Lets not forget about the flight attendant who was profiled in the news for saving a child who was a victim of the sex trade. Apparently she got it right on a hunch, personally I wouldn’t do anything on a hunch but I guess I wouldn’t have saved that child either.
Or are they really that rare? It is well known that black people have a higher rate of police encounters where they are treated as potential suspects. How many of them are based on racist people who call the police to report a “suspicious person” because the racist person sees black people as automatically suspicious?
Seems like quite a bit of hyperbole and vitriol in the article itself. Exactly who determined that the accuser was “obviously intoxicated” and that her accusation was racially motivated? Simply because the father in question was Hispanic doesn’t automatically make the accuser racist. Apparently a lack of proof is only questioned on one side of this story while the other side’s take is automatically accepted as Gospel?
Good point. Who said the passenger was “obviously intoxicated”? The man who was angry to be questioned? What is a flight attendant supposed to do, ignore an accusation of a serious crime? Sex trafficking is real. It’s not their job to investigate these things and make decisions, they have to refer it to security. It would be very rare for someone to make an allegation (whether the sex trafficking was real or not), it’s not like this happens often.
Their story definitely doesn’t add up. No way would a flight attendant call security if all they did is change seats (even though they were going for the extra money section), she or he would tell them to move back. If they did, end of story, nobody wants to make a fuss now, especially not United. I’m on the side of they were trying to pull a fast one and weren’t going to give up. Maybe they’re going for a little bit of extra wedding cash? That is, if they really were going to their wedding.
Anyone can make an anonymous report to Child Protective Services/authorities and they have to check it out regardless of what info they actually have to go by.
Yeah, and then we are taught the consequences of being wrong. I’d have to see someone being murdered before I’d say anything these days.
I agree that in the circumstances described the flight attendants have to notify the authorities and the authorities have to investigate, but in this case I would think that the investigation could easily start with determining, before the plane landed, that they were returning to their point of departure on round-trip tickets purchased together, and probably that they had entered and departed Mexico on valid passports with the same last name. That alone may not have been enough to resolve the investigation, but it probably should have obviated the need to take them into custody before they deplaned.
Many years ago, shortly before I was born, my mother was riding a bus and noticed a woman and young child whose interactions she thought were stilted and “off,” not those of a mother and daughter. When she got off the bus, she found a police officer and told him about it. It turned out that what she had observed was a kidnapping in progress; the woman was arrested and the child returned to her family. It can happen.
I read this story twice, the source is an agenda website not a news source. and I put this “story” at 50/50 for even being real.(and I am being generous) more like an op/ed written as a story. me thinks one should take this one with a grain of salt. (is it possible?? yes…is it legit ummmm???)
Yet anyone could buy a round trip ticket. It is often cheaper than the one way. And it is possible to have a forged or stolen passport. Either way, this is a security issue, not an airline decision. Could you imagine if someone reported a child trafficking and the flight attendant made the decision on his/her own not to report it? That could easily be something one could get fired or in legal trouble for.
Wow! Your mom is a real hero, to have noticed and done something about that. She saved that child from who knows what fate. ^:)^
after a little googling I put this “story” of being legit at about 5%.
Police and other safety/security entities depend on that from the general public. Unfortunately, the general public is often inaccurate, not noticing actual crimes in progress while raising false alarms. And if there is a lot of racism among the general public, the false alarms could turn a “racism among the general public” problem into a “police racism” problem (even if the police are not racist, or less racist than the general public).
No, come on, it must be true. It fits the narrative on multiple levels. All these drunk racist white women trying to harass people on airplanes. United screws it up again because they are racist too. Even if it didn’t happen…well, it could have happened to someone, somewhere. As for that possibility, I’m horribly offended. :((
According to the latest thing I read on the bridal couple, they said a passenger was napping across their seats.
What would the flight attendant normally do in that situation on a half-empty plane?
It also said that they moved back after offering to pay for the upgrade and being refused, but that subsequently they were removed anyway.
I haven’t seen any of these points refuted. If they have been, would one of the posters who say they are liars please provide a link?
Having seen United’s characterization of Dr. Dao clearly refuted by video taken by the passenger behind him, I do not believe anything United says.
As to the father and daughter, the passenger who “reported” them was…at best foolish. But once the claim had been made, it had to be checked out by someone other than the flight attendants. I suppose that the security personnel could have just accosted them after they got off the plane, but it seems to me that doing the questioning in private was a lot better than the alternative.
It does feel like piling on at this point. United messed up, messed up badly. They have finally fixed their policies, but they aren’t forgiven yet.
I just booked a trip on Delta that I would otherwise have taken on United, so I guess I haven’t forgiven them either.
With all the recent events, I’m surprised the couple in question or other passengers didn’t whip their phone cameras out to video it. Without documentation, it’s hard to know what inf act happened as it relates to the couple displaced by a sleeping passenger. I know I would sure have taken video of this.
In order to do this, the passenger would have had to raise the armrests and unbuckle his seatbelt. Obviously that is not going to fly. If someone is laying across your seats, you say, “Excuse me sir, we are sitting here”. The guy wakes, sits up, you have your seat. It’s quite simple and unless you are very timid, you don’t need to get the flight attendant involved. If you are scared to speak to someone (perhaps if you are a child), you tell the flight attendant, who then says the same thing to the passenger. End of story. They aren’t going to move you so some guy can sprawl across the seats for takeoff. Illegal.
Common sense says that if all that happened was that they, “Offered to pay for an upgrade and were refused”, that would be the end of it. A flight attendant is not going to delay the flight and cause a scene for nothing. They were the last ones to board (supposedly), they are ready to push, the crew wants to depart. Nobody wants extra paperwork and a hassle. The story isn’t even logical.
How do you know that this story is actually they way they said, if it even happened? Do you have proof that the passenger who reported them was drunk and racist? Have you read information from passengers, flight attendants and the reporting passenger? Or is this just an internet story or one person’s side?
In other words, you have no evidence that their story was not true. Or the reverse. (BTW, is is perfectly possible to sleep across three seats while wearing your seatbelt. I’ve done it. You do have to raise the armrests. And I doubt a flight attendant would allow it during take off and landing.)
A family member of mine was removed from a United Flight, delaying takeoff, for asking the flight attendant to do something about a broken overhead speaker that was emitting deafening noise. That wasn’t logical either.
Um, I think that if someone did indeed report the father and daughter, that the person was likely acting from bigotry. I have no opinion on their sobriety. Did the writer made the whole thing up? Maybe. If not, then I see the action of security in taking them to a private location for questioning as their best option. I don’t think that the crew or the authorities could just ignore such an accusation.
“A family member of mine was removed from a United Flight, delaying takeoff, for asking the flight attendant to do something about a broken overhead speaker that was emitting deafening noise. That wasn’t logical either.”
IMO, it is quite logical. Option A would have been to delay the fight by calling in mechanics to deal with the speaker and then waiting for the paperwork. Even a small thing like a broken latch will require at least a 30 min delay… then there will be missed connections to deal with. Option B would have been to relocate the pax. But if no other seats were available, and no one else complained about the speaker, the FA chose option C - to accommodate your family member by putting them on another flight.
He was not the only person who complained about the speaker. People in the area were sitting there with their hands over their ears.
The attendant could simply have said, “I’m sorry, we can’t turn it off and if we try to fix it it will delay the flight, here are some earplugs.” (Assuming that that was true.)
Since I have no evidence that what sounds like a fake or exaggerated story is not true, so therefore it must be true, right? Sounds like the Trump school of logic. 
I must be way larger than you, as that would be quite uncomfortable for me.
When I read these internet stories, I ask myself…does this even make sense? Is this likely, or is this another made up story? What is the source? Is this one person’s side, or has the other side weighed in and the airline? Is there video evidence? I don’t automatically believe that every single thing is true just because I read it on the internet and I haven’t read a rebuttal yet.
As far as your family member being removed, since I wasn’t there and haven’t viewed a video, I don’t know exactly what happened. If it is as Bunsen suggested, if there were no other seats to move them to and those were the only seats affected, it could have easily been the appropriate thing to do, to put them on another flight. Same thing is going to happen on a flight where a seatback is broken, and won’t go to the upright position. When that happens, frequent fliers know better than to say something, as either they will be moved (probably to a worse seat as that’s usually all that is left), or off the flight if there is nothing else available. They aren’t going to delay the flight for everyone (and it could be a significant delay) to fix and issue that just affects a few. They will relocate or re-accommodate them.