A little harsh, no? Would you think it fair for someone to wish the demise of your company for making a mistake? I can't say a thing to defend Alaska since I know absolutely nothing of the situation but what was reported in a paper. We all know how the news likes to sensationalize things. That not withstanding, if the papers report is 100% accurate then I think AS owes him a HUGE apology and some sort of compensation for his humiliation and inconvenience.

I have had passengers report "suspicious looking" persons several times now. Not once did I request that this person even be questioned. I took one look and could see that this person was harmless. Not only that, I feel very confident that a hijacking similar to that which happened on 9/11 will never happen again. Passengers are ready to assist when needed and with the flight deck doors being reinforced there is virtually no way for a hijacker to get at the controls. If someone decides to bomb a plane I think they are going to be much more creative than to carry it on themselves. Just an FYI that we at Alaska Airlines are not a bad bunch. We aren't throwing people off the planes willy nilly. I think every other airline has thrown off proportionately as many or more people than we at Alaska do. I read a story in the paper just about every other day about one airline or another escorting passengers off for being "suspicious". In fact, I was just on a TW flight recently where they escorted someone off.