Does Virgin Atlantic pass on concerns about welfare of deportees to Pilots?VS651
 

Dear Professional Pilots - especially on Virgin Atlantic
I'm a law student working with a group that supports asylum seekers to obtain their rights to protection from persecution. We are helping a lady with a young child who are due to be removed against their will on Virgin Airlines VS651 from Heathrow at 22:10 today 3rd Feb. She and her child are in fear of grave harm if returned to Nigeria and for this reason she has asked for her name to be kept from a public campaign. We have obtained a visit to her from Medical Justice and a new lawyer and believe she has a good case that her travel on VS651 will be injurious to her and her daughter's health and that a new legal challenge is possible. However, it is possible she will be removed tonight before such a legal challenge can be lodged.

We know that a very large number of people have contacted Virgin Atlantic Customer Services and they are aware of the grave concerns of these people for the lady and her child's welfare and for that of other passengers who may witness her and her child's forcible detention on the aircraft. However, unlike some other airlines we cannot ascertain whether the Pilot or other crew of VS651 tonight are aware of this situation. We believe that if they are made aware they may want a chance to consider the welfare and human rights issues involved in this case. Can anyone help me to find out if this information has been circulated to the Pilot.

Any views on how commonly this information is shared with Pilots by their airlines would be of great interest too.

Wonder if these medical issues would arise if she had to take a flight to 'freedom' :ugh::rolleyes:

No doubt the case has been fully approved by a court of law in the UK prior to deportation going ahead, so are you seeking a Captain of the aircraft to overrule this decision and risk their career, and possibly be in breach of the order of a Court or the Secretary of State's decision.
How did the individual(s) arrive in this country, was it a lawful entry?

Please give your reasons as to why you believe that.

Are you seriously suggesting that the captain is going to be unaware that he/she has deportees on board ?

DR..............

Think the OP was just seeking information.

The Commander of any aircraft will know details of any special passengers onboard regardless of who they are at a briefing. PNRs (Passenger names lists) are made available to the crew prior to departure.

Sadly you are wrong. Welfare, legal and human rights issues are the resonsibility of the authorities, not the carrier. Their job is to take them from A to B safely.

Crews will be made aware of the situation and seating will have been assigned to the passengers concerned. Crews are not above the law and cannot intervene in such cases.

I can tell you that in such situations we are completely satisfied that legal due process has been followed. Given how difficult it is to deport people from the UK (the various Abu's for example), we have little doubt that those who do get deported thoroughly deserve it and we are happy to play our small part in the operation of a just system. If there was a genuine medical reason why the individual was not medically fit to fly that might be an opportunity for the Captain to exercise his authority. As far as I can tell you are looking to 'pull a sickie' or ask the Captain to sabotage the process. That aint going to happen.

A 51 y/o law student?

Did they have a nice flight?

MCDU2,

maybe a mature student?

Is it funny that araucaria was registered here just for that single post requesting something completely out of tune with a company procedures?

In my experience deportees are handed over to the Senior Crew member who holds their documentation throughout the flight. They would only be informed of relevant information with regard to their well being during flight ie they are diabetic or require vegetarian etc.

The Captain is fully aware of their presence but no more information than necessary as above.

If they are believed to be liable to cause a problem with other passengers or crew they are escorted by an official of the immigration services.

In my experience the "anti deportation advisory/support groups" consist of a bunch of bunnyhugging anarchist idiots who will do anything to pervert the course of justice and, assisted by the compliance of the detention services (no doubt forced into compliance by equally disgracefully motivated lawyers). One of their techniques is to teach and coach the deportees into making such an exhibition of pure animal behaviour including spitting at other pax, screaming slogans continuously, fighting, yelling death threats and threatening physical assault on pax and crew and doing anything to achieve self harm that the crew feel forced to decline carriage for the sake of the other law abiding pax.
Then the year long cycle of renewed deportation courtcases wasting more £00,000s before the miscreants just do it again.

I too went down this road, I could not subject my pax to the fury, hate and threats of the thugs that needed nine guards to (barely) keep two of them at bay. The guard afterwards explained, to my shame, what was going on and how the pressure/support groups teach these tactics and how I had played right into their hands. I was sick to the core.

Do not be intimidated by these scum. If the legal system, which as we know is ludicrously shy of deporting the vilest of these criminals has finally done its job for once do not, please do not, as crew, play into their hands at the thought of fighting animals in your cabin. I was assured that once the doors are shut and they realise the game is up they shut right up.

Sorry. Rant over. We have a responsibility to assist these people back to where they belong, and not play into the hands of their dreadlocked anarchist rentathug friends...

Araucuria
Any update? a successful deportation, a successful last ditch legal win, or did the crew agree to your request?

Amen to that!:D

I was just wondering, how many of you airline pilots actually look at the passenger manifest that you get? What information about the passengers does it contain besides number of passengers on board?

We are certainly notified about anything or anybody nonstandard that we are requested to take along. This includes, but is not limited to, dangerous goods, medical cases, inadmissible passengers rejected by border control, and the here mentioned deportees.

A certain dislike of avoidable surprises is present in most crewmembers, so this information will be duly noted and be talked about as part of the preflight crew briefing.

Apart from this - allow me to third what Torque Tonight has written. It is not up to crew to second guess an enforceable judicial decision. There are many legal options available to challenge a court order; none of those involve flight crew.

Greetings TU 114.

I am absolutely in agreement with you, Torque Tonight and the other pilots who have said the same. I was just curious about how many pilots actually read through a list with 100 + passengers on it. I have no doubt however that you DO at least look at the bottom line (Souls on board and “Special” passengers), if I may put it that way.

I was also curious about what passenger information a passenger manifest contains. Name, seat number, age, country of origin? Other information?

The manifest can differ of course by location and agent but they generally contain name, booking number, seat allocation, and a column for any special info. Special info might be a pre booked treat for a celebrating passenger (chocolates etc), or it could say deportee or escort, or whatever the company wants it to convey but it's quite a small column, maybe enough room for 5-10 words. That's all the crew see. There's no information on country of origin or age, and certainly not anything around reasons for a particular status.

Someone very close to me is part of the decision process as to whether these people get deported or not. They have already had to jump through a million hoops to even get to the decision process so be assured that if they are being bunged onto an a/c that the action is fully justified. All of the evidence is taken into account, all humanitarian aspects are taken into account, regardless of how some members of the legal profession and media would like to portray it.