I'm not inclined to believe a word the airline's spokesperson says ...
"At the end of the day, people got on and made comments they shouldn't have made on the airplane, and other people heard them," (AirTran spokesman Tad) Hutcheson said. "Other people heard them, misconstrued them."
I like this -
"It escalated, it got out of hand and everyone took precautions."
I like the tacit assumption in the statement - 'comments they shouldn't have made on the airplane'. Was Tad even there? I wonder why this person takes the word of two passengers over this group?
Or perhaps this is the reason ...
" (Kashif) Irfan said he and the others think they were profiled because of their appearance. He said five of the six adults in the party are of South Asian descent, and all six are traditionally Muslim in appearance, with the men wearing beards and the women in headscarves. Irfan, 34, is an anesthesiologist. His brother, 29, is a lawyer. Both live in Alexandria with their families, and both were born in Detroit. They were traveling with their wives, Kashif Irfan's sister-in-law, a friend and Kashif Irfan's three sons, ages 7, 4 and 2. "
... ?
I bet the airline spokeman believes there really were WMDs in Iraq just before the US invasion in 2003, or that Iraq had something to do with 9/11.
"WASHINGTON - Officials ordered nine Muslim passengers, including three young children, off an AirTran flight headed to Orlando from Reagan National Airport yesterday afternoon after two other passengers overheard what they thought was a suspicious remark. "
(emphasis in bold mine) ...
To be fair, it's not just the airline. Airport security officials make the ultimate call.
But keep in mind, it's usually at the behest of the airline.
And ultimately, I look at the airline as just another player in a game visible minorities have to play at American airports all the time. And often things are stacked up against us.
As someone who's been pulled aside to be 'checked' (and by remarkable coincidence, I was the only brown-skinned person in line) while waiting to board a commercial airflight, I know that feeling of being singled out, under the guise of 'safety'.
Often times people in authority abuse it to remind those of us who are visible minorities that we must be on guard at all times, and that we can be pulled aside, violated, embarrassed, kicked off of flights, or have our lives thoroughly screwed up and over just for looking at someone or something in a way others may deem unacceptable. I see many similarities between this and racial profiling that local police departments do on city streets. Of course, the safety of all is usually cited, or 'we're just doing our jobs', or something to that effect. Other times, I think it's just to humiliate, or bring people like us down a notch.
But in almost all cases, such things always happen because those in authority know they can get away with it.
And it's never funny that it's always those who do not appear like everyone else are always left with the short-end of the stick in such situations. It's not funny how we find ourselves to always be the ones left having to pick up our belongings that have been randomly tossed aside by security officials, only to sprint to catch a flight because we are now late. It's not funny or amusing to have to pay to rebook another flight, or miss a connecting flight, disrupt our schedules, our lives, miss important events, just because someone thought they heard something suspicious.
But what really gets me, is that there is never any accountability for these actions. Those pesky visible minorities - it's okay for their rights and liberties to be violated or disrupted?
UPDATE -
It appears the airline has made an about-face regarding the tickets on the other airline Mr. Ifran and party had to make -
"In a statement Friday, Orlando-based AirTran says it refunded the air fare for the nine passengers and planned to reimburse them for replacement tickets they bought on another airline."
One has to wonder if their shoddy treatment of these individuals in this day and age will continue, given how quickly this has become a very bad amount of publicity for them.
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