Treatment of India bound pax at JFK terminal 4
 

What was suspected (whispered) for years about discriminatory attitude towards South Asia (to some extent East Asia and Africa too) bound pax on Asia based airlines at both JFK and EWR, has been now indirectly admitted by Port Authority's executive director Rick Cotton. I am sure he did not intend to admit it but slipped out under duress during his interview with NYTimes during the last week's embarassing fiasco. He admitted that he ended up directing private operator of Terminal 4 (private LLC owned by Dutch company based out of Schiphol) to provide better treatment/handling of rebooking of pax traveling on Etihad, Emirates and Air India.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/08/n...s-weather.html

Airport staff had over the years in private conversations stated that airports like to profit from this huge population of ethnic crowd but cultural behaviorial dissimilarities (apart from looks) made their massive presence uncomfortable for operators, staff and European pax (their words).

It is what it is. But interesting to see it beling slipped out under duress by Port Authority.

Sorry that is out of context. T4 was overwhelmed by the JFK desaster, more staff at counters has nothing to do with the company running the terminal, but instead the contract company handling the desk staff which is appointed by the airline. If there were long lines in front of EY/EK/AI desks then it was because of the lack of staff with the ground handling company, not the terminal operator. I'm pretty sure EK/EY demand and pay for the correct terminal facilities whereever they operate.

If you want to make an accusation of race-based discrimination, you need solid facts to back it up.You apparently seem to think that it is OK to make unsupported claims and reach fantastical conclusions (such as that NYT says "Etihad, Emirates and Air-India" to mean it's about Indian passengers). It is not OK to do that. Again, please do not make claims you cannot provide evidence for.

agree completely....

thanks for the feedback.

However, FT is full of first hand (even second hand) experience reporting (without "producing the proof"). The comments mentioned above have been made by more than a dozen employees (connected with various aspects of airport functions at both EWR and JFK) first hand over past many years.

Mr. Cotton's office has been contacted for further clarification/background. Will report back if we get any.

"If there were long lines in front of EY/EK/AI desks then it was because of the lack of staff with the ground handling company, not the terminal operator"
It should be noted that Mr. Cotton asked the terminal operator, not airlines for the redress. Most likely he knows where the problem lies.

Talk about misinterpreting and blowing something out of proportion ...

I guess OP has held some feelings about (mis)treatment of certain passengers at JFK and thought this news article was the one to start a dialogue about it. :rolleyes:

Sorry, I didn't arrive anywhere near OP's conclusion after reading that article.