FlyerTalk Forums - your thoughts on in-flight sexual harassment

Quote:

Originally Posted by LessO2

The role of the FA is to be the representative of the airline. Her non-action was wrong on three levels:

1) We are in an age where doing the smallest thing on an aircraft will get you attention. Whether it's sitting in the lavatory too long or outing a FAM, you'll get noticed. And if this guy was making a scene, making others uncomfortable, it should have been addressed by the FA.

2) Simple customer service. It doesn't matter if you're a multi-million flier on American or a casual flyer with Southwest, you should have been helped with your situation.

3) Last but not least, simple common decency on a human level.

I hope you write to the appropriate airline. The FA should have done SOMETHING.

For the OP, it was LAX-HKG, IIRC. It would probably help knowing what carrier was involved.

While what happened was wrong, there may be cultural differences among FA's depending on where they are from. Was this on United (a US carrier) or CX - Cathay Pacific, or perhaps another carrier?

Setting aside any cultural differences, I do agree the FA non-action was wrong.

If it were a flight into the United States, regardless of carrier, you'd probably have better chances at some type of recourse. If the flight crew won't listen, one could ask for law enforcement assistance and ID the offending passenger upon landing. As you would have to clear US Immigrations, law enforcement will be plentiful post-flight.

While not the same, I have been in a situation where I have boarded an aircraft, taken my seat in First Class (paid FC ticket) and the passenger next to me had an obnoxious BO. In this case I got up to speak with the flight attendants who wanted me back in my seat. I made it clear to the flight attendants this passenger had bad BO and I was not going to sit there under any circumstances. They allowed me to grab the one empty seat in row 1. The aircraft was still on the ground at this point which made a difference, but if I had to, I would have deplaned and taken another flight.

Later I spoke with the FA's and asked them if they could pass on a complaint on my behalf to the ground staff at the originating airport. I advised that the contract of carriage allows for denied boarding to individuals with hygene problems and in this case the ground staff needed to enforce it. This guy smelled so bad others in FC were complaining in nearby rows once we got airborne.

After the flight I was asked to stay back with some fellow FC passengers. The FA's took our info for a complaint to the carrier (they felt this person should have been denied boarding likewise), took us up the jetway to the gate counter and we were provided with transportation credit vouchers.

There is BO and there is extreme BO -- this passenger tipped the scales beyond extreme BO into a whole new category.

While I can't provide any specific advice to the OP with respect to harassment, I would be pro-active with the flight crew and be vocal to make the point clear like I did on the flight with the "dumpster" in FC sitting next to me.

SDF_Traveler