BA sued over sexist policy

[His Noodly Appendage]

Mirko Fischer accuses the airline of branding all men as potential sex offenders and claimed innocent travellers are being publicly humiliated.

In line with the policy, BA cabin crew patrol the aisles before take-off to check that youngsters travelling on their own or in a different row from their parents are not seated next to a male stranger.

Mr Fischer, a 33-year-old hedge fund manager, became aware of the policy while he was flying from Gatwick with his wife Stephanie, 30, who was six months pregnant and had booked a window seat.

Mr Fischer was in the middle seat between her and a 12-year-old boy. Shortly after all passengers had sat down, having stowed their bags in the overhead lockers, a male steward asked Mr Fischer to change his seat.

Mr Fischer refused, explaining his wife was pregnant, at which point the steward raised his voice, causing several passengers to turn round.

Mr Fischer eventually moved seats but felt so humiliated by his treatment that he is taking the airline to court on the grounds of sex discrimination. (http://www.theaustralian.com.au/travel/news/british-airways-sued-over-humiliating-policy/story-e6frg8ro-1225820673018)

It's because we're all potential rapists, you see.

[munnki]

This paedogeddon thing has got to come to an end. I'm also starting to wonder when people are going to realise that there are worse things that can happen to a child than for it to be 'frisked' by a stranger.... bringing it up Jehovah's Witness, Scientologist or Mormon, for example... or not showing it affection... exposing it to the X Factor...

Joking aside... that's ridiculous - what kind of weird paranoiac children are we producing in these generations and why are we putting so much emphasis on sexuality and sexualizing kids. I'm starting to wonder if parents will pretty soon be able to buy t-shirts with 'no touchy touchy' emblazoned on them just in case any of you lot were thinking of jumping the bones of their two year old....

Weird world we live in ....

[His Noodly Appendage]

I wouldn't mind so much if there weren't a similar restriction on women...

[Notta]

Maybe all the children & women should wear head to toe coverings so as not to 'entice' potential male pedophiles into action.....

That would make as much sense as keeping males away from unknown children.

[DMB]

It was interesting that when IHEU spoke at the UN Human Rghts Council and raised the question of the Vatican's responsibility for child abuse within the RCC, the IHEU statement mentioned "child abuse" and nowhere did it refer specifically to sexual abuse. And yet the Vatican's foot-in-mouth reply referred exclusively to sexual abuse.

Why does the world focus quite so much on sexual abuse of children to the exclusion of other kinds of abuse? I noticed that, outside Ireland, of the two recent reports, the Ryan Report and the Murphy Report, it was the latter, that was concerned exclusively with sexual abuse and its cover-up that generated much more attention. And yet, bad though that abuse was, in general the abused children had homes and perhaps schools where they could enjoy a temporary respite from the abusers. The children dealt with in the Ryan Report had no escape from terrible 24/7 abuse of many kinds.

[Octavia]

That's totally ridiculous - has all common sense gone completely astray?

[Matty]

Too good for them i tell ya.
SRRw1ERj2Gc&feature=related

as for that tosser of a plane monkey i hope he loses his fucking job. If i were the businessman i would take it as far as i can till the opinionated little twat gets sacked or at least demoted (nb. i dunno how you demote a trolley money though tbh) . Was it his fault? Not really he was just "doing his job". Would i care? Nope.

Comes to a point where hte message is so offensive you DO get to shoot the messenger IMO.

[dug_down_deep]

Did the story mention if he was Catholic? Might make a difference.

[Matty]

solid point, they never mentioned the Cardinal robes in the OP :D

[Mediancat]

It did mention his wife, so Catholic is more or less ruled out.

Rob

[Preno]

That's just pointless harassment.
Why does the world focus quite so much on sexual abuse of children to the exclusion of other kinds of abuse?+
It did mention his wife, so Catholic is more or less ruled out.what

[purple_kathryn]

If parents were so worried that their children might be molested by a random stranger on a plane they wouldn't let them travel alone.

I travelled alone by plane to visit my gran for a few summers when I was a child and I managed to not get molested :rolleyes:

[dancer_rnb]

The pregnant wife should raise a stink as well.

[dug_down_deep]

Not in a closed fuselage, please.

[Matty]

I retract my earlier outrage, no one mentioned it was Vatican Airways (http://images.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=http://geoconger.files.wordpress.com/2007/09/mistral-air.jpg&imgrefurl=http://geoconger.wordpress.com/2007/09/07/vatican-airline-gets-off-to-flying-start-cen-90707-p-6/&usg=__0FLLy0zW7F-MdWoeOokxtMN8M3E=&h=299&w=780&sz=174&hl=en&start=3&um=1&tbnid=K2GEo5ymdGhGDM:&tbnh=54&tbnw=142&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dvatican%2Bairline%26hl%3Den%26client% 3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-GB:official%26sa%3DG%26um%3D1)


Vatican Airlines - "We arent all that punctual to be quite honest, but then we know Catholics have no issues coming in a little behind"

[dug_down_deep]

Probably should have moved the tyke up into the cabin with the pilot, where he could be safe.

http://poplicks.com/images/airplane.jpg

[Pandora]

This is ridiculous and disgusting. At what point did it become OK to be a complete sexist, so long as the person you're being sexist against is a male? Bah. People are stupid :mad:

[His Noodly Appendage]

Gah. My wife and my sister both have no problem with the policy whatsoever.

I am so fucking pissed off.

Maybe I shouldn't babysit then, given as how I have a penis and am thus an unacceptable risk.

Fuck.

[DMB]

Don't people know that women can sexually abuse children? It's not as common, but even so...

Vanessa George (http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/oct/01/vanessa-george-plymouth-abuse-background)

Anyway, I find the attitude of airlines hypocritical. I used sometimes to send my kids unaccompanied. They actually preferred it because they got spoilt by airline staff, but once they reached 12 they counted as adults and had to travel with no oversight at all. Unless BA has redefined what a "minor" is since then, it is clear that their attitude over this is not genuinely for the protection of the child.

[Bane]

Well, if they're that concerned about children, why don't they segregate the children from all of the adult passengers, not just men? Women are capable of harming children too, and let's not forget about children being stolen (for non-sexual and perhaps "maternal" reasons, too) by women....