arrived at JFK, the same passenger agitated Slater by trying to take her other, smaller bag down before the pilot gave the OK for passengers to stand.
When Slater confronted her, she cursed at him and everyone else, demanding to get her checked bag back immediately, Turman said.
That’s when Slater let loose.
“I got on the microphone and said, ‘To those who have shown dignity and respect these last 20 years, thanks for a great ride,’ ” Slater said, according to the court complaint.
But police sources said he also used the public-address system to lash out at the “the f – – king asshole that told me to f – – k off!”
Then Slater grabbed his own two bags, swiped some beer, activated the inflatable emergency chute, slid down, headed to the parking lot and drove home in his Jeep Wrangler. He was later arrested there as his boyfriend looked on.
Turman insisted his client didn’t curse or get physical.
Slater makes clear in his Web rants his hatred for fliers who don’t follow baggage limits.
“I am not blaming the passengers in any way for my compensation shortfalls. I am frustrated with many of them for their unrealistic approach regarding carry-ons,” he wrote.
His mom, Diane, defended her son, saying, “he was injured by the passenger,” who left him an “egg on his head where he got smacked.”
Additional reporting by Philip Messing, Jeane MacIntosh and Reuven Fenton in NY and Anita Bennett in Thousand Oaks, Calif.