A Texas woman who went viral for delaying an American Airlines flight last month while sensationally yelling that another passenger onboard was “not real” has issued an apology saying her behaviour was “completely unacceptable.”
“Distressed or not, I should have been in control of my emotions and that was not the case,” Tiffany Gomas said in a video posted online on Sunday.
The Dallas marketing executive was filmed shouting expletives in the plane’s aisle while her July 2 flight from Dallas to Orlando, Florida, taxied on the runway. Gomas demanded to be let off, while pointing toward the back of the plane and shouting: “That motherf**ker is not real.”
“You can sit on this plane and you can f**king die with them or not. I’m not going to,” she said in a clip of the incident posted to social media.
The disruptive passenger was removed from the flight by local law enforcement, the airline told The Dallas Morning News.
Gomas apologised for her language, particularly to those on the plane with children.
“We all have our bad moments, some far worse than others, and mine happened to be caught on camera for the whole world to see multiple times,” she said before appearing to choke up.
“While it has been really comical for everyone, and I have highly enjoyed so many of the memes, on the flip side it is very invasive and unkind, and I don’t know what I would do without the love and support of my friends and family. They are loyal to a fault, and I don’t know what I did to deserve them,” she said.
Gomas went on to share a link to her personal website while inviting viewers to join her on her “journey of promoting positive mental health and standing up against cyberbullying.”
Her website on Monday featured her video apology and another message reading, “Stay tuned.”