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Thrown Off a United Airlines Flight for Taking Pictures

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Re: Thrown Off a United Airlines Flight for Taking Pictures

#121

Post by nicholassmith »

hermannj314 wrote: post #72
cwilson wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He was sitting in business class where this type of request is normal. Also, keeping the aisle clear is a top priority of any flight crew (especially pre-takeoff), so they actually prefer you ask them to do things like this as they will be more efficient.

I guess he would know what's appropriate, so I stand corrected on that point. I guess I'm just too servile. I would have put my iPhone away and read a book and never have been kicked off the plane. (And if my coat needed hung, I would have just sat and been uncomfortabaly warm until I could hang it myself: your failure to prepare should not become the burden of another human being. )

If there's no where to hang it aside from a designated area that as a passenger you don't have access too, you let the crew member do it and remember to be polite. Same as in a restaurant, you don't take your own plates back into the kitchen and clean them off, because the waiting team does that and probably wouldn't like you muscling in.

Re: Thrown Off a United Airlines Flight for Taking Pictures

#122

Post by taligent »

Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #100
pudquick wrote: post #62

Yes, it's unfortunate that the flight attendant lied in this situation. However, it would have been impossible for the pilot to verify this - even if the author showed him the camera. Since the author was willing to 'prove' it, it had to be a digital camera - which the author could have very easily used the built-in delete function to remove all photos but one (or be a sneaky terrorist and swap SD cards). In addition…

Wow, so people seriously thing that saying "I am not a terrorist" is reason enough to kick someone out of a plane? I honestly will never understand how a one-time attack carried out a decade ago could throw the American society off its rocker so much. In my country (Spain) apart from an Islamic terrorism attack we have had local terrorists (ETA) killing people almost every year from the 60's to 2011, and there just a…

This has nothing to do with 9/11.

It has done with a passenger exhibiting odd behaviour leading to the flight attendant believing that he might cause a disturbance during the flight. People causing problems on planes are a nightmare for airline carriers as it can result in early landings, increased risk of life threatening incidents and subsequent scheduling problems.

When it comes to planes better to be safe than sorry.

Re: Thrown Off a United Airlines Flight for Taking Pictures

#123

Post by jrockway »

PavlovsCat wrote: post #61
jrockway wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

feels a bit too servile for me Is acting submissive to control someone else really being submissive? (No. It's just another tool in the dealing-with-people toolbox. Save your flames for the Internets!)

Is acting submissive to control someone else really being submissive? That's not "control", that's "hoping to influence". And yes, it's being submissive.

Person A has something you want. You do something. Person A gives you the thing you want. You win, because now you have the thing you want instead of Person A.

Re: Thrown Off a United Airlines Flight for Taking Pictures

#124

Post by lucian1900 »

javajosh wrote: post #21

It seems likely that, in the not-too-distant future, we will all be eagerly recording everything around us to prevent these kinds of injustices from happening. Imagine if you'd had a mic running, then played it back to the captain. Problem solved - and the FA would have gotten into trouble for creating a liability risk for the airline.

It's more likely that you would not be allowed on the plane with anything that appears to be recording.

Re: Thrown Off a United Airlines Flight for Taking Pictures

#125

Post by 69_years_and »

maurits wrote: post #86
pudquick wrote: post #62

Yes, it's unfortunate that the flight attendant lied in this situation. However, it would have been impossible for the pilot to verify this - even if the author showed him the camera. Since the author was willing to 'prove' it, it had to be a digital camera - which the author could have very easily used the built-in delete function to remove all photos but one (or be a sneaky terrorist and swap SD cards). In addition…

>When you add all of this up, especially when a flight is trying to get out of the gate on time, the pilot is going to err on the side of caution and kick you off the plane. That makes no sense to me because they off load the baggage from the hold of passengers who are not actually on the plane. A security measure that actually makes sense.

Very good point.

Re: Thrown Off a United Airlines Flight for Taking Pictures

#126

Post by primitur »

jemfinch wrote: post #27

Captain: I don't have any, but United will have no trouble finding me. My name is...[removed]. Why do victims protect their aggressors in this way? The captain made a wrongheaded decision, and he should at the very least have his name attached to it.

The Captain is always right, that's why. There are no customers on an airplane: only weight. They're not customers again until they're walking up the gangway ..

Re: Thrown Off a United Airlines Flight for Taking Pictures

#127

Post by xyzzy123 »

PavlovsCat wrote: post #54
sdoering wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why, if this means, you stay on the plane, you win. But nobody looses his/her face. So wining, without anyone losing, what is so wrong? Everything else (and I sadly, really often react that way) is the little child in a sand-pit: "But he started it" kind of argument. Not mature, not civilized, just childish - the way or societies more and more seem to become imho.

There is nothing civilized about failing to point out that the claim "he took more pictures" is a lie. There is nothing civilized about abuse of power. There is nothing civilized in accepting it. But the real WTF is: how would agreeing to be led off the plane have resulted in him staying on it? His fate was sealed when he explained his picture to the FA and she had a 'nam flashback, or whatever the fuck caused this;…

I think the best you could do under the circumstances would be to apologise for taking pictures and explain that the FA was mistaken. If they want to kick you off at that point you have to put up with it.

But DoubleCluster is right. Accusing the FA of lying just displays a huge lack of social awareness. It's also not factual - the OP doesn't really know whether the FA made a mistake or not.

If you flat-out accuse the flight attendant of lying, you're going to trigger an "us versus them" situation with the flight staff. At that point the captain is definitely going to side with the FA.

The reason his fate was sealed was that the captain had to decide whether his staff were going to be comfortable sharing a flight with this guy. Under the circumstances, I think he made the right decision.

Re: Thrown Off a United Airlines Flight for Taking Pictures

#128

Post by intenex »

jemfinch wrote: post #94
UnoriginalGuy wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still don't understand why using the word "terrorist" is a no-no. It is a word. Context matters. Context in this case would suggest there was nothing to worry about. I swear sometimes it is like the whole world is a slightly mentally handicapped child who, upon hearing a bad word, starts repeating it getting more and more upset. I guess being adults and thinking things through is too much to ask from your average f…

It's not the word itself. The word could be "terrorist" or "bomb" or "Muslim" or anything, really. It's denying some wrongdoing without having first been accused of it . Humans learn very early on to be suspicious of people who offer denials prior to accusations, and we likewise learn in childhood not to offer such denials ourselves. When no one has accused you of stealing a cookie from the cookie jar, saying out of…

Except it wasn't used in that manner at all. As others pointed out, it's a fricken idiom and automatic response in a photographic context. http://goo.gl/CnV1s

It's the same as if he replied 'okay, don't worry, the photos will be dead and gone', and the flight attendant misinterprets that to mean he's going to blow up the plane and kill everyone.

If the story is as he's relayed it, he's absolutely 100% not at fault and the flight attendant is a total fricken idiot.

Re: Thrown Off a United Airlines Flight for Taking Pictures

#129

Post by mcantelon »

jakejake wrote: post #114
mcantelon wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You've turned what should have been an uneventful flight into a situation where tension can only increase before you've even left the ground. Basically, one has to be mindful not to use words that will cause people too stupid to parse the context in which they were used to be anxious.

I agree but perhaps stupid is not the right word. The airline staff, especially low level, are not trusted or trained to think or apply their own reason. They're trained to be on constant high-alert and report anything that smells even remotely fishy. It's not right that you have to hold your tongue in airport security or on a plane. But whether right or wrong in the moral sense, it's prudent to avoid alarming the st…

>The airline staff, especially low level, are not trusted or trained to think or apply their own reason.

You're right... the fact that they are given arbitrary power without training or trust is more the problem than their judgement as individuals. Or perhaps, because they aren't trusted, their orders are to resort to extreme measures as a default response to certain specific behavioral indicators.

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