Southwest Airlines crew disciplined a U.S. citizen--removing her from a flight for wearing a headscarf and refusing to allow her on the flight because of crew discomfort, in an act called anti-Muslim. Three Jews are thrown off an Alaska flight, the same day, for ritual prayer. A Southwest pilot spews a message of hate toward gays and women in open microphone rant, allowed to return to work and fly again--while a black passenger is arrested by U.S. Airways pilot over sagging pants.
Are airline plane crews being given far too much leeway in what seems to be a power play with plane passengers and customers?
Mrs. Irum Abbasi, 31, told San Diego reporters she'd been forced from a short, in-state, San Jose-bound flight when a flight attendant when she claims she found a female passenger to be "suspicious".
Southwest Airlines passenger Abbasi says a flight attendant supposedly overheard the passenger say "It's a go" on her cell phone. The woman, a mother of three and U.S. citizen who's been in the country for over 10 years -- originally from Pakistan -- was really saying "I've got to go." The female passenger did have to go, so the plane could depart. A flight attendant was physically walking the aisles of the Boeing 737-300 to check seat belts in a prep for take-off. Apparently Southwest employs only the brightest, who must be smart enough to believe a potential terrorist would audibly state plans of blowing up a plane via cell phone, right before departure.
The graduate student in experimental psychology at San Jose State, who was returning to the area for a research project, says the flight attendant's assumption was based on her wearing an Islamic head scarf.
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents then went so far to pat down the Muslim woman's head scarf before she says they realized the airline's error and telling her it was not necessary to inspect her purse or cell phone. But, despite the fact TSA subjected her to additional security checks and inspection, the woman who was quickly cleared by TSA security was then absolutely refused by Southwest to re-board the flight on which she was booked. To add insult to injury, the airline said the flight's crew was 'uncomfortable' with the passenger being on the flight.
The incident should be a severe embarrassment to Southwest Airlines: The airline obviously had no problem with security and the Muslim lady actually flying on its planes -- the San Diego woman subsequently booked on the next flight out of San Jose on Southwest.
In the meantime, the 'uncomfortable' Southwest crew responsible for the degrading behavior got away scot-free in degrading one of Southwest's own passengers. In the equivalent of a temper tantrum not far removed from that of a two-year-old, that original crew was allowed to successfully boot the woman from her flight, despite complete security clearance.
Obviously Abbasi's March 2011 by Southwest Airlines didn't have to do with any actual security threat: Abassi was booked on the next flight out of San Diego with the same airline, and the airline issued the Muslim woman a voucher good for a free flight “as a gesture of goodwill” -- in an incident filled with anything but.
Southwest Airlines seems to now believe in using what has become its infamous 'apology' tactic. Not far removed from the Southwest video apology that surfaced the aftermath of a pilot's spewing of a hate-filled and derogatory rant toward gays and women, also occurring in March, Southwest issued a formal "apology" to the Muslim woman from San Diego, California, stating: "“We sincerely apologize for the customer’s inconvenience, and we regret that she was unable to travel as scheduled."
And she obviously regrets the supreme embarrassment.
Abassi being thrown off the Southwest Airlines flight occurred, literally, on the same day in March that Alaska Airlines booted three Jewish passengers from one of its flight because the passengers were saying ritual prayers before take-off supposedly alarmed Alaska crew members.
Southwest seems to have its own internal method of ensuring privacy, despite any lack of that the airline shows toward passengers: In a nearly identical statement as Southwest gave in regard to its pilot's gay-bashing rant filled with slurs that including calling overweight women "pigs", Southwest claims the airline was investigating the Abassi incident but that was against its company policy to discuss whether any of the airline's employees will be disciplined.
The recent onslaught of incidents related to airline crews, including flight attendants and pilot -- feel an increased need to maintain power over passengers, regardless of how the incident may embarrass or even inhibit a citizen's physical freedom. It's all become a disturbing trend. Just months ago Southwest and Alaska crews separately caused a Muslim woman and three Jews to be thrown off their flights for no reason but 'discomfort'.
Even TSA acknowledged that Abassi appeared to be emotionally wrecked by the airline's throwing her off its San Diego flight -- the passenger originally from Pakistan saying: "I was just crying. I have lived in the United States for 10 years. I am a U.S. citizen."
The recent onslaught of incidents related to airline crews, including flight attendants and pilot -- feel an increased need to maintain power over passengers, regardless of how the incident may embarrass or even inhibit a citizen's physical freedom.
It's all become a disturbing trend. Just months ago, in March, Southwest and Alaska crews separately caused a Muslim woman and three Jews to be thrown off their flights for no reason but 'discomfort'. But it hasn't been long since airline crews have upped the ante yet.
Also in March, 2011, a Southwest pilot was caught on an open microphone that tangled up air traffic control -- while the pilot was speaking openly, to a co-pilot, about his hate for gays and fat women. That Southwest pilot's speech included slurs about gay co-workers and aging or overweight Southwest flight attendants including those he was interested in having a sexual relationship. Southwest put that hate-filled pilot back to work, to fly its passengers yet again, in June after a short suspension instead of an absolute firing of the employee.
In June, U.S. Airways didn't just throw a passenger off its flight: The airline's pilot, while supposedly exercising a "citizen's arrest" (despite lack of interaction with the passenger in question) had U.S. Airways passenger Dushon Marman physically arrested by the plane's pilot at San Francisco International Airport -- over sagging pants. The passenger, a college football player, was held on $11,000 bail at a San Mateo jail in California, all because the airline claims he didn't follow crew instructions. Maybe better dubbed "orders", the U.S. Airways crew "instructions" had absolutely zero to do with any safety concerns or even any expression of concern by potentially disgruntled passengers. Now Southwest has followed suit less than three months later: Southwest Airlines kicked Green Day singer Billie Joe Armstrong off the airline's flight for sagging pants in September.
Last fall in 2010, U.S. Airways had a passenger -- on a flight from Fort Lauderdale to Denver-- yanked off the plane flight over bathroom use. The man was apparently in the restroom too often for the airline crew's comfort. The U.S. Airways plane was checked by K-9 units upon landing in Denver -- and the unnamed, male passenger was actually detained at the airport and even questioned by TSA agents about his in-flight bathroom use.
The onslaught of recent incidents by airline crews industry-wide raises the question as to how much power flight attendants and pilots should really have in their on-board roles and job positions -- and what agency provides any checks or balances in that power being enforced.