Flight Attendant Tells Passengers To 'Meditate' When Air Conditioning On Plane Breaks Mid-Flight
Unsurprisingly, the passengers did not appreciate her suggestion.
PanuShot | Shutterstock Flying truly brings out the worst in humanity. From pretty arguments to all-out brawls, there’s plenty of evidence to show that being confined to a tiny space with hundreds of strangers is simply not good for people. Add high temperatures and a broken air conditioner into the mix, and things go from uncomfortable to disastrous.
One set of passengers experienced just that. The AC on the plane stopped working, and the flight attendants' advice to passengers was simply to meditate. Predictably, this did not go over well, and after a clip of the incident hit TikTok, people raised some serious safety concerns.
A flight attendant told passengers to meditate when the air conditioning on the plane.
The video was posted by a passenger named Bridget (@brigchicago). In the clip, she recorded one of the flight attendants on the plane giving a message over the intercom. As she spoke, you could see almost every passenger using random pieces of paper as makeshift fans.
"Alright, folks, we’re doing our best," the flight attendant said apologetically. "If we attempt to do a water service right now, it would put us back. We wouldn’t be able to get in the air. And the sooner we get in the air, the sooner it’ll cool off."
Then, she added insult to injury by leaving passengers with one final thought. "Do your best to just meditate and stay calm," she advised. "Help each other."
The cabin erupted with passengers exclaiming, "What?!" in utter disbelief. At the very end of the video, the plane could be heard descending into chaos as passengers started calling out different reasons they couldn’t be on the aircraft without AC. Bridget wrote, "POV: it’s 130 degrees on the plane and you’re being told to meditate."
Commenters had a lot to say about the flight attendant’s suggestion to meditate.
Several TikTok users pointed out that it wasn’t the flight attendant’s fault that the AC broke, and she was just doing the best she could in a difficult situation. While that is technically true, suggesting the angry and uncomfortable passengers use this as an opportunity to brush up on their meditation skills was not the best move.
“Have they tried having… a kid sing Moana?” one commenter joked, referring to the recent debacle in which a flight attendant let a child sing the Disney princess’ signature song "How Far I’ll Go" over the intercom on a packed flight.
Most people were terrified at the thought of being trapped in a plane with no AC. "I have heat insensitivity. I would be having a medical emergency," one user said. On Reddit, where the video was shared to the r/TikTokCringe forum, someone pointed out, "This is incredibly dangerous for many people, could easily kill someone."
There is little precedent for this, and really no clear answer on what should be done.
While a lot of people on this particular flight probably felt like the situation was mishandled, it’s possible that no one really knew what to do. While this has happened before, the precedent is limited.
frantic00 | Shutterstock
According to NBC News 3, a flight from Las Vegas to Atlanta was canceled in 2023 because the AC went out, and a passenger had to be treated for a "heat-related illness." "Delta says that the passengers received a direct apology and compensatory gesture for their experience, as well as accommodations on other flights," they reported.
It's unclear if the passengers aboard this flight received an apology or any compensation, and it appears that whatever occurred on this plane was a mechanical problem. Regardless, telling irritable passengers to meditate in triple-digit temperatures was bound to leave a bad taste in their mouths.
Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer with a bachelor’s degree in English and Journalism who covers news, psychology, lifestyle, and human interest topics.
