Premiar captain refused 3 arabs
 

Premiar captain refused 3 arabs to bord the aircraft for a charterflight. He had to chose between them or a large group of the very scared pax.The Arabs had gone through the security 2 times.During the current situation I would have done the same thing.

Sorry, but I find the actions (if true) to be totally over the top. If you go down the road of refusing pax because of their nationality then you are opening a very unsavoury can of worms.
Would you refuse travel to Irish because of the IRA, Spanish because of ETA, Germans because of Bader Meinhof????
If there is a real risk to security then pax should be offloaded and dealt with accordingly. But to refuse carriage to someone because of their name is scare-mongering...

If these pax were a threat, they should never have been allowed to get airside and board. Twice through security, why? There must be more to this story.

Heard on the news that apparently the Discrimination Ombudsman is looking into the matter.

Cosmo

The three men, of which two were swedish citizens, had checked in and gone through the security check, boarded the airplane and then "acted in a nervous manner", whatever that means.
All three had bought their tickets the day before departure.

The Captain then questioned the men as to why their had bought their tickets that late and if their knew each other. The police was called and they checked the men again. Finding nothing suspicious.
The Captain then elected to offload the three men.

Just remember -
1. We don't know the whole story.
2. The captain's decision is final!

Just for information.

The reason for offloading the 3 arabics on the Premiair flight, was that they refused to take their seats and fasten their seatbelts when instructed to by the cabin crew. Instead they where moving around in the cabin. One of them with a arabic book in stretch arm......I salute the captains decision!!!nullnull[LIST]

>>The reason for offloading the 3 arabics on the Premiair flight, was that they refused to take their seats and fasten their seatbelts when instructed to by the cabin crew. Instead they where moving around in the cabin.<<

If you've ever flown with Arab pax you know that this is not uncommon. Like South Americans, they view the flight attendants as servants and often disregard their instructions. On the other hand, Germans, for example, march to the orders of the cabine fuhrer like good soldiers. Some of this is cultural.

Of course, in the modern politically correct world, everbody is supposed to be same-same. Except when they demand preference over straight white males <g>.

If it's true, as OY alleges, that they refused to belt up when told to, the crew were legally and operationally entitled (and right) to disembark them.

Passengers have to abandon cultural tendencies if they happen to break the law or clash with reasonable airline safety SOPs. If they elect not to do the latter, they forfeit their right to be passengers. They can go back landside and be as culturally true to their heritage as they like.

The fact that they also happened to be Arabs would not work in their favour at a time like this, and I feel sad that the world should have gone this way, but it has done.

Any sign of the Muslim faith is now also, sadly, a disadvantage to those Muslims who wish to fly peacefully.

Right now, if a man even of white caucasian appearance was on my flight and got out his prayer mat at sunset and began bowing Mecca-wards in the aisle, despite my natural liberalism my new-found paranoia would start to win. I'd be watching the guy for the rest of the flight, wondering if he was preparing for the imminent Seventy Virgins instead of leaving the time of his death, as normal Muslims do, to the will of Allah.

I don't believe in disembaring pax because they are arabs, or because they make others nerveous. Not following the instructions from cabin crew is something else. I don't care what cultural background you have. When asked to sit and buckel up. Thats what you do, or suffer the consequences!

Lets not buy into this polarization. This is not a religious issue, but a crazy man with too much money and power. He is the type we would see in 007 movies.

My sympaties goes to the guyes loosing their jobs over this. Hang in there

The three men involved says in interviews that the cabin crew at no point told them specifically to sit down and fasten their seatbelts. There was just the normal safety briefing, with which they complied.

One of them, who was seated some rows infront of the other two, at one point got up and walked back to his friends to get a book.

They were then told by the cabin crew, that the Captain wanted to speak to them.
He asked them some questions, the police checked their luggage and passports, and found nothing. They were then told to leave the airplane by the Captain.

Here's a scenario for you.

It is one week after WTC.

160 pax, almost all on board. Dispatcher advises you at STD -5 that 'there is a security problem with the last passenger'.

He explains that a group reservation was made for 6 people. It has just now been noticed that all 6 checked in separately, and unlike a regular group booking they did not ask to be seated together.
Five of them are now on board.

They are scattered throughout the cabin.

As this was 'suspicious' the last member of the group was stopped by an alert agent at the gate. He asked the passenger (of Pakistani origin) to open his carry on bag. Inside the bag they find a large wad of fundamentalist Islamic literature decrying the US and Indian involvement in the Kashmir, quoting Koranic verses regarding how to deal with 'those who fight you' and proposing the vision of a 'liberated Kashmir'.

You are the Captain on this flight.

What do you do?

How about...... living in a democracy I'd apply one of its finer features and invite the other pax to vote on whether or not to allow these gentlemen (?) to travel...... :eek:

BZZZZZZZ...Wrong Answer!

Any other takers?

Years ago, my Dad threw Leila Khaled (the infamous palestinian hijacker) off one of his flights as he felt she was a potential threat to the safety of the aircraft. I would have done the same.

Why is it that restaurants, bars, clubs and other institutions have the right to refuse entry, yet the airlines feel obliged to accept anyone with a ticket? What ever happened to "Right Of Admission reserved"?

An Hispanic friend of mine gets off aircraft if anyone on board is darker than him, but is unable to speak Spanish. Saved his butt at least once.

All power to the Premair man. Good on you.

Of course that's what we'd all chose to do if possible, but on what grounds?

Remember these people have been sold tickets, been checked in (therefore a contract exists with them for carriage). They've been through the full rigors (!) of airport security (in a major euro airport) and have behaved themselves impeccably (so far).

They have also done nothing illegal...carrying nasty literature is not a criminal offence!

So on what grounds do you off-load them?
Pure prejudice?

Would your company back your actions when they sue?

These are not normal times Maxalt.To talk in terms of suing is complete nonsense-I'm afraid all this PC stuff is out the proverbial cabin window now.All passengers will not be treated the same for blindingly obvious reasons.

Courts cannot deal with this- the ultimate "judges" are those who are potential victims of any other these suicidal maniacs -the pax.
Lets remember there have already been further attacks threatened

I'm sorry but if you are an Arab or anybody who even remotely looks like a potential terrorist, then people not unsurprisingly ARE going to look twice at you.

The rights of the many outweigh the few.

Don't blame human nature, blame the fundamentalist dross who caused all this.

Maxalt:

Yeah a contract exists for carriage. But not necessarily ON THAT FLIGHT. Disembark 'em, get them re-checked, use the resources available. Offload the problem to the security professionals, get on with your day.

Hey :mad:
That miserable little weasel and his sorry ass Al Quaida is gettig us exactly where wants us. Pranoid as hell !!!
Of course the captain's decision is final but do remember 99,8% of Muslims have nothing to do with that Al Quaida outfit or any other Terrorist Group

You can also cross the steet an get hit by a car, so why dont we just get on with our lives and focus perhaps on how can we get our beloved Airline Industry out of this mess. :mad: :mad: :mad:

Gotta disagree on this one - in the US last week a flight was diverted as two "middle eastern looking men" were disturbing pax sense of safety by engaging in scary religious rituals - turned out they were two Jewish pax praying. If we throw pax off a flight based on appearances or nationality we cross the line into racial discrimination - most "middle eastern looking" people or even documented Muslims are not crazed terrorists and should not be treated as such without reasonable cause. The other option is what the Chinese have done in banning all middle eastern pax from entering the country - is that what we want?