Slashdot Mirror
Booted From Airplane For Wearing Anti-TSA T-shirt
Cigarra writes "PhD student Arijit learned the hard way that in Brave New America you can't mock TSA's Security Theater and go on about your business. According to a recollection in RT.com: 'After being vigorously screened and questioned multiple times, Arijit says he was finally given permission, once more, to board his plane. The pilot of the aircraft, however, had had enough of the whole ordeal and asked the Delta supervisor to relay the message that, due to the discomfort the shirt had caused, neither Arijit nor his wife would be allowed to board the aircraft.' Just how much humiliation is the general American public willing to tolerate in the name of 'security'?"
As most of you, I only read TFS, but this wasn't the TSA to blame.
It's completly in a pilots discretion if he want's to have some prankster on board who doesn't care if the whole flight gets delayed because of a funny shirt.
He has the right to remove anyone from the plane. For anything else, complain to the airline afterwards.
This system works as long as you put somewhat reasonable and responsible people in the cockpit. And if he pulls that stunt too often, he'll be sanctioned by his employer. That's a completly different situation from some minimum-wage guy who only would get sanctioned for NOT bullying people around and gets paid (and perhaps rewarded) for strictly following procedures, not thinking about if that would be stupid.
Please note: I don't say what the pilot did was right, but he had the right to make that descision.
bickerdyke
No, never fly Delta Airlines.
Im going to post Anonymously because frankly, I dont feel like having some asshole come after me for this story. I used to work for a website that sold airline tickets, and I was a phone monkey who would take calls for bookings or complaints or whatever. This was about 8 months after 9/11 and lots of garbage was going on because white people are annoying.
Basically an older man calls in, in tears. After spending a few minutes to calm the poor guy down it comes out that his son was on a Delta flight by himself (16, maybe 17 years old) and got bumped because some idiot felt "threatened" by his presence on the plane. See, he was from the middle east and clearly they were all out to kill us. So delta bumps this kid and left him in the airport. Last flight of the night, has no money, and they give him a food voucher for a resturant that was already closed. Too young to legally rent a Hotel, no means to get home till the next morning, hadn't eaten all day because he was expecting to get home in time for dinner. Frankly, not that smart to do so without cash, but that doesn't excuse Delta.
Anyway, after begging on the phone with Delta for like 2 hours I gave up and called South West, who put him on a flight they had going out that night, no cost to the kid. This wasn't the only instance I've had with Delta Airlines and racist, bullshit policy about "discomfort" and the above story reminds me strongly of it. DO NOT FLY DELTA AIRLINES UNLESS YOU'RE WHITE AND/OR RICH. If you are, I still dont recommend it.
Not that I'm engaging in the most reasoned of debate here, and believe me I'm coming more from a devil's advocate position than anything else, but:
Why should it be unacceptable to judge someone for having a substantially, disabling limitation on their intelligence, but acceptable to judge someone for being slightly below average intelligence? If we agree to the fundamental presumption that intelligence is outside of ones own control, why can you judge anyone for being stupid at all?
Seeing as all airlines are private they are in a special situation where they should not be allowed to act arbitrarily. We aren't talking about someone wandering into your private business here. As long as you provide a vital public service you should be beholden to the Constitution. If this is unacceptable then the airlines should be nationalized.
Don't fly Delta, indeed. A gate agent tried to take away my daughter's car seat. And her airplane seat, for that matter, converting her to lap child with no reduction in ticket price. I guess you can't expect a gate agent to know what seats are FAA approved and which ones are not, but perhaps you could expect them to STFU if they've got no clue and lack the aptitude to read the label that says "FAA approved". We told her to mind her own business and she told us that we might as well check the thing since the stewardess certainly wouldn't allow it on, and it would save us hassle by checking it right there instead of on the JetWay (tm). At least the stewardess at the door knew that the FAA allows -- and in fact recommends -- approved child seats for kids that size.
I complained to Delta that their agent tried to convince us to needlessly endanger our daughter and deprive us of a paid for seat, a feat she would have accomplished if we'd just done what she told us. They made a non-apology-apology, and asked my to send them the details of where is happened and our ticket info, etc., but since I didn't feel like being an unpaid customer relations consultant, all I wanted was an insincere but unqualified apology and a worthless promise to make their gate agents more informed about carrying young children.
Also, I was wearing the same t-shirt that day, but I guess I was lucky it was too fucking cold inside and out and I had to layer with a sweater. No telling what some hillbilly on the plane would have thought of it. At least as a white male with no foreign accent or name, I'm not a terrorist.
I am not a crackpot.
I always continue walking out of a store when some one asks "Can I see your receipt please?" I say, "Nope. This is now my property so hands off." and continue on my way. I had one dude at a well known chain of stores try to step in front of me, heh - I picked up the bags walked around him and I bowed my head and said, "Thank you sir, for returning my cart." quite loudly and left.
Honestly? The first time I did this I was shitting myself - I wanted to play by the rules and not get in trouble or cause trouble. The issue? That is WHAT they are programming us to do - follow the rules, look at your shoes and never look at 'authority' in the eye or question anything they do. If you accept this verbatim with out question then you just agreed to no longer live in a free country. Imagine myself as a strong male being worried about doing this to a freaking store clerk, how do people who are less physically able and emotionally as me able to do this when confronted by actual 'authority' figures? The answer is they cannot!
As Maria Mitchell once said: Question everything!
Tesen