High-flying barrister, 41, and his family are removed from BA flight at Heathrow
Feb 17, 2022, 5:58 am
#346
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in all of this, the most striking thing is the degree of inconvenience this fellow was so selfishly prepared to inflict on his fellow travellers for such a minor issue once it became apparent that he wasn’t getting his own way. On the other hand a lawyer…..
Feb 17, 2022, 5:59 am
#347
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Feb 17, 2022, 6:09 am
#348
Join Date: Aug 2008
Posts: 2,065
Offloading the SCCM? Who is that brave, and or likes tea with spit in It?
Last edited by Waterhorse; Feb 11, 2024 at 11:10 am
Feb 17, 2022, 6:17 am
#349
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Taking this in the best light as possible for the passenger, two wrongs still don't make a right. Even if BA did downgrade the nanny (so he wasn't even the one downgraded), at a certain point you have to know when to give up instead of continuing to press your case. Repeating the same thing over and over again, especially to someone who doesn't have the power to do what you want, tends not to work.
Feb 17, 2022, 6:18 am
#350
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I don’t think it would have ever happened when I was a SCCM, I had too much respect for the Flight Crew and other than a couple of well known Captains I had a great positive working relationship.
Feb 17, 2022, 6:59 am
#351
Join Date: Jan 2015
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I am sorry but the captain deciding to return to stand is not a decision that the captain would have been taken lightly. I have sat on the apron for 3 hours at heathrow as the captain did not want to return to stand, albiet the circumstances were different.
I doubt that police boarding the aircraft to escort a passenger off is an everyday occurence either,
I do sympathise with the passenger if his nanny was downgraded and it scuppered his plans, but there is a time to decide not to argue any longer, . This gentleman seems to have got that badly wrong.
As you said in your post "this had gone on for some considerable time and we were .... extremely cross"
Did he really believe that by dragging it out for a considerable period that the situation would somehow change. He asked, he was told no. Asked again, told no again, why keep on asking for a considerable period? If he was unhappy at the downgrade he should have refused to board
I am sorry but while I sympathse with him that his plans were scuppered, everything I read about this suggests he just did not know when to let go.
How often have you known the plane to return to stand to have the police escort someone off the plane before departure? In 35 years of flying I have seen it happen once. I suspect most people here have never seen it happen
I doubt that police boarding the aircraft to escort a passenger off is an everyday occurence either,
I do sympathise with the passenger if his nanny was downgraded and it scuppered his plans, but there is a time to decide not to argue any longer, . This gentleman seems to have got that badly wrong.
As you said in your post "this had gone on for some considerable time and we were .... extremely cross"
Did he really believe that by dragging it out for a considerable period that the situation would somehow change. He asked, he was told no. Asked again, told no again, why keep on asking for a considerable period? If he was unhappy at the downgrade he should have refused to board
I am sorry but while I sympathse with him that his plans were scuppered, everything I read about this suggests he just did not know when to let go.
How often have you known the plane to return to stand to have the police escort someone off the plane before departure? In 35 years of flying I have seen it happen once. I suspect most people here have never seen it happen
Feb 17, 2022, 7:04 am
#352
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Bear in mind that the passenger admits - at the very least from all we know - to swearing. Unlike you, I haven't checked case law, but I imagine that the threshold for anyone to make a case that somehow the BA behaviour would have made the swearing understandable/inevitable to the point that it should not be considered a potentially legitimate cause for offloading would be pretty high.
As for the notion (suggested by the passenger) that the offloading was due to him making a complaint, I expect that he would have an extraordinarily difficult time making a credible case.
As for the notion (suggested by the passenger) that the offloading was due to him making a complaint, I expect that he would have an extraordinarily difficult time making a credible case.
Feb 17, 2022, 7:08 am
#353
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Oh dear - if that's for my information, thank you, but......
Feb 17, 2022, 7:16 am
#354
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Feb 17, 2022, 7:27 am
#355
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And quite rightly so its the Captain's decision - as intimated as elsewhere I'm putting my satirist's aspirations on hold.
Feb 17, 2022, 8:15 am
#356
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Feb 17, 2022, 10:04 am
#358
Join Date: Sep 2021
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To be honest, it’s not a very frequent occurrence that the Club cabin (the one which witnesses and heard reactions would presumably come from) is dominated by cockney accents so I’m not sure this is the setting where an “anti posh” bias would be most likely. And you are absolutely right that independent witnesses do not create a certainty, but ultimately, on a likely scale of bias, wouldn’t you say that a protagonist’s own version (the other account that we have) rates even higher?
For better or worse, at this stage, the downgrade is a bit of a red herring. The key complaint by the passenger is that he and his family were wrongfully kicked out of the plane (ie his attitude did not justify it), and ba’s view seems to be that his attitude was disruptive and thus justified disembarking the passengers. So the passenger’s “attitude” (words, behaviour, timing of reactions etc) is the key point of disagreement, and short of a full recording, independent witnesses’ accounts is going to be the main reference point. In my experience, it is also not the case that passengers always take the airline’s side. They do sometimes, but others, they are in fact very prompt to blame the airline and crew for delays they experience even when those are precisely not caused by the airline itself.
For better or worse, at this stage, the downgrade is a bit of a red herring. The key complaint by the passenger is that he and his family were wrongfully kicked out of the plane (ie his attitude did not justify it), and ba’s view seems to be that his attitude was disruptive and thus justified disembarking the passengers. So the passenger’s “attitude” (words, behaviour, timing of reactions etc) is the key point of disagreement, and short of a full recording, independent witnesses’ accounts is going to be the main reference point. In my experience, it is also not the case that passengers always take the airline’s side. They do sometimes, but others, they are in fact very prompt to blame the airline and crew for delays they experience even when those are precisely not caused by the airline itself.
But, I think there's bias across the board, which is what I originally alluded to. Do I think the main protagonist is more likely to be biased? No, not really. Every person is as likely as the next to be unhinged by emotional bias and self-interest.
I personally don't find people to be very reliable in reflecting what has happened. Instead I believe many times they remember what they think they hear, or makes sense to them [and often there's a big difference here]. There's clearly cases of witness exaggeration, which again, can itself be a symptom of frustration and thus probable bias.
I would not rely on witnesses to give a fair account of what had happened if I was engaging in discussion with anyone. I've seen first hand, people completely making things up and to this day, myself and others have no idea why. People aren't built to remember things accurately (even when they try to be impartial). Chinese whispers is the best example and that's pretty much what these accounts are.
Last edited by cmnmia; Feb 17, 2022 at 10:20 am Reason: added 'judgement' to clarify reference to people acting in a judgemental manner.
Feb 17, 2022, 10:29 am
#359
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And people in this thread referred to his profession etc because that is what the article they read emphasised, just as the second DM article was making a big case of his wife's hobby. Those are the ways this specific newspaper framed those specific articles (quite insistently too).
Either way, even if you are fully entitled to disagree, the underlying assumption that would be followed in any legal system that I can think of would precisely be that somehow, if a case opposed Mr Banner and BA regarding what happened, other passengers would have less of a "self-interest" stake in the game than either the person seeking compensation or the company wishing not to pay it.
Feb 17, 2022, 10:58 am
#360
Join Date: May 2004
Posts: 2,660
Obviously, entirely your right to weigh any account in absolutely any way you consider fit, but for what it's worth, it would be a fairly revolutionary concept in judicial processes to consider that the testimony of independent witnesses is seen as less trustworthy than that of the parties to a case. Out of curiosity, do you also give the same level of higher reliability to BA's assertion of disruptive behaviour or do you feel that it is less trustworthy and why?
Either way, even if you are fully entitled to disagree, the underlying assumption that would be followed in any legal system that I can think of would precisely be that somehow, if a case opposed Mr Banner and BA regarding what happened, other passengers would have less of a "self-interest" stake in the game than either the person seeking compensation or the company wishing not to pay it.
Either way, even if you are fully entitled to disagree, the underlying assumption that would be followed in any legal system that I can think of would precisely be that somehow, if a case opposed Mr Banner and BA regarding what happened, other passengers would have less of a "self-interest" stake in the game than either the person seeking compensation or the company wishing not to pay it.
There’s much ado about him making some reference to “swearing” but for all I know that could be as mild as “I sweared an oath” to as perhaps a very severe remark “Well there is a d@mned bassinet in the front of row 2, so why can’t the infant be there with the nanny?”
There’s been a lot of speculation here as to what actually happened, but the only hard data comes from what was written up in a couple of press pieces (with questionable fact-checking) and subsequent comments made by unverified spectators, obviously upset at BA’s decision to delay their departure on account of a mere event that had inconvenienced five Club passengers, but these same comments carry even less fact-checking.
We also don’t know if BA offered seats together with the children where the nanny could do what she was employed to do, which was look after the children. If BA did, then good on them, but if not… the issue is really more than just downgrading one in a party of five. It’s disrupting the journey for five club passengers without offering an alternative.