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Comedian James Corden has been praised by as a ‘top guy’ after helping calm anxious passengers caught up in a holiday jet mid air drama.
Chloe Boemen, 52, and her student daughter Claire, 17, were among dozens of people told to ‘brace themselves’ as their BA flight from Portugal to Gatwick made an unscheduled stop following a technical hitch.
Software manager Chloe praised the Gavin and Stacey star for helping keep anxious passengers minds at ease as he posed for selfies and cracked jokes.
She added: ‘James was such a top guy and really lovely man, he was reassuring people and was even handing out leftover croissants from the meal service.
‘He was talking with people, shaking their hands and was putting everyone at ease. He was happy to pose for selfies and my daughter, who is a nervous flier, was so happy to have her picture taken with him. He was absolutely brilliant.
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‘I think what wound everyone up was just the lack of communication from BA after the event – this all happened at the weekend and I’ve sent two emails to them about it and heard nothing. It’s just not on.’
Drama started on the BA flight from Faro to Gatwick last Friday shortly after takeoff and passengers were left frightened after a tannoy announcement warned them to adopt the ‘brace position’ as they came in to land at Lisbon airport.
Chloe, from Maidenhead, Berkshire, said: ‘Apparently there was an issue with the flaps and we had to circle Lisbon for about an hour before we landed as we couldn’t go back to Faro because the runway was too short.
‘The message came over that we should adopt the brace position just before we landed and it wasn’t an exercise it was real and that’s when some people started to get worried.
‘I’ve flown a lot so wasn’t too bothered but my daughter gets anxious and scared but James had been brilliant walking up and down beforehand reassuring everyone.
‘He was on the flight in business with his wife and kids but he was more than happy to have a chat with everyone and crack jokes and pose for selfies.
‘After we landed he sort of became an unofficial leader and everyone followed him off the plane and into the terminal.
‘We had been told we wouldn’t be left alone and hotels would be provided but they weren’t so in the end I booked one for my daughter and myself at the airport.
‘I didn’t see James after that as we had left and it was getting quite late by now, we had been hanging around at the airport for more than three hours.’
After reaching their hotel at 11.30pm BA emailed Chloe to say a replacement flight would be leaving from Lisbon at 9.30am the next morning and they should be at the airport for 7.30am at the latest.
Chloe said: ‘We got there on time and one of the first people I saw was James and his family which surprised me as I thought he would have made other arrangements.
‘But no, he was there with the rest of us and got on the replacement flight and he was still chatting, cracking jokes and smiling. He made what could have been an awful end to the holiday actually quite entertaining and I can’t thank him enough.’
Chloe added: ‘He was really looking out for the other passengers who had children and was just as annoyed as were about the shoddy service.
‘He wasn’t shouting or having a go he was very polite and just explaining how frustrated we all were by the situation.’
It comes as other customers have come out on the comic’s side as they said he was not a ‘bad guy’ and should be ‘thanked’ for standing up for families.
James was later seen giving staff a piece of his mind in the terminal, after those on board were told to ‘adopt’ the brace position before the aircraft’s emergency landing due to a problem with flaps on the wing.
Behind him in the pictures was Terry Watts, from Kent, who had been on the BA jet with his wife Rhian and three-year-old daughter.
Mrs Watts defended Mr Corden’s behaviour and blasted those making ‘negative comments towards him’, and said that he was cheering people up when they spent hours on the plane with ‘no food or drink offered’. She also slammed ‘rude and abusive’ Portuguese airport staff.
She told MailOnline: ‘At no point was James rude or shouting. And I thank him for making it clear to staff that the situation was not good enough. I think it’s sad that people are so quick to judge him as a bad guy’.
Explaining what happened, she said: ‘James and my husband were simply speaking to the BA staff to recount the poor service they had experienced. The BA staff were shocked and disgusted by the lack of response from staff. James and my husband spoke to them for a while and then returned to the queue where us as their families were waiting for them’.
Mrs Watts said that BA staff on board the plane ‘were amazing’ – but they were unhappy with how they were treated when they landed.
‘We were all traumatised by hearing the emergency message telling us to brace ourselves and James was right, the passengers particularly children were traumatised.
‘However, the real issue was the way we were dealt with when we entered the airport. The BA staff had been informed there was a plan and BA staff would be there to meet us.
‘There were no BA staff and the Portuguese airport staff were rude and abusive to the point that they actually pushed children out of the queue.
‘All after hours of being on a plane that we were told would crash land and having no food or drink offered throughout the whole process’.
Fellow travellers told how Corden posed for selfies with them and joked about revealing the ending of Gavin and Stacey’s Christmas special as they feared for their lives.
Vanessa, a passenger who was on the flight with her mother and husband, said: ‘It was something along the lines of, ”Gather your possessions as best you can, take off your shoes, and when you’re told to by the airplane staff, please adopt the brace position and when we land if you’re able, please find your nearest emergency exit and vacate the plane”.
‘Basically, what had happened was the flaps on the airplane wing which are supposed to go down when you are in the air won’t go down, which meant that they wouldn’t be able to raise them on landing.’
Passengers were eventually told they would no longer have to assume the brace position, but spent three hours on the tarmac in Lisbon before the plane was finally taken out of service.
Vanessa confirmed the comedian confronted a staff member after passengers vacated the plane in Lisbon, but only because they were shepherded into the wrong queue.
‘So then BA finally let us off the plane,’ Vanessa told Metro. ‘We’re in the terminal and there was not a member of BA staff to be found. And they put us in immigration queues. And there was just no one there telling us what was going on.
‘The people he’s speaking to in that picture are the flight staff on our plane. I watched him fist bump the pilot as he got off the plane, he said, ”Thank you very much.”
According to Vanessa, the presenter was vexed because passengers had been directed towards the wrong queue, among them families with young children.
She said: ‘James was a club flyer and he stood there, and was like ”What about all these people who’ve got all these kids with them?” saying that’s not acceptable. It’s not right.’
And Vanessa claims Corden – who once fell out with a New York restaurateur over his alleged treatment of waiting staff – kept passengers entertained by posing for selfies as they made their way back to the UK.
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‘He walked up and down the aisles talking to people, and let everybody take a selfie with him,’ she said.
‘I made a joke and went, ‘Oh if we’re all going to die. You could tell us how does the Gavin & Stacey Christmas special end?’ and he went ‘Do you really want to know?’ and I went ‘Yeah.’ He went, ‘I can’t tell you.’
‘Then he said, ‘but do you want to know what happened on the fishing trip?’ and I was like ‘Yes! I do!’ and he was like, ‘I can’t tell you that either.”
It’s understood that the plane struggled to gain altitude as soon as it left the Algarve and circled for 45 minutes, never reaching altitude before announcing an emergency landing.
Passengers were eventually given a flight to London at 9:30 the following morning and Corden was ‘stood in the same queue as everybody else, doing the same things as everybody else did’.
Corden has previously fallen foul of various public figures, among them Spice Girl Mel B – who branded him ‘the biggest d***head’ she’s met.
Naming her least favourite celebrities on a 2022 episode of The Big Narstie Show, she said: ‘So, there’s a few. James Corden, Geri Halliwell, Jessie J and me!’
Ricky Gervais has also been critical of Corden after the presenter used one of his 2018 stand-up jokes during a late Late Show monologue.
Gervais tweeted a clip from Corden’s show in which the host jokes about Twitter users getting angry about a poster in a town square about guitar lessons.
But Corden’s joke is directly repeating Gervais’ gag from his 2018 Netflix stand-up comedy gig Ricky Gervais: Humanity.
Gervais, retweeting a clip of Corden repeating his joke, said in a since deleted tweet: ‘The bit about the town square advert for guitar lessons is brilliant.’
The comedian said he deleted the original tweet because he ‘felt sorry for Corden’.
In 2022 Corden was branded a ‘tiny cretin of a man’ and banned by the furious owner of iconic New York Balthazar restaurant – who claimed was the ‘most abusive customer ever’.
Fiery restaurateur Keith McNally banned the former Late Late Show host from his restaurants because of his treatment of staff.
Corden later made a public apology – but denied the restaurant’s version of events, insisting he did not ‘yell like crazy’ and claiming for the first time that the reason he was so upset is that his wife was given food she has ‘seriously allergic’ to.
The presenter, appearing on his Late Late Show, conceded that he’d been ‘ungracious’ to the waitstaff at Balthazar, but tried again to explain himself.
McNally announced on Instagram that Corden was banned from the restaurant as punishment for rude and childish behavior on two occasions.
On the first occasion, Corden was upset that a hair had been found in his food and demanded free drinks to make up for it, according to McNally.
The second occasion involved his wife Julia ordering an egg-yolk omelette and receiving a plate with egg white on it. The final straw was when the remade omelette was sent out with a side of home fries instead of salad.
‘James Corden began yelling like crazy to the server,’ McNally said, quoting the general manager’s service report.
But Corden insisted he didn’t scream or make any ‘derogatory remarks’. His only offense was making the ‘unnecessary’ and ‘snide’ comment that he’d ‘make the omelette himself’ if the kitchen staff were unable to.
My wife explained that she has a serious food allergy.
‘The meals came, my wife was given the food that she was allergic to. She hadn’t taken a bite of it or anything, no worries, we sent it back. All was good.
‘As her meal came wrong to the table the third time, in the heat of the moment I made a sarcastic rude comment about cooking it myself. It is a comment I deeply regret.
‘I worked shifts at restaurants for years, I have such respect for anyone who does that job.
‘The restaurant manager and the server were lovely, they brought out four glasses of champagne and we were like ‘that’s not necessary, we don’t need it, we had a great time’.
‘But here’s the truth of it – because I didn’t shout or scream , I didn’t get up out of my seat, I didn’t call anyone names or use derogatory language, I have been walking around thinking that I’ve not done anything wrong.
‘But I have, I made a rude comment.’
James Parker is a UK-based entertainment aficionado who delves into the glitz and glamour of the entertainment industry. From Hollywood to the West End, he offers readers an insider’s perspective on the world of movies, music, and pop culture.
