Martin followed.
“Public confidence matters.”
“Yes.”
“More than speed.”
Martin’s face tightened.
He knew an argument was coming.
Darius said:
“Conference room.”
Forty minutes later, fourteen executives sat around a table at Northstar’s New York operations center.
The video played on a screen.
Darius hated watching himself.
Halden’s voice:
Get out of 1A. I’m done arguing.
Then Darius:
You might want to verify who you’re removing first.
Then the bag shove.
Then radio.
Martin paused.
“We need to terminate him.”
Darius leaned back.
“Why?”
Everyone looked confused.
Martin said:
“Darius.”
“I’m asking.”
“Conduct unbecoming.”
“Passenger mistreatment.”
“Insubordination to procedure.”
“Potential discriminatory behavior.”
Darius looked toward head of flight operations.
“Caroline?”
Caroline Yates was a former captain.
She answered carefully.
“Removal pending investigation is appropriate.”
“Termination today is not.”
Martin stared.
“You're defending him?”
Caroline shook her head.
“I’m defending process.”
Darius nodded.
“Good.”
Martin looked frustrated.
“This company cannot look weak.”
Darius leaned forward.
“Firing someone before investigation because the CEO happens to be the victim is weakness.”
“It tells every employee discipline depends on who they mistreat.”
Silence.
That hit.
Darius continued.
“If I were an ordinary passenger, would we have fourteen executives in this room?”
Nobody answered.
He looked at Martin.
“Would we?”
Martin exhaled.
“No.”
“There’s problem number one.”
General counsel raised a hand slightly.
“Darius, we need to separate personal incident from broader claims.”
“No.”
Everyone looked.
“I have been hearing that phrase for six months.”
“Every incident separated from every other incident produces no pattern by definition.”
General counsel frowned.
“What are you proposing?”
“Independent review.”
Martin immediately said:
“That is excessive.”
Darius looked at him.
“Of what?”
“Customer complaints involving seat challenges, cabin-class verification, boarding eligibility, mobility accommodations, and crew escalation.”
“For how long?”
“Three years.”
Martin almost laughed.
“You want to review three years of service incidents because one captain treated you badly?”
Darius stared.
“No.”
“I want to review them because we already had complaints before he treated me badly.”
“My seat simply removed your ability to call them anecdotal.”
The room went silent.
Caroline looked down.
Elliot stopped typing.
Martin’s face hardened.
Darius noticed.
That bothered him.