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 today.
“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 where he uses the handle “skyliner747.”
JETBLUE FLIGHT ATTENDANT TURNS INTO OVERNIGHT INTERNET SENSATION
But the 38-year-old wing nut appeared to be much more tolerant of people this evening.
After he was sprung from a Bronx prison barge, the livery cabbie he had hired to drive him away suddenly freaked out amid the media circus and dumped him back out again on the sidewalk — but Slater took it in stride.
“It was attention he wasn’t prepared to deal with,” a smiling Slater said of the cabbie as he stood back behind the gates of the lockup to wait as guards called him another car around 10 p.m.
Slater had pleaded not guilty to reckless endangerment in Queens Criminal Court for his Monday-morning shenanigans several hours earlier and was finally sprung on $2,500 bail at 9:30 p.m.
He got into a silver livery van outside the jail’s gates — and two producers from ABC TV’s “Good Morning America” then hopped in, too. But the TV producers were let off a block away, saying Slater had kicked them out.
The jittery driver then drove 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.”
The new Internet sensation said he “greatly appreciated” the support he 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.
Asked about future plans, Slater cryptically said: “I have some things lined up” before adding 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 more clear account emerged of his ill-fated flight, which began with two women arguing over overhead space as Flight 1052 sat on a Pittsburgh tarmac, according to his lawyer, Howard Turman.
One of the women had two bags, one of which was too large to fit — which is Slater’s pet peeve — and 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 they 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 he 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 PA 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 it and drove away in his Jeep Wrangler. He was later arrested at his home 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 passengers 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 mother, Diane Slater,, defended her son, saying, he was injured by the passenger to the point where he an “egg on his head here where he got smacked.”
Additional reporting by Philip Messing and Jeane MacIntosh in NY and Anita Bennett in Thousand Oaks, Calif.