I can understand getting frustrated with passengers. I can even understand his verbal outburst, although highly unprofessional. The point at which he crossed the line was how he chose to make his exit.

To get straight to the point, what he did by deploying that slide was extremely dangerous, costly, and simply negligent. Had he not done that, he /might/ have a chance at getting his job back. But he simply did not care. Aviation bloggers have estimated the cost of replacing that slide to be around $10- to $12,000. Indeed, these slides are serious business. Flight attendants and us pilots alike never actually get to deploy one in our industry training, we're taken through the motions on a model fuselage with an already-deployed slide.

What most of the bloggers and journalists alike fail to take into account, however, is that little stunt is costing JetBlue more than the price tag on the slide. That aircraft had to be taken out of service until such a time as that slide could be replaced. The downtime means that another aircraft has to be allocated to pick up the slack. If JetBlue didn't have a replacement handy at that airport, it will cost them even more money in scheduling a positioning flight to get it there (not to mention paying an extra flight crew on top of it to perform the extra trip). The stress this whole encounter has put on passengers, as well as the time and money it has cost them in the form of any delays in their travel, is another sore point for JetBlue's accountants.

Consider, also, his very act of deploying the slide. He's very lucky there wasn't people or equipment crossing paths with that two-ton airbag at the moment of deployment. I don't even want to think about how bad that would hurt, if you even survived to feel the pain.

In short, F/A Slater is a very disturbed individual who does not deserve his job. He doesn't deserve jail time, either, in my opinion. He does deserve to lose all benefits and any severance packages. At the least, he owes JetBlue a very sincere apology and, perhaps, some restitution. Had he simply "went off" on the passengers, then a temporary suspension would probably have been prudent. But in taking it to the next level, he demonstrated why he should /not/ be flying the "friendly" skies -- stellar service record notwithstanding.

I know I wouldn't want someone like him as a member of my cabin crew.