Woman demand apology from Porter Airlines.

[RougeUnderoos]

Originally Posted by EldrickOnIce

I didn't mean stay home... I meant move back to your own country.

Far as I know, the guy's a Canadian. It's got nothing to do with "go back to your own country", so don't try to lay that on anyone who didn't say it.

[Nage Waza]

Let me (jew) get a few things out of the way:

The guy is an idiot, and if he represents all jews they are too. But he doesn't, this guy is in the minority and most jews don't stand for that crap.

The airline was not at fault, what can you do when you are trying to simply get the plane moving? Aren't we at a point where no one can get offended because then you are offending the person who offended you?

The sooner the world get's rid of things that separate us the better.

[OMG!WTF!]

Originally Posted by EldrickOnIce

I didn't mean stay home... I meant move back to your own country.

And I don't entirely disagree with you. I am just saying we should stop trying to pretend we are a society that is open and tolerant of others. This thread is a perfect example. We are all bigots - we just generally express it less angrily than the guy who got fired last week.

I don't think you're right regarding bigotry. We expect the same behavior from everyone and are intolerant of certain behaviors from everyone. If some crabby old non jew didn't want to sit next to a woman simply because she was a woman, we'd be equally offended. We can still be tolerant of judaism while not tolerating socially unacceptable behavior.

Originally Posted by EldrickOnIce

It's really about freedom of religion.
As incredibly ridiculous as it sounds to me - their faith dictates that, if not married, they are not allowed to come in any physical contact whatsoever with a member of the opposite sex who is not family. It has nothing to do with worthiness. It is impossible to sit beside someone on a plane and not come in contact with them.
The Charter guarantees him the right to publicly manifest his beliefs.
Perhaps we need to change that.

I don't think that is right either. The charter allows people to place whatever religious rules they want upon themselves (ie if you touch a girl you'll get cooties). But it also protects others from discrimination based on your self imposed religious rules. So no, you can't expect people to move to accommodate your misogyny even if you don't mean it to be misogynistic. Of course there is no cart blanche freedom to publicly manifest your religious beliefs.

[The Yen Man]

Originally Posted by Nyah

Ummm...



This is where my issue lies. In blaming her for feeling discriminated against and others thinking of her as such.

I guess I just don't understand what the airline did wrong. While at it, why not demand an apology from the man who offered her to swtich as well? He should have just minded his own business then.

[polak]

It's not like the Moronic religious man was causing a scene. He just wanted to try and stay true to his (stupid) faith. I really don't see how the airline could possibly be at fault here for simply trying to rectify the situation.

Even if it was an old white man that didn't want to sit next to a black person, I wouldn't blame the airline for trying to rectify the situation as quickly and quietly as possible. Some guy offered his seat to the women, they asked if that worked, she refused and they moved on to another solution. What else could they possibly do?

Delay the flight by going through the ordeal of kicking off the passenger and pulling out his luggage cause of a simple seat change request? In turn most likely causing people to miss connections and costing the airline money? Get real.

The religious man is the worst party involved but this woman acting like she was done some massive harm is ridiculous. What a martyr. I hope she can get past this horrible tragedy.

[Fire of the Phoenix]

Seeing as how the woman didn't move, and the airline had to find another solution I don't see how you can absolve the airline. Maybe they should've tried the eventual solution BEFORE asking the lady to move? You know, save the most deplorable option for when all other options have failed? But they didn't even do that.

[CroFlames]

Originally Posted by Fire of the Phoenix

Seeing as how the woman didn't move, and the airline had to find another solution I don't see how you can absolve the airline. Maybe they should've tried the eventual solution BEFORE asking the lady to move? You know, save the most deplorable option for when all other options have failed? But they didn't even do that.

I'm sure the last thing on the flight attendants mind was discrimination, and she probably just asked the question out of routine to the woman.

We all agree the man was being unreasonable in his request not to sit by a woman. Should have pre-planned.

The woman wasn't exactly hard done by.

Story blown way out of proportion.

[polak]

Originally Posted by Fire of the Phoenix

Seeing as how the woman didn't move, and the airline had to find another solution I don't see how you can absolve the airline. Maybe they should've tried the eventual solution BEFORE asking the lady to move? You know, save the most deplorable option for when all other options have failed? But they didn't even do that.

Yes. Deplorable.

"Ma'am would that seat work?"

I think we should call the UN.

[Fire of the Phoenix]

Originally Posted by polak

Yes. Deplorable.

"Ma'am would that seat work?"

I think we should call the UN.

I said "most deplorable". And it is MOST deplorable, given that the other options weren't deplorable at all. Maybe deplorable was the wrong word, maybe I could've picked a different word like unsatisfactory, faulty, poor, regrettable, worst, etc... but honestly, who cares? Why argue semantics? Why not actually address the heart of my post instead of picking one word to wrangle over?

It's funny, as soon as I submitted the post I knew I'd get called out on that by someone. Fair enough, it is a strong word given what happened but I do honestly wonder why the solution they ended up arriving at wasn't tried before they asked the lady to move. I think it's a fair question.

Was it: Oh, this guy doesn't want to sit beside a woman... hey do you mind moving for him? Or did they try other stuff first? Why not exercise all other options before doing something that has a chance to offend somebody? We aren't talking about delaying the flight here, I'm saying take 5 minutes and try to find another solution (which they did, but after they pissed this lady off). They likely wasted more time by asking her first AND created a scene with the other passengers. Seems to me they didn't manage the situation very well at all considering had they handled things differently this wouldn't even be a story.

[The Yen Man]

Originally Posted by CroFlames

I'm sure the last thing on the flight attendants mind was discrimination, and she probably just asked the question out of routine to the woman.

We all agree the man was being unreasonable in his request not to sit by a woman. Should have pre-planned.

The woman wasn't exactly hard done by.

Story blown way out of proportion.

Pretty much this. I get the outrage over the man who didn't want to sit by her, but I just don't get the outrage over the airline. I'm sure the flight attendant wouldn't have even asked the lady had the one guy not offered to change seats with her. I'm sure the conversation went something like this:

Man offering up the seat: I don't mind switching seats if you want maam.
Flight attendant: Would that be ok maam?
Woman: No
Flight attendant: Ok

I guess in the woman's mind, the flight attendant have said (to the guy who offered his seat): Sit down sir, this doesn't concern you.

[Oling_Roachinen]

Originally Posted by Fire of the Phoenix

I said "most deplorable". And it is MOST deplorable, given that the other options weren't deplorable at all. Maybe deplorable was the wrong word, maybe I could've picked a different word like unsatisfactory, faulty, poor, regrettable, worst, etc... but honestly, who cares? Why argue semantics? Why not actually address the heart of my post instead of picking one word to wrangle over?

It's funny, as soon as I submitted the post I knew I'd get called out on that by someone. Fair enough, it is a strong word given what happened but I do honestly wonder why the solution they ended up arriving at wasn't tried before they asked the lady to move. I think it's a fair question.

Was it: Oh, this guy doesn't want to sit beside a woman... hey do you mind moving for him? Or did they try other stuff first? Why not exercise all other options before doing something that has a chance to offend somebody? We aren't talking about delaying the flight here, I'm saying take 5 minutes and try to find another solution (which they did, but after they pissed this lady off). They likely wasted more time by asking her first AND created a scene with the other passengers. Seems to me they didn't manage the situation very well at all considering had they handled things differently this wouldn't even be a story.

Fire of the Phoenix, you keep overlooking that someone else offered the seat up first. That's the crux of the argument. Why not just let common sense prevail?

Flight attendant: "What seems to be the problem?"
Lady: "This man wont sit hear because I'm a lady"
Man behind: "Ma'am, would you like my seat?
---------
Flight attendant: "Would that be satisfactory?"




Flight attendant: "What seems to be the problem?"
Lady: "This man wont sit hear because I'm a lady"
Man behind: "Ma'am, would you like my seat?
-----
Flight attendant: "Sir, I'm going to need you to be quiet while I assess the situation properly. Please miss, continue your story before I go to the religious man, grab a translator so he can give his side of the story so I don't accidentally offend him either. I think we can have one booked in an hour or two tops. When I have both sides documented I will go to the human tribunal and we can have this sorted out by February, maybe March at the latest."

The flight attendant was just trying to get people seated. An opportunity presented itself. There was no malice, no discrimination, not even an indication of actual rudeness.

[Superflyer]

I have one question for the people that are saying they should have made him sit in his assigned seat and STFO. The problem here is by that time it has been established that he does not want to sit there for religious reasons and she is offended by him. If you make him sit there you are setting up for problems in the flight.

Another way to look at this is if you switch it to a race issue as quite a few people on here are using as a comparisson. Say you have an obvious racist come on the plane (white power shirt etc.) and he realizes that he is going to have to sit beside a black woman. He starts asking if other people will change seats with him. Flight attendant comes over and says TS buddy sit there. Now you have a racist and the type of person he probably hates the most in the world forced to sit beside each other, what do you think will happen? They will talk it out and be BFFs by the time they land?

[Fire of the Phoenix]

Originally Posted by Oling_Roachinen

Fire of the Phoenix, you keep overlooking that someone else offered the seat up first. That's the crux of the argument. Why not just let common sense prevail?

Flight attendant: "What seems to be the problem?"
Lady: "This man wont sit hear because I'm a lady"
Man behind: "Ma'am, would you like my seat?
---------
Flight attendant: "Would that be satisfactory?".

Fair enough and I guess I did overlook that. Still, why didn't the other passenger offer his seat to the guy and make him switch? Let me guess, he was sitting beside a woman too?

The whole thing is beyond stupid. My ideal day is where I don't have hear about religion at all, for any reason... The topic just pisses me off. I married into an extremely religious family (my wife's the black sheep atheist) so I find this topic both nauseating and infuriating. Sometimes I let it rile me up a little too much I suppose.

I pretty much got off Facebook because I got tired of explaining to people why I deleted them or stopped following them... 90% of the time it was because of their religious propaganda. Sometimes even seeing their profile pic was too much so I just deleted them. You can only imagine what it's like to be raising two kids with an atheist while her family is uber Christian and obviously disapproving of our entire life. I'm pretty much done with hearing about it, but no matter what it's always in my face or on the news for some bad reason most of time. Even typing this out just makes me want to scream considering I'm forced to walk on eggshells about it normally. It's okay to tell me I'm a sinner and my family will burn in hell but I'm a bigot if I tell you that you're a simple minded fool who believes in fairy tales...

I guess I got off track there, sorry.

[Oling_Roachinen]

Originally Posted by Fire of the Phoenix

Fair enough and I guess I did overlook that. Still, why didn't the other passenger offer his seat to the guy and make him switch? Let me guess, he was sitting beside a woman too?

Probably, or maybe it was easier to talk to the person who could speak english or at this point the man was off somewhere else. The point was it wasn't the airlines fault at all, at least in my opinion.

But even removing the man behind offering to swap seats. Why not have the flight attendant discuss with the woman what was most accommodating/comfortable/favourable to her? That still seems like the best solution, and asking if she would be willing to move isn't a demand or insinuation, but a way for the flight attendant to figure out the best way to resolve the woman's concerns. Ironically, the woman said that the religious man's refusal to address her was the reason for her initial offense. Yet when the flight attendant did address her, she also got offended.

Flynn said she might have been willing to accommodate the man had he spoken to her directly and politely asked her to switch seats.

[sec304]

Not sure if this is the best place for this but more ultra-Orthodox Jewish news:

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/four-stabb...161149685.html

"Six people taking part in an annual Gay Pride march in Jerusalem have been stabbed by an ultra-Orthodox Jewish man, police said."

[RougeUnderoos]

Originally Posted by Oling_Roachinen

Fire of the Phoenix, you keep overlooking that someone else offered the seat up first. That's the crux of the argument. Why not just let common sense prevail?

What does common sense have to do with this situation. The whole thing is based on one man's superstitions. Common sense is long gone.

Originally Posted by Oling_Roachinen

The flight attendant was just trying to get people seated. An opportunity presented itself. There was no malice, no discrimination, not even an indication of actual rudeness.

The flight attendant might have said it with a smile on his face, but he was actually asking this woman to accommodate this man's sexism. That's potential discrimination and actual rudeness in my books.

If some clown gets on an airplane and refuses to sit next to me because I don't meet his crazy criteria, the airline can look after him. Don't ask me to agree to his nonsense.

[GGG]

http://forum.calgarypuck.com/archive...p/t-85413.html

So I remembered while reading this thread that there used to be an airline policy of refusing to seat children next to men.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airl...on_controversy

[blueski]

She should fly topless next time. That would really f with him.

[Oling_Roachinen]

Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos

What does common sense have to do with this situation. The whole thing is based on one man's superstitions. Common sense is long gone.

Common sense from the airline attendant's point of view. The attendant has no control over the religious man's beliefs. His main goal was to get everyone seated, again that's literally his job. Explain from the situation the attendant found himself in the quickest and completely non-offensive way to approach it.

Flight attendant: "What seems to be the problem?"
Lady: "That man wont sit here because I'm a lady"
Man behind: "Ma'am, would you like my seat?"

What should have been the flight attendant's next actions?