AirTran apologizes to Muslim passengers who were removed from flight.

[muntrv]

http://www.comcast.net/articles/news-general/20090102/Muslim.Passengers.Removed/

[BlooInBloo]

1. Fuck those bigots.

[malaise]

2. Sue them first

:D

[silverojo]

7. Read the story on Yahoo News

A non-Muslim was also hauled off the plane by police because of inappropriate comments, so it wasn't just Muslims who were hassled that day.

And the reason people got scared was because one of the Muslims said, "I guess it makes sense not to be close to the engine in case something happens." Gee, I wonder why people around them freaked out. :eyes:

Finally, here's the deal...you can go too far with your religion in public, which is what creates suspicion, if not outright anger. For instance, I'm a Wiccan. If I were to go out in public, while dressed in a hooded robe and wearing a pentacle necklace, I'd get a lot of weird looks, too. Not to mention, Christians would be looking for any reason in the world to hassle me.

Religion is a private thing, and flaunting a minority religion in public is bound to cause trouble. I don't care if it's Muslims in full garb, Wiccans in robes (or, heaven forbid, skyclad, LOL!), or whatever...keep the religious shit at home.

And before anybody calls me a bigot, this applies to lily-white fundie Christians, too--anybody who tries to shove religion down other people's throats or flaunting it in others' faces is nothing more than a troublemaker.

Sue the airline? Hell, the airline should sue THEM for creating a disturbance that disrupted the travel of so many passengers.

But since that'll never happen, maybe I should deck myself out in full Wiccan garb, board a plane and make suspicious comments...then, after I'm questioned for being such a wacko, I can sue the airline and become rich! :sarcasm:

[Orangeone]

10. You are a bigot

So just looking like a muslim is "shoving religion down other peoples throats"??

[thunder rising]

3. 2nd ... It's way to easy to apologize after the fact. (You can bet the blogs had something to do

with it)

[Scooter24]

4. AirTran's lawyers sure reacted quickly on this...

given this earlier story...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/01/AR2009010101932.html?wprss=rss_metro

Members of the party, all but one of them U.S.-born citizens who were headed to a religious retreat in Florida, were subsequently cleared for travel by FBI agents who characterized the incident as a misunderstanding, an airport official said. But the passengers said AirTran refused to rebook them, and they had to pay for seats on another carrier secured with help from the FBI.

...

AirTran spokesman Tad Hutcheson agreed that the incident amounted to a misunderstanding. But he defended AirTran's handling of the incident, which he said strictly followed federal rules. And he denied any wrongdoing on the airline's part.

"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," Hutcheson said. "Other people heard them, misconstrued them. It just so happened these people were of Muslim faith and appearance. It escalated, it got out of hand and everyone took precautions."

...

Hutcheson said AirTran is not likely to reimburse the passengers for the additional cost of their replacement tickets on USAirways. He said they were given a full refund for their AirTran fares and may fly on the carrier now that the investigation is complete.

-------------

It sounds like they really care! :sarcasm:

[uppityperson]

6. Do I have this right? They kicked them off, refunded them, said they could try again?

Forget the replacement ticket price, just refunded them for the original tickets? blech.

An apology is nice, but no, you ALSO get them where they were going, at NO further cost. If only for the sake of PR, you do that.

[davidpdx]

5. I've never heard of that airline before

It must be a small regional carrier. I remember stories like this happening after 9/11. I'll bet $10 the company goes belly up in six months.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

8. Do you remember ValuJet?

This is ValuJet

Specifically, AirTran merged with ValuJet and renamed the ValuJet portion Air Tran because of bad publicity from the crash in the everglades.

[davidpdx]

9. Ah, ok

Being outside the US for so long, I can't keep track of which carriers are which. I remember Valujet, especially since one of the CSI Miami episodes was pretty much written along the same lines of that crash.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

11. Yep, it's ValuJet.

The folks who had the wreck in a Florida swamp.

One of Michael Moore's taglines in articles used to be: Thank you for flying ValuJet.