SAS EuroBonus - Did SAS make a racist remark back in 1999?

Seems like SAS can be awarding a lot apparently, this man received about €2000 for having an uneducated steward on his flight (or did I get this wrong? I didn't watch the associated video):
http://www.ndtv.com/morenews/showmorestory.asp?category=National&id=100275

On every India flight they have some indian pax insisting he is served a hindu meal or a veg meal and claims his TA booked a veg meal. The airlines anticpate this demand and load a veg choice to avoid discussions.

However I've travelled KL and LX where they serve meat dishes with beef in it. The FA repeated told the pax to lift the meat out and eat the rest if he finds beef offensive. Very insensitive from a pax perspective, but simple lack of training from a airline perspective.

This guy took the offensive to a next level and found a consumer court to support him. :td: :td:

oh my god, every mistake and misbehavour is offcourse racism today

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows CE; PPC; 240x240) Opera 8.60 [en])

Racism is the new customer satisfaction argument?

Vegetarians are a race now?

I was suprised to see India and SAS pop-up in the body of the same thread here. It's been nearly 5 years since SAS pulled out of India, and yet I found this today. Isn't BKK-SIN ending too, if it hasn't already?

SAS crew on my international routes where I've traveled with an associate of Indian ethnicity have never even given a hint of racist attitudes when it comes to in-flight service. (I flew CPH-DEL a lot; he flew it more.) So while this might not be a case of racist behavior by a crew, it's definitely typical of flight crews giving customers the big brush off .... even if it means a lie.

Was this in coach? If so, I'm not surprised.

Personally, I'm fine with an airline paying compensation for giving people the wrong food and/or misleading information (i.e., including about the contents of meal), intentional or otherwise.

What I'm curious about is what were the nature of "racial insults" (emphasis: plural) communicated.

From the article, it is hard to see any racist undertones, though I have not seen the video interview. Might be a case often seen in the states, threaten legal action and the airline will simply cough up so as to avoid the legal hassle.

These things are hard to judge though, a few years ago I was on a SK domestic flight when they had free food and drinks. I was seated beside an asian man (I am also of asian decent). Asking for an orange juice, the attendant subsequently gave the juice to the man beside me. When I asked again, she insisted that I'd already received a juice and when I politely explained that she'd given it to the man beside me, she still refused to give me a drink and continued to do so for the remainder of the flight. While not directly racist, I find it disturbing the attitude that all asians are the same and I can see if not treated sensitively could lead to some major trouble for SK. Of course, given the asian population in Scandinavia, I suppose two travelling beside each other can be quite rare.

Finally, I don't see why this is the juristdiction a consumer forum in surat, seeing as it is a flight BKK-SIN.

What an idiot. He won the fight for the vegetarian race :p

"And his message to people is take the fight to those who indulge in racism."

I doubt that SAS has paid the money as the court has no jurisdiction.

This article is bogus. What a bunch of bullcrap...

What an idiot. He won the fight for the vegetarian race :p

"And his message to people is take the fight to those who indulge in racism."

I doubt that SAS has paid the money as the court has no jurisdiction.

This article is bogus. What a bunch of bullcrap...

Just because it seems to you that the Indian court has no jurisdiction does not mean the courts in India don't have jurisdiction or don't act as if they do. :eek:

Also, SAS still has financial payment streams that go to/from India and those assets can be encumbered by an Indian court in the event of a judgment, regardless of SAS claiming that India has no jurisdiction or, alternatively, of SAS operating on the basis of Indian courts having jurisdiction.

I wouldn't be surprised if SAS paid up or pays up.

What an idiot. He won the fight for the vegetarian race :p

"And his message to people is take the fight to those who indulge in racism."

I doubt that SAS has paid the money as the court has no jurisdiction.

This article is bogus. What a bunch of bullcrap...

NDTV is a quite a reputable channel, so I wouldn't doubt the article.

If the ticket that included the BKK-SIN segment was bought in India, the consumer court would be the place for the passenger to bring a claim against the TA or the company that operated the flight. I'm sure if SK had taken the case to the next court level, they would have won, but then that would have cost them more than 100 000 INR in legal fees. I worked for some Bombay law firms in the nineties and saw the bills they charged foreign clients just for advice put together by junior attorneys.

I hope this ends up in some training material for FAs ...

Just because it seems to you that the Indian court has no jurisdiction does not mean the courts in India don't have jurisdiction or don't act as if they do. :eek:

Also, SAS still has financial payment streams that go to/from India and those assets can be encumbered by an Indian court in the event of a judgment, regardless of SAS claiming that India has no jurisdiction or, alternatively, of SAS operating on the basis of Indian courts having jurisdiction.

I wouldn't be surprised if SAS paid up or pays up.

If I am not mistaken the jurisdiction penal code wise would be that of the country the aircraft is registered in. As for other "minor" codes I guess juristiction issues are a lot more murky, especially in consumer law (ref. Norway/France/Germany/Netherlands vs. Apple).

If I am not mistaken the jurisdiction penal code wise would be that of the country the aircraft is registered in. As for other "minor" codes I guess juristiction issues are a lot more murky, especially in consumer law (ref. Norway/France/Germany/Netherlands vs. Apple).

Consumer protection actions in India and judicial actions under the Indian Penal Code (or local civil laws), where applicable (and I don't know how/where/if IPC violations even came up), are not necessarily, in practice, limited by theoretical frameworks generally applicable in international law (whatever that may be) or even under contractual (including treaty) arrangements. That is, Indian judges will do their own thing in pursuing equity as they perceive it.

In any event under this situation, it's easier to settle or pay under a court ruling than to resist -- unless the liable party is certain they'll have no further financial nexus in the country (i.e., an unlikely situation) or can win outright (on appeal, if necessary).

However I've travelled KL and LX where they serve meat dishes with beef in it. The FA repeated told the pax to lift the meat out and eat the rest if he finds beef offensive. Very insensitive from a pax perspective, but simple lack of training from a airline perspective.

I dont like airline vegetarian food, and have had to call the airline or my over-helpful TA to take out an AVML request from my reservation (TAs in india put that in by default, sometimes).

A lot of people who still retain indian dietary habits particular to their home state (as in, for a lot of people from MAA, vegetarian food = rice, not even rotis / naan bread which is "north indian" and so practically foreign) frantically hunting for an indian grocery and an indian restaurant once they land in the USA - they find it REAL tough there (and far tougher if they happen to travel to china, japan or korea, say).

Even worse with many people from Gujarat / AMD like the guy in that article - for them, it is a Hindu Meal or a Jain Meal (HNML / JNML) as their particular variant of hinduism even forbids root vegetables, onions and garlic, let alone beef.

The first problem is that the usual western idea of a vegetarian diet (soya, salads, etc) just doesnt look all that appetizing to them. And then meat can turn up in some strange places .. french fries and onion rings fried in lard, or vegetable soup made with beef stock, say. Or "vegetable fried rice" in Japan that has vegetables in it, sure, but also has tasty chunks of shrimp and ham.

An even more interesting situation develops when they dont use an Indian TA, or book online, and forget to put in a special meal request (AVML, not even VGML) on their ticket, especially on a sector that isn't from or to India.

Like this heavily pregnant indian lady on an AC YUL-FRA flight I was on early last year, with not very good english who was traveling in a middle seat rather than an aisle or bulkhead, and didnt have a meal request set up either. Poor woman was looking quite lost, almost in tears.

The purser came over to see what was up, a smiling grandfatherly type, nice guy. So - the upshot was that I changed seats with her (I was in a bulkhead aisle a couple of rows in front) and then helped translate her story to the purser. He came up with the same interestingly practical suggestion you mentioned, but the lady didnt quite like the idea.

With lots of apologies, he handed her a standard beef + veg entree, and suggested that she leave the beef alone and just eat the vegetables, as they were so sorry but they had no vegetarian meals on board at all ... At least, there was milk, and montreal bagels - nice, flying from YUL - [with sesame seed on them that she had to remove as they made her feel sick] and salad.

Still, not very much, so when we landed at FRA I took her to the SEN lounge and watched her practically inhale croissants and hot chocolate before she left to catch her flight to HYD.