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Official: Delta Airlines Will Now Fly Stowaway Back To U.S. Tomorrow; Police Describe Hawaii Woman "A Voluntary Missing Person"; Why Bosses May Be Encouraging Workers To Resign. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired December 03, 2024 - 13:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[13:30:00]

OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: -- the military officials responsible for what their civilian, essentially, leaders had them -- instructed them to do. And that, it seems, was exactly what was happening here.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: All right. Still more to know, obviously, but very interesting.

Oren Liebermann, live for us at the Pentagon, thank you.

The stowaway saga continues after six U.S. marshals were prepared to escort the woman who had snuck onto a Paris flight. Delta said, "Nope."

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[13:34:58]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: We've got some new details for you in the saga of the stowaway passenger who managed to make it past multiple security checkpoints on a Delta flight from New York to Paris.

An airport official says that Delta will now fly this Russian woman back to New York tomorrow after taking her off a plane this morning, the second failed attempt to get her back to the United States.

Officials say she got tossed from a flight just before takeoff on Saturday after she started screaming.

Let's bring in CNN's Richard Quest.

Richard, what do we know about this woman? And why has it been such a hassle to get her back to the United States?

RICHARD QUEST, CNN BUSINESS EDITOR-AT-LARGE: Well, the difficulty is that Delta is responsible for bringing her back to the U.S. because they took her over. And under the various aviation rules, it's Deltas responsibility and costs to bring her back.

But the last thing Delta Airlines wants is some passenger creating -- they are, after all, in the business of public transport. And if this woman is like -- even with six air marshals, if this woman

is likely to create havoc, chaos, make a scene, left, right and center, if God forbid, she ends up having to be strapped to the chair, well, Delta doesn't want passengers having to put up with that, and rightly so.

Here's where it gets interesting. How do they get her back to the United States, since that is the point of departure? My guess is that if she won't cooperate, if the French are determined to deport, if Delta refuses, then Delta will end up paying for a charter flight to bring her back.

Pretty much like a prisoners flight. And she'll be on it all on her own with security guards.

SANCHEZ: Well, that would be another weird chapter in this story.

The TSA is still trying to figure out exactly how she got past them last week at JFK. They're now opening a civil case against her. Do you think criminal charges could be brought?

QUEST: Oh, there's a whole host of things. Look, where the TSA is concerned here, there is enough egg on their face to make a scrambled breakfast.

The reality is, they've said nothing about what happened. But the truth is, she evaded the I.D. section to begin with. She got through the body scanner, so she clearly didn't have anything on her that was dangerous.

And then Delta managed not to get her or to not to put her through proper procedures when she got to the gate.

It beggars belief in this day and age that a passenger, not somebody who stowed away through the baggage hold or got into the underneath, but through the passenger terminal. It beggars belief that this was able to happen in this day and age.

And, frankly, the fact that TSA aren't saying anything just heaps more ridicule on them. They make such a fuss. We take no truck with security. Well do it right. Well, guess what? They got it wrong spectacularly on this one.

SANCHEZ: Yes, it will be interesting to see how they clean up that breakfast omelet, as you described it.

Richard Quest, thank you so much for the reporting.

Still to come on CNN NEWS CENTRAL, Los Angeles -- the police in Los Angeles, I should say, say the woman they've been looking for, for weeks now, is a, quote, "voluntary missing person." What that means in the search for Hannah Kobayashi in just moments.

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[13:42:42] KEILAR: A new twist in the case of a Hawaiian woman who vanished nearly a month ago. Los Angeles police now say Hannah Kobayashi was spotted on video crossing into Mexico alone, and apparently unharmed.

The 30-year-old had flown from Maui to Los Angeles but did not board her connecting flight to New York, which raised concerns among her friends and family.

CNN's Julia Vargas Jones reports authorities have declared Kobayashi a "voluntary missing person."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JULIA VARGAS JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A surprising turn of events as the LAPD now labeled Hannah Kobayashi case the voluntary missing persons case, as she is seen crossing the border into Mexico with her luggage but without her phone.

They say that at the time she was alone. That was just two days after her last communication with her family on November 11th.

Authorities said that mostly Hannah looked fine.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LT. DOUGLAS OLDFIELD, LOST ANGELES POLICE DEPARTMENT: She appeared fine. She was with nobody else. There were some desires or posts that would be consistent in somebody who would have the desire to disconnect from their phone.

I think it's not something that -- that I have available right now. It's just that was part of the investigation. Are we 100 percent right on that? We can't say, right? We just know that she did not have her phone after she left LAX.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JONES: Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell said that Hannah is an adult and that they respect her choices but urged her to contact her family and loved ones, saying that a simple message could reassure them that she is safe.

Now, the family has told CNN separately and before this press conference that they disagree with the assessment from the LAPD that she missed her initial flight on November 8th to JFK on purpose. And that she, they believe, was still missing and in imminent danger.

This, of course, comes after some text messages that Hannah sent to her family and loved ones, including one that said, quote, "Deep hackers wiped my identity, stole all my funds, and have me on kind of a mind expletive since Friday."

And a second message that said, "I got tricked pretty much into giving away all of my funds."

This, the family says, points to her still being in potential danger. [13:45:02]

Of course, this is a family that is going through an overwhelming amount of grief as her father, Ryan Kobayashi, who was here in Los Angeles helping look for his daughter, tragically took his own life last week.

The family at the time said that, quote, "As you can imagine, the family is devastated." And that Ryan died of a broken heart.

But still, they said the focus should be on finding Hannah, that they believe that she was still in danger and that it was crucial to remain vigilant.

We still have not heard from the family since this press conference and this change of status on the case.

But many questions still remain on why this would have happened. What exactly did she do in the days leading up to crossing the border in Los Angeles?

She went to a mall. She went to a bookstore. What could have led her to then cross the border into Mexico? And are authorities correct in saying that she did so voluntarily?

Julia Vargas Jones, CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANCHEZ: Our thanks to Julia Vargas Jones for that report.

Now to some of the other headlines we're watching this hour.

The bitter cold and lake-effect snow blanketing the Great Lakes region are finally easing up. But more snow and freezing temperatures are on the way.

A new storm expected tomorrow will bring strong winds and widespread snow across the Great Lakes region and parts of the northeast. Temperatures are going to stay below average across the east all week, so get ready to bundle up.

Also, Texans linebacker, Azeez al-Shaair, is suspended without pay for three games following Sunday's late hit on Jaguars quarterback, Trevor Lawrence. Lawrence was hit in the head while sliding on a six-yard run, and it resulted in a concussion.

NFL officials call al-Shaair's conduct unacceptable and troubling. They cited him for repeated safety violations. The linebacker apologized, saying he didn't mean to hurt Lawrence. He is expected to appeal his suspension.

And celebrity chef, Tommy Banks, making an urgent plea after he says thieves stole his van, packed with 2,500 meat pies. The Michelin- starred chef says the pies we're headed to a Christmas market in northern England and were worth more than $31,000. He posted a message on his Instagram page directed at the thieves.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TOMMY BANKS, MICHELIN-STARRED CHEF: If you see this video, right, I know the pies are gone. And I know you've nicked my van and we're probably not getting it back.

But you can't do anything with these pies because they've got my name written all over them. So can you drop them off somewhere? Like drop them off at, like, a community center or somewhere, and at least someone could eat them. Someone who need them could eat them.

I know you're a criminal, but maybe just do something nice because it's Christmas, and maybe we could feed a few thousand people with these pies that you've stolen. Do the right thing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: Notably, Banks revealed today that police have found the van. The pies, though, remain missing.

Things are getting pretty passive aggressive between employees and employers. You've probably heard of Quiet Quitting, but have you heard of Quiet Firing? We're going to tell you how bosses are pushing employees out and whether it's legal if it happens to you.

Stay tuned.

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[13:52:44]

SANCHEZ: Do you ever get that vibe, that feeling that your boss maybe just wants you to quit? It could be a buildup of little things, like being left out of the loop, getting dropped from projects, not being invited to the company Christmas party, maybe even an aggressive mandate to return to the office.

KEILAR: Yes, the tone may not be as overt as what Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy recently wrote in a "Wall Street Journal" op-ed where they said, quote, "Requiring federal employees to come to the office five days a week would result in a wave of voluntary terminations that we welcome."

That's not Quiet quitting. That is loud firing or loud sort of attrition, but same kind of deal here.

CNN's Vanessa Yurkevich is with us.

Help us understand why, Vanessa, bosses would want to force perfectly good workers to quit.

VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN BUSINESS & POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: This is a little bit of reverse psychology. Companies are trying to get you to quit so they don't have to lay you off or fire you. So in certain instances, companies may have over-hired and they don't

want to have to fire or lay you off, so quitting is easier.

Also, if they do fire or lay you off, specifically, specifically laying you off, they do have to provide severance and continued benefits that that is money that the company then has to pay out to employees.

Now, some of the tactics that companies are using to get people to quit are they are saying, you've got to come back to the office five days a week. A lot of people aren't going to like that. And so they may choose to quit.

Also reducing workloads. Maybe for some employees that sounds like a good thing. But for overachievers, people want to do the work.

Excluding people from key projects that the company is working on. And also giving poor performance reviews or no raises at all, that might have a lot of employees thinking, wait a minute, this company is not investing in me. I have no upward trajectory, so I'm going to look elsewhere. I'm going to quit.

SANCHEZ: Vanessa, what's the legality here? Like, where is the line of what your employer can do to try to get you to quit before it becomes illegal?

YURKEVICH: Right. Well, it is legal for them to try to get you to quit in these various ways. They're not breaking the law.

[13:54:53]

However, they are breaking the law if there's any discrimination involved. So if you feel like you're being discriminated against because of age, gender, race, national origin, and that's why they're forcing you out or trying to get you to quit, you do have a leg to stand on.

But ultimately, is this good for the company? This ultimately could backfire because, at some point, you're going to want to try to hire employees, not get employees to quit.

And I spoke to Laura Mazzullo last night. She's an H.R. recruiter and she has her own staffing company.

And she told me this. She said, quote, "Someone -- getting someone to quit is not a good employer branding strategy!" Exclamation point. "Word gets out fast and people will not want to work there going forward. It will have a long tail of bad consequences."

So while some companies, guys, may be doing this right now, in the long run, it doesn't set the stage for being able to recruit high talent and get people back in the door at the companies.

KEILAR: Yes, because maybe you end up welcoming people back who will come and sit around at work and not work as hard as those people working from home. You just never know. So many perhaps side effects here.

Vanessa, thank you so much. We always love to have you. Always.

(CROSSTALK)

KEILAR: Very happy that you're here. See?

YURKEVICH: It's the opposite.

(LAUGHTER)

KEILAR: Clashes -- and this is ahead. This is a very serious story that we're following. Clashes erupting in South Korea after the president declared martial law accusing the country's main opposition party of being North Korean sympathizers.

These are live pictures coming to us from Seoul. You can see it is almost 4:00 a.m. there. We'll have more, next.

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