Originally Posted by
Boabity
Nope, you can’t use safety as a reason. An angry mum and a crying baby are far more dangerous than a mildly offended old man.
How’s about doing nothing and let adults learn to get over themselves? Or having a policy of automatically upgrading feeding mums who get complained about.
Are you serious? First of all, there is just as little need for the mum to be angry as for anyone else to be offended. Aggressive/unruly pax in any form are becoming more and more of a problem. So yes, any dispute on board is a threat to safety.
Unfortunatly, these days the chance of “adults to get over themselves” is quite slim. From very progressive to very conservative sides of society, everybody is only concerned with his/her own agenda. They are only able to approach matters from their own point of view and disregard arguments from the opposing side. Like your argument points this out so strikingly; why would the respective mum be allowed to be angry but anyone else not?
KLM has a very strong market in the America’s, Asia and Africa with also a lot of transfer pax within Europe. Problem with this fact is that both very progressive and conservative people could be on board of one aircraft.
KLMs utmost priority is safety. According the Tokio Convention the commander is allowed to give any instruction he deems necessary to secure safety on board. If any adult (progressive, conservative, drunk, arrogant or whatever), is unable to engage in an adult conversation and respect both the safety of other occupants and crew I will not hesitate to act accordingly. Upgrading anyone who shows sign of unruly behaviour is not one of them.
Furthermore, being progressive and liberal the Dutch very much understand how to deal with people who have a conservative view. Both Muslim and Christian communities are heavily represented in our small country. To make compromises between different parties is such a significant part of Dutch culture, that it has its own verb: “polderen”.
The main point is that we need to stop being selfish and only care about our own point of view without any respect for other viewing points as long as they are within Dutch law, which as said is very very liberal. I despise people provoking on social media just to try and see if they can create a row by pushing anyone in a “homophobic”, “anti-LGBTI”, “racist” or whatever more corner. KLM and KLM staff are far from that.
KLMs philosophy is “moving your world”. As frontline staff (cockpit, cabin, ground) we do our utmost best to translate the liberal, free and welcoming Dutch culture on board of our aircraft. We try to take the extra step to make everybody feel appreciated and address any needs our pax have. That might involve compromises to keep everyone on board happy since any middle aged old man is just as important to us as a breastfeeding mother. That is called “inclusion”.
I won’t allow a troll army to pull any comment on board or tweet by social media staff out of context, just for the sake of their agenda.