Originally Posted by Lehava

...The more we DONT see a plane bombing on the evening news the happier we should be, not condemning the people trying to protect us.

No one is condemning the FAMs...this thread is only discussing the concerns of a customer who felt he was denied an entitled benefit because an airline employee "might" (we don't know for sure what happened or who the pax really was) have re-written the rules to his own liking. Again, FAMs have nothing to do with preventing the 'bombing' of an airliner. There is no way to keep things secret about an inflight incident with hundreds of pax on board - every incident has so far been published in the press. There is no evidence a FAM has risked his/her life or actually thwarted an attack. Making the FAM program and passenger screenings the only cornerstones of aviation security will eventually lead to another tragedy, unfortunately.

The people whining and moaning that the seats they feel ENTITLED to were given to someone whose sole purpose is our security are really over the top, and probably the same people who after 9/11 were up in arms that the government wasn't doing enough to protect us. YOU CANT HAVE IT BOTH WAYS FOLKS.

By the definition of the airlines' own rules, elite customers are entitled to those seats. If anyone is up in arms about the government not doing enough to prevent 9/11, that is a valid argument given the plethora of incompetence that still plagues the intelligence community and continues to place us at risk. Placing a FAM in FC offers absolutely no quantifiable evidence that the flight would be safer - in fact, I can offer a reasonable argument that the flight and the FAM are both less safe given the number of passengers outside his/her field of view when sitting in the forward cabin. The flight deck door is sufficiently protected to give a FAM in the rear of the aircraft plenty of time to act should someone actually try to gain entry.

As for the isue of 'non-active' I cant imagine ANY sky marshall who if an emergency happened wouldnt jump into action regardless whether on the clock or off.

I would not debate this point, however, it is not upto the employee of the airline to rewrite the rules according to his personal preference because of it.

I love upgrades as much as anyone, but it is time a lot of people realize that the airlines upgrade their empty stock at THEIR discretion, not ours. If they feel the FAM's deserve the seats that is not ours to question. You can choose who rides in an empty seat you may have in your car, the airlines get to do the same!