Qatar disgrace
 

You won’t believe this. Made feel sick.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-10-...found/12811716

Fairly disturbing, Qatari authorities or Qatar Airways payroll staff?

I agree
a disgrace if true.
but do will still believe the media?

Another reason to avoid the Sh1+hole region of the world.

The Australian Government should simply ban the airline, and any other government alined airline with similar human right abuses, from our country.
This would probably also involve all Middle Eastern and Chinese airlines and that's not going to happen, so we will continue to turn a blind eye.

Well it was the ABC after all - let’s get the facts first please.

If you go to these places, you have to accept their culture and how they act.

The facts appear to be correct. Qatar has every right to correct the story but so far don't appear to have even commented. Since the Qatar. Govt own both the airline and the airport then it is the Qatar Govts problem.

To a degree its also the Australian Govts problem. They have allowed Qantas who holds an RPT authority, to suspend international services, forcing desperate Australians to use any airline available.

The Australian Govt can respond by informing Qatar that they will not be renewing any bilateral aviation rights with Qatar.

Wunwing.

Akbar has been chasing extra rights here for a while now, and has been pushing more recently with some permanent withdrawals from Etihad and Emirates this year.

Give him nothing. If even go as far as cutting back what he has or even suspending his rights completely.

I don’t think it would be any great loss cutting ties with the state. Do we even conduct any meaningful trade with them?

As opposed to what, Sky?

There’s no such thing as “RPT Authority”, not sure what you mean there, but Qatar is state backed, they can operate at a loss as long as the state props them up, other carriers don’t have that luxury.

Now will the government suspend Qatar Air from flying to Australia? Of course not, they have flooded the Australian market with seats and freight space so the Australian government doesn’t have to spend too much. At most they may issued a strongly worded condemnation letter, behind the scenes it’ll be “thanks guys for taking care of our international air travel problem for us”.

A substantial proportion of the federal government wants to end cabotage and allow foreign carriers to fly domestically in Oz so the health of our airline sector is far from their minds.

No you don't. I think the word you are looking for is 'tolerate'.

Hang on a second, was it Qatari police or airport security staff that ordered this or the airline officials?

But they weren't. They were traveling on an airline that heavily markets itself in the west, flying between two western countries using that airlines base as a hub.

They certainly didn't sign up for what amounts to rape.

They are functionally the same- It's a government owned airline. It's not going to offer services that DON'T hub through Doha, so accepting the airline is accepting this kind of treatment.

The return of the wet lettuce leaf
 

Middle East nations do as they please. No smacking on the wrist with a wet lettuce leaf from the Australian Government will make one iota of difference. Kashoggi was bumped off in the Saudi consulate and all Australia did was issue ‘stern words’. Too scared to say anything. Worse, Aussies were killed in aircraft that were shot down in Iran and in the Ukraine and again some ‘big words’ were spoken by our Government which amounted to nothing more than a wrist slapping with a piece wet cotton wool. And who could forget our Governments pathetic obsfucation and protection of the Malaysian Government over the MH370 dissapearance which ironically also had Aussies onboard! Sorry, nothing will come of the Qatar incidents and our female citizens having their civil rights and their front-pieces violated on the tarmac. Should we be outraged? Hell yes. Will our Guv’mint take decisive, effective strong action against Qatar? Yeah right, don’t hold your breath waiting.....

DD.
I was trying to keep it simple but since you dispute me I'll go into the whole process.
Qantas does not own its International rights, The Australian people do.. Rights are allocated over a set time, typically 5 years by the the International Air Service Commission (IASC) via an open hearing process. They are issued on a use it or lose it basis which is why some may be less than 5 years if they have been not used and been handed back in.

Similarly slots are similarly allocated by a not so transparent system. This is why I cant se how Qantas can start back in International flying without reapplying for each IASC allocation. They should have lost all that they haven't used.

Similarly all international Airlines go through the same process and have to hold an Australian Foreign Air Operators certificate and hold traffic rights allocated by the IASC.

Its my premise then that the Australian Government has not forced Qantas to operate when they could have and that they have left returning citizens to use carriers that they may not have normally used. Therefore the Australian Government has directly contributed to this event.

We can influence foreign Governments by informing them that their bilateral allocations will not be renewed nor will their Foreign AOC. I'm sure that other airlines will more than compensate with extra services

Wunwing

Wunwing

How does the Federal Government force a private airline to operate an air route when it can’t even get the States that are members of the Federation to relax the restrictions of the Borders? Suggesting using the IASC to suspend air rights would only further hurt airlines who have already been beaten up badly to the other effects of COvid 19.

And to hold the Australia Government partly responsible for this depravity is drawing a very long bow. Why not draw it further and blame the Chinese Government for being the original exporter of Covid 19?

Now here is something radical....why not rest ALL the blame on Qatar whose Authorities were the ones to overstep common decency with the search rather than trying to implicate the Australian Government.

Although I acknowledge that in present times it is very difficult to avoid, hopefully this reminds people that when you fly on airlines from these backwards sewer rat countries you may have to accept things like this. They might market themselves to westerners as a western airline but such things they are definitely not.

I have a question. Why has it taken so long for Australians to be repatriated on an Australian flagged carrier?

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-10-...-soil/12805876

All of this unpleasantness (I'm not trying to gloss over what happened in Qatar which is plainly assault) could have been avoided.

Given what was known at the beginning of the year about when air travel would resume normal operations, someone could have had a plan for immediately beginning the repatriation of 30,000 people back in May.

Well... I find it interesting that the media are worked up about the treatment of the pax but not the underlying reason for it. As disgusting as BOTH of the issues are, that is how things go in that part of the world. We should all do our bit to have nothing to do with them.

Square Bear.
Very easily. If you don't use it you lose it.
Keeping Qantas operating with limited International should have been part of our repatriation plan. If Qantas didn't want to do that then the Govt could have given those rights to someone else.

Without a repatriation plan our Government is ultimately complicit when things go wrong. Any responsible Govt would have known that you cant strand 30,000 Australians overseas and not expect some repercussions.

As far as the Commonwealth lack of State control, that is obviously a Constitutional matter. Immigration and Aviation is definitely a Federal matter and Qantas can and should lose all unused rights under the IASC rules. If they want them back they can reapply when they think that they can use them.

Qantas likes to claim that they are the National Carrier but when we need a National Carrier they seem have taken their bat and ball and gone home.

Wunwing

Why is anyone surprised? The whole region is well known for their poor treatment of women. You hear stories all the time, expat's wives slapped for daring to drive alone.... by a policeman, after being in an accident where they were not at fault.

They'll close two eyes as long as the money is rolling in. But their Islamic laws still apply, and they will enforce it whenever. I'm surprised gay businessmen are even visiting the region let alone working closely with their top airline.

Why wasn't this newsworthy when it happened, on Oct 2?

Did they ever locate the parent?

Had over 3 weeks to investigate by now.

So many questions...

Spare a thought that the likely intent of the Qataris was to arrest who ever they had thought had given birth, especially if the mother was not married.

What this whole saga has shown is that if Australia wants a national carrier, then it should be nationalised (or at least receive significant government support for times like this).

Why do you think Qatar is flying everywhere at the moment? They don’t have to be profitable to go flying.

I agree we should look at an official National carrier.

. The USA handles this by enrolling airlines that suit Govt possible needs in the CRAF scheme. They get 1st bite at Govt charters and some funding on the condition that if the Govt needs them they have to serve the Govt first.

Currawong.
Perhaps the reason that this has only come out now is that the women involved have been in quarantine?? If this had been an event in Australia it would be defined as either rape or sexual assault. Possibly it wasn't until they could speak to family and friends that they decided to mention it publically or even if was those families and friends who spoke publically

Wunwing

True,
And many are assuming the very unfortunate victims were all white anglo-saxon protestants who would all feel comfortable raising in (their cultural) public the fact they'd received this disgraceful treatment to say nothing of the trauma and stigma often sadly associated with such an assault.

It’s a government owned airline from a backward country where this is totally acceptable.

If you go to these parts of the world or fly on airlines that consider this acceptable then you have to accept this.

The real odd thing is that the country and airline have basically said “yes, this is acceptable, we would do it again”

and their aircraft are still full of passengers, though now maybe crossing their fingers it doesn’t happen to them.

But, those, passengers do accept it might happen to them, it’s been proved it could.

No, the word I was using was accept.

You do have to accept it might happen to you, as that is their culture and what they consider normal.

If you jump into a cesspit you have to first accept that you might come out with stuff up your nose.

You might not, it might not go up your nose, but if it does. You cannot complain.

The weird thing is, that there are people queuing to jump into the cesspit, with their fingers crossed it won’t be them.

You think that what happened to the parent could make the news?!

If reading about the invasive but non harmful assaults offends you, you won’t want to read about what happened to the mother.

Imagine being so scared of what would happen to you that you’d leave your newly born child in a sink.

Can you imagine that level of fear.

Ban this airline from coming to australia. There should be zero tolerance for this kind of thing & absolutely no second chances, ever. C'mon australia grow some balls.

You would like to think so, but ScoMo can't even get our premier's to open their state borders, what are the chances he'll have the balls, yet alone the integrity to do something like that? You've got a better chance of winning lotto...

Lots of Qatari- (and indirectly Arab-)bashing here but (as a few others have hinted) there is an alternative view.

Abandoning a child is a criminal offence in most (if not all) Western countries as well as (I presume) Qatar. Doing so in circumstances where the child was left unsafe - as seems to be the case here - or might not have been found for some time (as could easily happen if the toilets were in a gate area, and the next flight wasn't for quite some hours) could easily have led to the child's death and hence the potential crime of manslaughter (or local equivalent).

Given that the local authorities were investigating a potentially serious offence, do we believe that their means of doing so were disproportionate? Australia appears to be making this claim although not in a very structured or logically reasoned way - just making bold statements of outrage, filled with hyperbole but little objectivity. I wonder what Qatar makes of the Australian travel restrictions, keeping families (some of which will be Qatari) apart for months on end? I wonder if they find that to be proportionate?

I agree that we are missing some key facts here, in my mind the key ones being:
- was the child found alive or deceased?
- if alive, was it found (i) safe and (ii) such that it was likely to be found quickly, or could it have gone unnoticed for a prolonged period?
- to what form of examination were the passengers subjected? Was it carried out by a clinician? How were the relevant passengers selected? Were they invited to consent (and if so, under any form of duress e.g. lest they miss the flight?).

If anyone comes across more facts then please share! Also, the time lag between the event and its reporting it is indeed strange, does anyone know of the reasons?

In general, I would say let's get the evidence first, then form conclusions second. After all, as professional aviators isn't that what we are trained to do?

KP

Will not happen!

No argument but remember you are dealing with a Country that behaves as if it were Mediaeval times. They do not and will not accept Western (Infidel) values.

Asking the impossible there!

A bit unfair on Scomo there IMHO. I suspect that if he knew that he could do something concrete about it he would, However, the realities of 'International Politics', which can cover a very wide scope, would render futile anything he tried to do. As for getting the Premiers to open their borders; What powers does the PM/Federal Govt actually possess which he could use to force them to do so?:confused:

Key pilot; Some very pertinent points.:ok:

The airline should be banned from Australian airspace with immediate effect. Stand up for your people.

While initially reported as a foetus, it has since been confirmed that the infant was (and hopefully still is) alive and in a reasonable condition (aside from being abandoned in an airport bathroom).

Theres only so many places you could leave a baby in a bathroom so one would think it was found fairly quickly.

You can't ban an airline for following the law in their own country. ScoMo has zero ability to do anything even if he wanted to. Once you play at a Sovereign State level there are no real rules to speak of.
Look at the Uyghur situation or the recognition of Taiwan. I'm sure the Australian government doesn't agree with any of it but what can they do about it? Ban China Southern?

The only option is for Australian citizens to never fly with an airline if they don't agree.

KeyPilot Are you joking? Yes it was, it was disgraceful behaviour and disgusting response unfortunately not unexpected in that part of the world.