Rastas thrown off plane !
 

TWO Rastafarians were ordered off an aircraft after a stewardess
mistook pictures of their spiritual leader, the Emperor Haile
Selassie, for Osama bin Laden.

The pilot of the JMC flight from Gatwick to Malaga called police after
the stewardess told him of her concerns about the images on a T-shirt
and badges.

snip

Only JMC could confuse Rastas with the Taleban! :D :D :D

Guv, shut up you ********.
Haven't you got anything better to do with your time, why don't you go and start up an airline or something. :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

[ 18 October 2001: Message edited by: SkyCruiser ]

SkyCruiser.
Are you aware that your Trivial display of 'Anger' is a symptom of something deeper.
Unhappy Childhood or Marriage maybe??
Or maybe you were a 'Class-Room Bully'.

Whatever it is, Abrupt and Tactless Postings such as yours are disgraceful, especially when it's directed at a Person who I consider to be one of the most Dynamic Members of this Forum.

You claim to be a 'First Officer' . That means your in a Proffession where a 'Cool Head' and 'Mature-Attitude' are indispensable. Get my Point ??

Your 'Pathetic Jibe' displays nothing more than a pronounced lack of intellect.

Well spoken 'TimeisShort'.

Er...rather pompous of you 'TimeisShort', suggesting Skycruiser had an "unhappy childhood or marriage", what an odd thing to say. :confused:

Well, clearly something in his life is not very happy, for such a gross and insulting overreaction... :( Nothing wrong with a little speculation...

So what about these Rastas?

Well reports now indicate the F/A can't be too sure about the gentlemen in question actually being Rastas, what with the dense cloud of smoke hovering around them.

Majorbyte.
In reply to your Posting.

Suffering Fools is not one of my strong-points and observing such Tactless, Offensive Gibberish directed at anyone un-deserving, deserves rebuke.

It's obvious on this Forum that there are a number of insolent individuals that have perfected the art of insulting one particular Well-Respected Member.

I'll be the first person to point them out while making the appropriate comments.

Remember that in life, The Respect you get is the Respect you give..

Looks like SkyCruiser has had a severe sense of humor failure....

Now lets stop the bun fight and will some one please tell me a little more about the rastas that got kicked off the JMC flight.

From the DT(17/10). There was a photo, which has not transferred to the archive, but this did look like HE.

"TWO Rastafarians were ordered off an aircraft after a stewardess mistook pictures of their spiritual leader, the Emperor Haile Selassie, for Osama bin Laden.

The pilot of the JMC flight from Gatwick to Malaga called police after the stewardess told him of her concerns about the images on a T-shirt and badges.

Trevor Henderson, 22, a sound engineer, and his friend Damien Busby, 27, a music teacher, both from Hounslow, Middlesex, were on their way for a week's holiday in Spain. Mr Henderson said they had not "shown up the ignorance" of the stewardess because she had approached them in an "arrogant manner".

He said: "I was wearing a T-shirt which actually had the name of Haile Selassie on it as well as the words of one of his speeches on world peace. My friend had two badges of Haile Selassie. We had passed through all the security checks. We were in our seats waiting for take-off when the stewardess demanded, 'What is that on your badges?'

"If she had asked us in a different way, perhaps explaining about additional security, we would have been happy to put her out of her ignorance. We like the chance to talk about our faith. But she just walked off and the next thing we knew we were being asked to leave by police. The officers were very sympathetic and admitted it was a misunderstanding."

But Dan Humphreys, an airline spokesman, said it was not a question of whether the stewardess had confused the former Ethiopian emperor with bin Laden, or whether she even knew the difference.

He said: "They were asked questions which directly related to the security of the aircraft and declined to answer them. I am not going to speculate on what knowledge the stewardess may or may not have had about Emperor Haile Selassie.

But this situation could have easily have been resolved with the co-operation of the two passengers." A spokesman for Sussex Police said no further action will be taken. The airline has refused to refund the pair, but it is still prepared to fly them to their destination.

The men are considering legal action. Haile Selassie, Ethiopia's last emperor, was deposed in a coup in 1974 and is believed to have been murdered. He is revered by Rastafarians, some of whom refuse to accept that he is dead, even though he would now be 109."

I don't know much about Rastas in the UK, but in the Caribbean I found them to be the hardest-working, most peaceful, friendly and honest people around.

How you can mistake Haile Selassie for OBL is also beyond me. Sounds like this hostie has had a bit too much of a sheltered life.

Security of the aircraft my eye - all the stupid cr*p that is now being brought up in the name of security and what does it prove? Nothing!

[ 19 October 2001: Message edited by: Tom the Tenor ]

Oh dear TimeIsShort, To reply with comments like I have had an unhappy childhood or I was a classroom bully, I feel you need help or maybe you should just wind your neck in.
The reason for my outburst at the Guv is a simple one. Since I have started reading prune we have had to put up with the Guv going on about his airline, trying to get money out of people for flight training and thousands of pointless posts. As you only signed on to prune this year I guess you have been lucky in missing most of his piontless posts so I won't hold that against you.
And whats more, this web site is about freespeech and that is mine, OK.
Please feel free to reply to this but I won't be replying to any more of your posts.

[ 19 October 2001: Message edited by: SkyCruiser ]

Laugh ? I could have cried. You couldn't make it up ,could you......? "Keep flying folks, show them what we're made of, there's nothing to worry about except ignorant neurotic employees who can seriously damage your holiday plans".

Guv
......hang in by the way ..don't know what your battles are but I for one appreciate your always considered contributions

Hey Skycruiser didnt u see Danny's warning to people like u? U'r wasting bandwidth having a go at the Guv and it just makes u look neanderthal anyway.

bottom of this page

So wheres he been trying to get money out of people for training? The only thread I've read has been the Malgus one over on Wannabes and there hes been doing a damn good job to try n stop the wannabes from being ripped off.

Unless you're Malgus perhaps?!?!?!

Anyway as for the Rastamans .... rasklaat!! Pas de dutchie pon de left hand side, maan!

Let me think about this for a moment ... I plan to hijack the a/c and kill everyone on board. So let me wear a picture of the world's most wanted man on my t-shirt.

I always knew there was a reason that I didn't use JMC :rolleyes:

Now before I get shot down in flames and another bun fight begins, I'm as my log on name suggests a Purser, with another charter airline.

It would be interesting to know if possible how old and how much flying experience and on what routes this particular JMC Purser has had. It also begs the question as to how culturally aware JMC trainers make their crews on a their customer care courses?

I suspect by the way it appears - in print here on the board - that she did not have enough, and sounds like what she had was a severe case of jitters/paranoia which has become prevalent throughout the industry in the past few weeks.

I'm also very suprised that the Captain thought it necessary to offload these obviously innocent customers on the grounds of the clothing they were wearing and was equally culturally unaware. Although none of us have seen the designs of the 'offending' t-shirts it would not suprise me either if they didn't have the customary Rastafarian colouring of red, gold and green - shall we also say they probably had dreadlocks - I know I wasn't there, but probably. (by the way I'm caucasian - so no racial axe to grind).

If they were wearing a t-shirt with obsenities or indecent graphics and refused to remove them as they were causing offence to other passengers, then that is a different matter. (sexual swearwords or sexually graphic)

I wonder if any of the passengers on the said JMC flight had actually complained?

I know for a fact at the moment that some inexperienced crew members are having difficulties weighing up what is and what isn't a potential risk or threat to the aircraft and it's passengers, but nevertheless if these feelings are passed onto the Purser/Captain both should have enough experience, maturity and knowledge to weigh up the problem/options sensibly and re-assure or back up the cabin crew members concerned, or should not be in that position of responsibility in the first place.

Some questions I would weigh up and gather information on:

What route are we flying today? - LGW-AGP-LGW, holiday charter, tickets probably bought through a tour operator - probably low risk.

Is it really likely that two passengers/potential terrorists would board an aircraft wearing an image of their 'supposed' leader? - probably not, a bit of a give away really and would as in this unfortunate case draw attention to themselves.

Has another passenger/passengers complained about the t-shirt graphics? - No - so no problem.

Has the customers behaviour caused offence to either myself, my passengers or crew?

It seems to me that this JMC Purser did not think rationally at all about the facts that are present here on the board, and is unfortunately now victim of this error of judgement along with JMC and shall now have to suffer the possible legal and media consequences.

I operate frequently on flights to Egypt and Israel and I consider myself culturally aware along with the crew members I do my best to train. I would be suprised if JMC do not operate similar routes, and therefore their crews, particularly Pursers should be culturally aware.

But no matter what the problem one should always sit back for a few minutes and gather/assess the facts, and possible consequences of a decision before making a decision. And sadly in this case that doesn't seem to have happened.