318i

Interested in the board's perspective on this.

Flying LHR-USA yesterday in E+ on UA. Last to board is a 40-50 year old guy, Middle Eastern descent, camo bucket hat, camo jacket, camo pants. Looks somewhat disheveled and even a bit disoriented. Sits a few rows ahead of me in E+ as well.

Looks more disoriented when he gets up to use the lav about an hour into the flight. On his way back down aisle 1, he noticeably pauses to survey / make eye contact with everyone in the row before moving on to the next row, and so on back to the lav.

He gets up and does this a couple more times during the flight. Really strange behaviour that I'm not sure I've ever seen on a flight.

So - would you report this to an FA?

Follow up question is what happens if you report?

"Thanks sir, we'll now be landing in Iceland to escort this fellow off"

Or...

"Not sure what you're worried about, enjoy the rest of your flight and maybe have a drink to take the edge off."

Curious as to the reaction of this group.

GUWonder

Were you on this flight you talk about? If so, what did you do and how did everything turn out?

The LHR-US flights on UA have one of the higher proportion of FAMs from what I remember. The TSA got what it wanted and approved for security for US carrier flights out of LHR. CBP has employees in the UK assigned to scrub passenger lists at LHR. The US carriers have their own contracted security running electronic checks to pick passengers for additional screening.

As long as the passenger has no contraband weapons, explosives, incendiaries, then a "different" passenger on a flying bus (read: plane) in the sky isn't all that different from a "different" passenger on a bus on the ground.

BSBD

Looked weird and acted weird - must be a terr'ist! (or a tourist).

Unless he actually SAID or DID something that could indicate an desire to cause harm, I think the best course is MYOB.

jkhuggins

Agreed. Nothing you've described meets any objective standard as a flight risk.

Badenoch

Dear FT

How do you think I should respond? Half of my luggage was lost on a hunting trip to Scotland. Luckily, my camo hunting clothes were in the bag that did arrive. The hunt was great but after a week no sign of my other bag so I had to wear the hunting clothes home. They were a little messy after a week in the field. People must hate camo because they stared at me when I went to pee so I stared back.

Even though I cleared security at LHR without a problem someone complained my swarthy complexion and clothing was a security risk and demanded the plane divert. So now I'm in Reykjavik. My question is how much compensation should I receive?

FlyIgglesFly

What's the point of reporting it? It's already too late in my mind if he is up to no good and has made it on the plane. If he has a device, it's going to either detonate or fail to detonate, and having him be approached by the flight crew/FAM just means he's going to try to trigger it at that point rather than at his leisure. So I just say, "that guy is weird" and keep watching whichever Jason Statham movie I can find on the IFE. I'm also the guy that would erase a message on a bathroom mirror stating there is a bomb on board, or toss stupid notes on napkins to the same effect in the trash. That's not a legitimate threat and even if it is, it's too late. Stop with the "abundance of caution" nonsense.

And believe me, if he looks like that he's going to secondary at immigration anyway.

chrisgwins

Maybe he was wondering why you all were able to see him?

Loren Pechtel

Second this. Something like this might be worth reporting in the terminal but once you're in flight there's no point in it. If he's up to no good an investigation will simply make him do whatever he intended anyway.

84fiero

No, I wouldn't report it...an "odd" person who appears to be of a certain ethnic origin isn't enough reason to do so. Sounds like he may have been a little sloshed.

saizai

Blunt question:

Would you be asking us this if it were a white dude?

chollie

OP, I'm having a bit of a problem understanding.

The pax is the last one to board and looks 'disheveled' and perhaps 'disoriented'.

When I've been the last to board a flight, it was never by choice and it generally involved me racing to catch my flight. I've boarded too many times looking 'disheveled' (from running through the airport hauling bags) and 'disoriented' (last one on, all eyes on you, you're trying to find your seat/row, possibly on an aircraft you are not intimately familiar with).

Now, I have been on flights where someone walked down an aisle slowly and scanned the seats, as though looking for someone. I have never been in a position where I could ascertain whether or not the person was actually making eye contact (or attempting to) with everyone in the rows s/he looked at.

Perhaps your pointed staring at the pax caused him to make eye contact with YOU - and then he scanned other pax to determine "Is something wrong with me or is that pax just weirdly obsessing with me?"

If I were walking down the aisle and I noticed you fixedly staring at me, that's what I'd be wondering: is there spinach in my teeth or are you some kind of weirdo I need to watch out for?

I'm not sure what the point about the cammies is, but maybe because I've never seen a picture of an airplane hi-jacker dressed in cammies. They certainly don't raise any alarms. They're just clothes and even folks who have never served in the military and who are not tewwowists wear them. I have been forced to fly in clothing that wasn't my first choice (or even last choice) because of circumstances beyond my control.

"Middle Eastern descent"? With all due respect, what does that even mean?

I was with a US citizen last fall when someone asked her 'what' she was and 'what part' of the ME she was from. Um....she's been mistaken for Hispanic or American Indian before, but never ME. Her father was Hawaiian-Korean-Filipino and her mother was white. Do you think you might mistake someone with this background for someone with a ME background??

If you had seen Steve Jobs on one of your flights, I wonder if you would have recognized him as someone of "Middle Eastern descent"?

daKav

Bolded part - me on a sunday redeye transcon

Boggie Dog

I think people should be willing to pay for the cost of a divert should they report someone and are wrong about their suspicions.

saizai

No, airline should. Airlines get stupid racist comments all the time. It's part of their job to soothe the passengers and not do some dumbass move like diverting a plane over brown people wearing camo and having a bad hair day.