British Airways: Male Passengers Assumed Dangerous to Children

I've posted this on Occident Expat.


I heard this in passing on local radio here in Australia today. The automatic assumption that I, as a man, am a potential paedophile simply for being male is outrageous. I wonder if there are any other businesses that act in this way.

http://www.the-spear...us-to-children/

British Airways are not allowing unaccomanied minors to sit next to men.

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Fischer is suing BA- naturally (What else is he going to do!?!)

Daily Mail article: http://www.dailymail...s.html?ITO=1490

This is not new, however. QANTAS and Air New Zealand both have this as airline policy. QANTAS has it on both International and Domestic flights and has apparently done so since 2005.

CNN reported on the issue back in 2001, but the link to the article is broken.

Five page article from SFWeekly from July last year: http://www.sfweekly....out-the-cabin/1

I would never fly British Airways. There are many reasons why I would not and this is another reason I can add to my list.

I second Posty on this one ... personally I stopped flying BA 5 or 6 years ago due to persistently poor customer service (in business class!). I rate Qantas a bit better but not much.

Maybe many, if not all, airlines have this or something similar as an unstated but still official policy.

I doubt the Islamic ones do.

Uncle Gweilo, on 18 January 2010 - 06:46 PM, said:

MRA-Forums are collecting any articles about this discriminating subject since years.
There is no case known to me, where a man ever was molestering children in an airplane.

All complaints we collected were made ONLY about UK (BA), Australia (Quantas) and NewZealand (Air NewZealand).

In one case a man was asked to move to another seat, but he and his wife were in their 80s and his wife could barely walk. Finally the child had to move.

And a man was asked to change the seat, away from 2 children who had a different skin color, but in fact, these were his own offsprings.

Opinions among MRAs are divided, all feel this regulation is discriminatory against men, but it is not a bad idea during a long flight to be far away from children who are not the own ones and I think so too.

The way a lot of children are allowed to behave these days, sitting as far away from them as possible in a confined space can only be a good thing, methinks.

Il Postino, on 18 January 2010 - 06:53 PM, said:

I've flown Saudi Arabian Airlines and watched the musical chairs so that one man's wife or teenage daughters don't end up sitting next to men.

Uncle Gweilo, on 18 January 2010 - 08:44 PM, said:

Generally yes, but as you see with these complaints, this male traveller was not alone.

One was with a pregnant wife, another case I read was an old man, together with his old wife, who could barely walk using a wheelchair when out of the plane... Why should such a couple be force to sit on different seats than those they booked together, to be forced to change seats AFTER boarding the plane, only because a child (up to 16 years old!) is sitting next to them and was booking AFTER they booked their flight?

I think, it is a question of management, as such complaints it seems are only with British Airways, Quantas and Air New Zealand.

For example, I was using ANA from Tokyo to Bangkok with my wife, and we were booking very early, and we got the question, what we want to choose - either pay more and have confirmed seats, or pay a really cheap ticket, which only means the airplane will take us, on seats the airline will decide. - The difference was for us about USD 300,- (baht 10000,-) why not not spend it for shopping we said, and took the cheapest of the cheapest and the plane was fully booked and it was not possible to be seated together...
With such a policy like ANA which we had to sign when buying the tickets, we can never complain, whereever they seat us.

Same situation is with flights from Tokyo to Hawaii, there are about 5 flights in evening, and these airlines - if you buy the cheapest of the cheapest - will guarantee, they will take you out in this evening, but if this is 4 hours later as expected, this is your risk, and if you are 5 people, your booking might be changed after arriving at the airport, 60 minutes before departure to another airplane and you wait it out up to midnight - your risk, but we saved some years ago with that USD 1250,- - we were waiting 4 hours 5 persons in the coffee-shop. Btw, we travelled all in the same airplane even sitting together. 4 hours delay, but we are on holiday, not on business. Why not?

I think, this is just bad organization of BA, Quantas and Air NewZealand, bad management. Cases like those above should not happen.

In a big airplane, fully booked, there should be always some frequent discount travellers who agree to be seated whereever the airline decides - of course against some reward like extra mileages or something like that.

Uncle Gweilo, on 18 January 2010 - 06:13 PM, said:

Thanks, it was a valiant effort... but everyone is posting here at Orient Expat and there's no way for me to transfer the posts over to the thread at Occident Expat. I'm going to have to find another approach. I think this thread would work better in the General Asia forum anyway, being as BA serves Asian routes of course, so I'll move it.

Why fly BA when you can fly CX or SQ... Really, it's a serious question, why would you? You can't even be sure they won't go on strike and fcvk you up completely. Crap airline.

I suppose BA get a lot of Pommy business seeing as it's British and one is encouraged to support one's own airline. Much is made of this with Quaintarse in Australia and AirNZ over in the Land of the Wrong White Crowd. (And, I assume, everywhere else.) Be patriotic, young fellow!

A lot of budget travellers, however, just seem to go for the cheapest flight- irrespective of carrier. Companies like Zuji are geared to doing just that.

If, for example, Etihad are flying back to the Middle East half or more empty and are willing to sell you a seat from Brisbane or Sydney to Singapore for half to two-thirds the price that QANTAS, SIA, BA, or anyone else will just so that they get a bum in a seat and help offset some of the fuel cost, you'd be a fool to knock it back. All you need to do is source the cheapest option for a flight home- which could be the Thai flight that has dumped most of its passengers from LHR at BKK and is heading on to SYD or BNE with a lot of vacant seats. Doing one's research can pay off handsomely.

About the cheapest flights I could source from Singers to Beijing in 2005 were with Air Vietnam or something similar. SIA and CatPac didn't get a look in in terms of the cheapest flight. (In the end I ended up flying with Cat Pac as VietAir and the budget Chinese operators had no seats available the day I wanted to fly.)

I also looked at Sydney- Auckland return a few years back. The outbound leg was listed by Zuji as AUD 69 plus taxes with Aeroliñas Argentinas. I had no idea they even flew into Australia! By way of comparison, SYD-AKL return is generally of the order of AUD 800 in peak, AUD 600 in low season.

And the advantage of flying the tight@®$€ fare on a full service airline is you don't have to pay for the "extras" like food or carrying a suitcase!

TizMe, on 18 January 2010 - 11:13 PM, said:

I had this in one of those old shared taxis that run from the Thai-Malaysian border to Penang.

Mandrunk, on 19 January 2010 - 03:10 AM, said:

I agree, if you want your One World airmiles, then CX is the way to go. The problem of course, for those travelling from Blighty to Down Under, is that only BA/QF command the direct 'kangaroo route' from Heathrow, and that is the quickest route. Flying via HKG adds time to an already very long journey, and even going via SIN on SQ, you have to mess about changing planes at Changi. Plus there's the patriotic / "home comforts" factor as someone has already mentioned.

Personally, I'd be on SQ every time despite all of the above!

CC

What about service?

I got really sick of flying Air China from Vancouver to Beijing, since it's not only their land crews are rude, their planes have problems here and there, and their service on board is only better than East China air! Snobbish Beijing family kids... One time they refused to let me change seats even though my dinning tray was broken!!

I took a round about flight from Vancouver - HK - Beijing with Cathay and it was the best decision I ever made!

Didn't JAL have, at some stage, a route from Sydney to London via a stopover in Tokyo that had you fly over the North Pole? Vaguely remember something of the sort, but seeing as I was never in need of such a trip, I didn't take that much notice of it at the time. Also recall the stopover was several hours, and you're stuck in the airport...

This post has been edited by Uncle Gweilo: 19 January 2010 - 06:24 PM

Odd - sat next to some children on some of my flights over the years. I had one little girl flying by herself and the FA asked me to keep an eye on her. Actually helped her open a few items - toys the person had sent with her/ course food items. Must admit she was a little angel, unlike some children I have seen with parents traveling with them.

I just remembered decades ago when I was a cab driver a woman once gave me a tip to take her little girl to school and wait outside until she'd walked safely into the school grounds. I wonder if that would happen now?

It depends on the country - and the system they have in the school.
About UK, I think, it is more the exception and not how it is done generally worldwide.
Security is OK, but this what is done in UK is paranoid.

In Philippines, not known to be a safe country, often tricycles are used, like with my fostergirl. The tricycle-man (I cannot call him a driver or rider) has to bring her to school and has to sign together with her a form at the entrance in morning, and when he is coming to pick her up in afternoon, he has to show up at the desk and sign together with her again, otherwise, same with all the other girls, who have arrangement with the school for transport, she cannot leave the school building. The tricycle-man will be paid weekly on Friday evening, after finishing his job for this week without troubles.

In Japan, a truly safe place compared to Philippines, such services by taxi etc. except for international schools for rich expat-children etc. are rather unusual, there is enough public transport, or school bus etc. and in the cities there are many elementary schools, most children can walk to their public school.

I think, in UK a special unreasonable men-hating paranoia epidemic is going on, artificially created by radical feminists and child-protecting-do-gooders. Every man might be a rapist and pedophile etc., but most reported cases are dismissed by police investigators or thrown out of court.

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I do not remember that I ever heard of such a hateful sentiment against men anywhere in Continental Europe. It seems this issue exists only among the English speaking communities, UK, USA, Australia, NewZealand.

Never I read about something like that in the German or French press and not to talk about Asia.
I do not remember such policies (like these of BA, Quantas, NewZealandAir) even from airlines related to Scandinavia (Norway, Sweden, Finnland, Iceland etc.), which are known to be a fortress of feminism.

The idea, ALL male passengers - even those travelling with their own wife! - to consider as danger to unknown children in an airplane or any other form of public transport is NOT a feminist idea.

I do not know who is responsible for that - Who is this paranoid idiot who got such an idea and was starting with this nonsense?

Not always is the bad passenger a pervert man and the victim a helpless girl.

This time it's about a not so young woman and a boy.

http://tinyurl.com/2f2cz3e

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I would not call a 14-year old boy a 'small child'. But this is America...

and I have no idea, why they claim compensation now, 2 years later. - The sum of USD 50.000,- is also far over the top by my opinion.