Good point. I have a female coworker who’s Muslim (and of Indian descent) but doesn’t wear anything that would stereotypically identify her as such to an Average American - no head or other covering, wears stylish American clothing, perfect Midwestern-ish American accent, etc. She still gets extra hassle and frequent searches when flying.
I’ve worked in commercial aviation for some time now, and every FAM I’ve seen has been with a partner. As I understand it, they’re scheduled to fly in pairs, but may fly solo if a partner is ill, or something of that nature. I’ve never seen a solo situation, though, but I suppose it’s possible.
ETA: I was Googling to find out if this was SOP, and it seems a few places, including this, have noted that they usually travel in pairs.
What I can’t quite get straight is this … if it *were *a terrorist who was planning on blowing up the plane … why the hell would he care about the safest seat in the first place? I mean, what makes anyone with half-way critical thinking abilities think that *that’s *a statement a terrorist would make?
Now if a lone Muslim man, with full religious regalia, boarded a plane and was sweating and fidgety and asked the flight attendant which row the fuel tanks were located beneath and this happened, there wouldn’t be as much outrage. But a group of people holding a conversation like any other group of people would and they get kicked out for it?
Ridiculous. Should we expect an authorized list of subjects that Muslims can engage in while on a plane from Homeland Security?
If AirTran offers to, it’ll likely be out of a PR-esque “we meant no harm, here’s a token of how very sorry we are plzdon’tsuethx.” I don’t know the details, but it seems odd that AirTran would refuse to rebook them, then offer them a refund and say they’re welcome to fly again. I can’t think of any good reason why they wouldn’t accomodate them immediately after the FBI cleared them.
Is that like “driving while black?” 
Don’t airlines usually get sued when there’s a terrorist attack?
Sure, but how is that relevant?
Colour me confused but whenever I’ve flown I’ve been given a ticket that tells me where I sit.
I don’t get to pick and choose
This pretty much disgusts me. I’d love to hear their excuse for not rebooking the family after the freakin’ FBI cleared them and requested they get another flight.
In the States, on major airlines you can opt to change the seat you are assigned if other seats are available. (I’ve done this both online and with an agent.) One airline in particular, Southwest, is totally open seating. You sit wherever you please.
On AirTran you do.
But this was just a discussion had while getting to their seats:
Maybe having chosen their seats had triggered the conversation?
Thank you- ignorance fought! Now that I think about it, it makes sense for them to travel in pairs. I’m still amazed that there happened to be a pair of them on this flight, though- aren’t there only a few thousand FAMs, and bazillions of domestic flights?
Thats so last century , now we have Con Air to fly your felons, miscreants, and malefactors to incarceration.
Declan
Hello, overreaction. I’ve had similar conversations in Spanish on Southwest, and nothing like this has ever happened to me.
Really? That meets your definition of institutionalized discrimination? The presence of a uniform?
Sorry but I think that is just silly. Institutionalized discrimination makes discrimination as a matter of effective (if not official) policy. Institutional discrimination occurs systematically, not in just sporadic instances. Isolated individuals who work for the system, even if they are in uniforms, who go against policy and use profiling by superficial appearances, do not constitute institutionalized discrimination.
Meanwhile this family shows how people with class behave. I doubt I would stay as calm and civil as they appear to have been throughout the entire episode.
You have a point, but so does Peanut Gallery. If the isolated individuals take it upon themselves to liberally interpret policy beyond the stated standard in order to express their own biases, and the system fails to discipline or restrain them, the actions of those individuals can be said to be seen as acceptable, implicitly, by their bureaucracy, and, thus, institutionalized.
Now, if these uniformed knuckledraggers get smacked down hard (put on probation, retrained, disciplined, whatever), and some sort of Memorandum of Educational Reminder is officially distributed to their compatriots, then you could legitimately say that they are isolated individuals who do not express the official policy of their institution.
But as it is, there’s lots of arguable gray area between the extremes, and that, I think, is what Peanut Gallery was quite reasonably suggesting.
From Ferret Herder’s cite:
Also, from the CNN cite:
Now, I know that the Muslim family said they did not use the word “explosion,” but apparently several other witnesses may have heard otherwise. I want to hear more of the details. It seems clear there was no real danger. That doesn’t mean anyone was unreasonable in being concerned in seeing someone dressed as they were and wondering what the safest place on the plane would be in the event of an explosion. Why exactly did Ijaz wonder if the girls were going to say something? Just how innocuous were their comments? I’d just like to hear more details before I conclude that anyone acted unreasonably–when the facts are in, that could well be the case.
Again, I am not at all suggesting they were terrorists, nor would I suggest that anyone who looked like they did would naturally be a suspected terrorist. But I will say flat-out, if I heard a family, one who appeared as they did, wondering about the safest place on my flight should an explosion occur, I ABSOLUTELY would have alerted someone. If that makes me narrow-minded, so be it.
… It’s taking longer than we thought.
Yep, that makes you narrow minded, all right.
ETA: Cervaise beat me to it.