I had a similar experience tonight when boarding in Spain. Two British ladies travelling with their young children began complaining about a Muslim (he even has a beard, they said!) pax, who had behaved suspiciously in the terminal and prayed (which - naturally - should be a crime when done at an airport...
).
After some enqueries I found out the pax had all ready complained at the terminal, and the poor Muslim had been checked by security twice - and nothing suspicious had been found.
I tried to explain to the ladies that he was probably just a nervous flyer. After all, I've seen probably hundreds of Christians grasping their rosaries or Bibles during flights without offending anybody. Just because they're Muslim doesn't make them a terrorist.
The ladies had none of it, and threatened to offload themselves. I basically pointed out the door to them, but turned out it had been an idle threat, more designed to get rid of the poor Muslim.
With little option the ladies settled down and we managed to take off. Shortly after the seatbelt sign had gone off another lady, who sat behind our Muslim "terrorist", approaches me and told me she was terrified because the Muslim pax was being "weird".
When I was finally pushing my drinks trolley past this highly suspicious terrorist, I noticed he was in fact sleeping peacefully - and continued to do so the whole flight.
Words paranoid and racist spring to my mind... I do understand people are concerned at a time like this, but surely they should have at least SOME faith in the apt security - even if it's Spanish (one of the major concerns for the ladies seemed to be, that things were not done the same way as in good old England. Wanted to tell her that the British Empire has collapsed quite a while ago, but self preservation stopped me. Surely the world would be a better place without people like her?)
I guess it was a good thing I DIDN'T tell her our F/O was a Muslim...
