douglas99

I am not quite sure of the politics of copying someone elses post from another part of FT but I found this on the LBGT part of FT and thought it served as a happy balance to the sad story here.....

Sleeping on the plane..
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I think the best experience I've had so far when traveling with my bf would of been about 3 years ago... I was 21, going home for xmas, taking my bf at the time home to meet the family. We were flying American Airlines from Dallas, TX to Orange County. We were upgraded to first class... was a late flight.. so naturally we both fell asleep, however, we both fell asleep on each other.... him on my shoulder and my head leaning on his...

Alas, I woke up to the FA and another passenger having a conversation about the cute couple in 3A and 3B.. which was us

Made me smile.. even though I recall having my bfs drool on my shoulder...

FutureCEO1982
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rrgg

This is sort of what i was wondering. If someone is checking sources on the New Yorker articles, why does this one contain nine uses of the term "stewardess." It's just weird that this didn't come up in a proof.

Incidentally, there's always Stephen Glass to consider.

I do agree with your two numbered points though.

Exactly my point.

justageek

^ ^ ^ to these fellows for seeing through the diversion ploy and calling the FAs'/pilots' bluff...

...and to sluggoaafa for investigating the issue so thoroughly and reporting his findings here!

AA should fire all of the crew members involved (the original FA, the purser, and the pilots) to send a message to the rest of the employees that it will not tolerate employees making groundless threats against passengers. (Just as troubling as the obvious bigotry here is the crewmembers making threats against passengers without an extremely good reason.)

Blumie

I still don't understand your point. Flight attendant is the gender neutral form of stewardess, but that doesn't make stewardess wrong. And how is that a matter of checking sources? As for the quote from cinqmot, it's accurate: with the exception of the lead Talk of the Town piece usually penned by Hendrik Hertzberg, most of the stories are offbeat or gossipy, but that doesn't mean that the New Yorker relaxes its journalistic practices for them. So what is the point you are trying to make?

ijgordon

OK, but the comment from the AA spokesperson is still somewhat unsettling. I'm guessing it was a bit off-the-cuff after he was presented with the story but without having done any internal fact-checking.

mwhitted

LETTING?!?! If YOU don't want to fly a particular carrier, DON'T. If enough don't, the carrier won't fly that route any more.

rrgg

Blumie-- Maybe it's just me. I consider "stewardess" to be about as PC as "sky girl" and is maybe a little demeaning. I don't understand how something like the New Yorker would keep it in the article.

And my point you asked about is that cingmot calls it, "gossipy society chatter," which I agree. In general, no, I do not inherently trust fact checkers even if they turn out to be right. Why should I? Just recently there were scandals at the NYT, New Republic, BBC, and just in the past month at Reuters.

sluggoaafa -- Do you know if they sent a written complaint to AA? The flight is recent, and I'm wondering what kind of response they got. Or were they so angry that it escalated straight to this? I guess I might have also, but sheesh-- AA has done me favors for a LOT smaller screw-ups than this.

FWAAA

I fail to see the problem with the use of the term "stewardess." Your repeated posts lead me to conclude that you do see some problems with it.

Granted, it's not the PC term of today to describe flight attendants, but for many people, that doesn't matter - for instance, my parents (very, very old) wouldn't know what a "flight attendant" was if a bunch of FAs ganged up on them. They've been passengers since the end of The War and they were called stewardesses then and these old people still refer to them as stewards and stewardesses. No doubt they will until they die.

FWIW, sky marshals tend to object to that term nowadays, preferring their new title "federal air marshal" and TSA screeners feel empowered and emboldened by their new title "transportation screening officers." The old labels aren't wrong - they just don't sound as sanitation engineer-chic as the new labels do.

The old titles and labels simply don't rise to the level of a racial slur or other Godwin-style credibility-killer, IMO. I can forgive people when they don't abide by the "I wanna better title for my job" dogma, especially when the guilty party's actions (the FAs, in this case) diminish the respect they so desperately demand of us. Perhaps our mileage varies.

mwhitted

Sure. Where have YOU been for the last 20 years or so?

xanthuos

I agree, since "stewardess" is the feminine form of "steward." Last time I checked, I didn't call my female server a "waiter" - I called her the "waitress." Server would be the gender-neutral equivalent of flight-attendant as it applies to restaurants...but it still doesn't make using the gender-specific term wrong, IMHO. Sure, sky girl is pretty demeaning...but I fail to see where stewardess and steward would be.

Cheers,
Matthew

justageek

When did anyone in this thread generalize about gays? I'm completely lost.

cingmot

Sorry--I meant they should probably have kept mum onboard and then raised hell with AA after they de-planed... but I do see your point. In their position, I just would have wanted to avoid an incident.

CO FF

Well, I'm late to this thread -- but I'll weigh in anyhow.

I'm most bothered by the AA corporate spokesperson's comment:WRONG WRONG WRONG. The test for discrimination is always "would you have done that if the people involved were in the majority group" -- here, would you have intervened to stop similar conduct between heterosexuals.

I don't care whether someone on the other side of the plane dislikes male-male kissing, black-white kissing, tattoo-tattoo kissing, or any other kind of kissing between adults. It's not about playing to the lowest level of kneejerk prejudice on board that flight that day.

AA: if you wouldn't stop the Mr. & Mrs. Middleamerican Honeymooners from doing something on DFW-HNL, don't stop Mr. & Mr. Urban Metrosexual from doing the same thing CDG-JFK.

(Gee, imagine how I'd feel about this if I were a member of a (visibly recognizable) minority group (nobody can tell a Democrat on sight, can they?), instead of a straight white middle-aged overweight balding male?)

SNAGold

Really? Try using the term when addressing the FAs during your next couple flights. I'm sure it'll be explained to you.

mvoight

Would it have applied to flights?