CaliforniaSteve

Given that the "wheelchair" passenger verbally threatened you, that should have caused the FA's to, at a minimum, notify law enforcement to question the man at the gate after landing. I agree with an earlier comment that the FA's should have zip-tied him to his seat. My opinion is that the "I know your seat number, etc, etc" and then "something bad is going to happen to you" constitutes the US crime of assault.

raghu

I realize this is a tangent -- but I guess I can say that the "unnecessary wheelchair" is typically observed among Indian passengers usually in connecting airports on flights to the USA, typically parents (usually 55+ but in not a bad enough condition to require a wheelchair elsewhere) visiting their children in the USA.
I have myself asked on a couple of occasions, and the answer I have received is that "we do not know English or German, and is our first time traveling to USA/international, and do not want to get confused in the connecting airport; with wheelchair, at least we know we will be taken to the correct gate and put on the right connecting aircraft". That probably also explains how on arrival they are able to walk out.

acmys

These are definitely tangents. The passenger was a young (maybe ~25 year old) American, born-and-bred I imagine by the way he spoke. For the record, and maybe to correct any imaginations at play, I am significantly younger than that (19).


The four points mentioned above. None of them involve restraining the passenger (unless you consider not permitting the passenger to unnecessarily cross the galley to approach my seat "restraining"). Basically just stop encouraging the passenger to leave his seat and tolerating his behavior.

I'm not even asking for QR to deny boarding. All they had to do was not dismiss my concerns at the gate. I would've happily waited for the next flight, even though I'd have missed my first day of spring semester classes.

acmys

To be very fair, the flight was sparse (maybe 30-40% load in Y), there were many families with young children, and people were sleeping (except, well, me...I was definitely not sleeping). There was one passenger in 30A who saw some of the incidents, but he didn't seem to speak fluent English so I can imagine his reluctance to step in (he was also a youngish-looking Arab guy, so I can imagine additional reluctance to not be part of any commotion on board an aircraft).

justhere

Seeing as you asked, here's my 2 cents. I think you are being overly dramatic. So some stranger said some weird stuff to you before getting on the plane. You thought it would be ok because he was in a wheelchair. Turns out he didn't need the wheelchair. Ok, whatever, still not a big deal. Then before anything else happened he came over to apologize to you. You could have just said "thanks, I appreciate that". Instead you told him not to talk to you which appears to have set him off. Then the same person that is saying strange stuff at the gate tells you that "something bad is going to happen to you", (which as far as I can tell is the only alarming thing that did happen). Certainly I can see where that could be scary and unsettling but your own tale tells a story of nothing happening. Not only did nothing happen, no one really did anything about it. Not the GA at boarding. None of the 3 FA's you spoke to. None of the other crew they might have spoken with. Not the captain. None of the other passengers. None of them deemed the situation anywhere serious enough to do anything about it. And your solution was to "get out as quickly as possible". In the terminal. Where you could easily run into him. In an environment much less controlled than the confines of an aircraft.

You are asking anyone who reads your story to believe that you are the only sane person on the plane. Ok, maybe that's a stretch but you are saying that out of a minimum of 5 employees, and at least one trusted enough to have the lives of a couple of hundred people in his hands, all of them lacked enough judgement to do something about a potential threat on an aircraft.

I think you are correct that QR isn't thinking they can throw hundreds of dollars at this (probably not even tens of dollars). And why would DL get involved? Send it to the media? Seriously? How's that story going to play out? 5 employees including a widebody aircraft captain say nothing happened vs. one passenger saying that there was a crazy person on the plane. Alrighty then.

Something just isn't adding up. And I'm not "victim blaming". I'm simply saying there is no victim. Again, just my 2 cents and you did ask so there you go. Hope you can put this behind you and all is well now.

BadgerBoi

Wow. Just wow.

justhere

You know it takes an informed opinion to actually respond to a post. Saying "wow, just wow" does nothing to add to the thread. If you believe 100% what the OP said, I certainly respect that. However I'm sure you've seen many times on FT where the general thought is that "this is only one side of the story". The OP asked for input. I wasn't rude to the OP. I wasn't disrespectful to the OP. I simply looked at the facts as presented and thought about what makes sense. You know, Occam's Razor and all that. I didn't doubt the OP's story. I simply said that the facts don't seem to add up to support a conclusion of "oh the horror, you must be traumatized". I didn't doubt that it happened, I just explained why I thought the OP was being too dramatic. Which the OP even asked if people thought they were being too dramatic.

So do you care to explain why you are judging my reply rather than responding to it?

BadgerBoi

You know, I don't see anything at all informed in your response to the OP's post. I know that FT has a long and cherished tradition of blaming posters for anything that goes wrong for them, and for blaming OPs for over-reacting. None of which, imho, the OP did here. Good for you and your comment that the OP was being "overdramatic". And just to say "I'm not victim blaming" doesn't actually mean that somebody isn't "victim blaming".

There's little in your own (tl) post that adds to the thread.

justhere

Ok I'll keep it short. Nothing informed in my post? How do you explain that at least 5 crew members including the captain did nothing rising to the level of acknowledging that there was something more than a rude passenger on the plane?

The OP was the one that asked "am I just being too dramatic?" My apologies for not realizing it was a rhetorical question. If you read my post how could I be victim blaming when I categorically stated that there was no victim? To be "victim blaming" I would have to acknowledge what happened and say it was the OP's fault. That's not even close to what I said.

You know you don't get brownie points just for sympathizing with the OP? You disagree with what I said, fine. I respect that. Attacking my position with no substance of your own is just pandering.

IAN-UK

You are unable to pinpoint any inconsistencies in the initial report, other than the crew's unwillingness to get involved. But that lack of initiative, their indecisiveness, is the very crux of the OP's complaint.

msm2000uk

Mod Hat On:
Let's try and stay on topic here.

The OP asked for opinions, and a number have been raised. Fortunately, the QR Forum has a great mix of posters and views, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with having a different view to the majority. Indeed that is what keeps this forum healthy.

However, what is wrong, is to try and bash those who feel differently. They are entitled to their opinion on what has happened, but let's try and keep the discussion about the actual events.

Please keep things focused here, and try and help the OP with what he can do now, opposed to what should have been done on-board, (but regrettably was not).
Mod Hat Off

In terms of the use of a wheelchair, they are used for a variety of reasons, and it could well be that the individual in question has been advised it is better that he has a chair than not. Just because somebody can walk freely, does not mean there are not other reasons why the wheelchair might be needed.

I do believe the Crew should have arranged for the authorities to have met the aircraft, but the OP raising the matter with QR Customer Support, will now mean an internal investigation will take place. There are a number of QR crew who frequent this board, and they are probably aware of the Standard Operating Procedures which should have been followed. If those crew wish to state the SOPs, then wonderful. If they would rather keep their anonymity, then that too is understandable as it is a private document.

The OP clearly had a terrible flight, and that was down to one particular passenger. I do hope the matter is elevated by QR Customer Support, and hopefully the OP will come back to us and report.

M

Downunderdesert

You will never really see much interaction or involvement from the FA’s. The company has created an environment that does not allow any individual to be in a position of power, or specifically the FA group to question or get involved in any manner. If a FA truly engaged between the two of you, the probability of that FA being terminated just went sky high.

This is is no different than the lack of courtesy local Qataris have for other passengers and the unwillingness of FA’s to tell the, to stop their children running up and down the aisles, nanny’s coming from Y to J continuously, etc.

as for any action by corporate and the repose you may have been given, that’s due to the fact QR has no irrops game plan, or interest in trying to investigate, but rather say, sorry,we look forward to seeing you on your next flight with QR. the greatest airline in the world, blah blah blah. Look at all the trophy’s we have! It was a BOGO last year.

acmys

He came over to talk to me. The first few lines of his apology ventured into "I was just faking being a Christian, because you know, you can get away with a lot of things doing that" (this is verbatim). I would have accepted the apology if it was simply an apology, but I didn't want to engage with more potentially threatening conversation.

The story I told is the most accurate version we have so far of what happened. I don't think this is something we can argue about until QR responds to me (either with an acknowledgment of "yes, our investigation confirms..." or "our staff disputes that...").

If it was a rude passenger, I wouldn't have reacted the way I did. I would've gone to sleep and not cared - it's a 2 AM flight, I get it, people are tired and short-tempered and a bit out of the loop at that hour. I wouldn't have forgone a solid night's of sleep before the first day of spring semester classes if I felt someone was simply being rude to me. I also don't particularly like being involved in disputes on planes - I know how extreme those situations can escalate into, and how it may be hard to differentiate between instigator and non-instigator should something happen. The reason I did everything I did was because I felt in physical danger.

I was seated in the front of the Y cabin at landing, and the passenger (I was told by M2) was in the aft. I have global entry, no checked bags, and know JFK well. Assuming he doesn't have GE (which seems very likely), I was out of the terminal before he left the plane, and likely in Manhattan by the time he cleared immigration and customs.

Sorry, I thought this would come off as humorous, but obviously not...

This was kind of tacky, I agree, and I'm honestly glad you called me out on it. I asked the question somewhat to invite other perspectives, like yours, but mostly because I had been planning on sending this to a certain blogger who likes to end his posts with rhetorical questions like this

Absolutely. At the institution where I spend most of my waking hours, there's a stress on understanding that disabilities, amongst other issues, may not be visible or understandable, so I made certain to never call the passenger's use of a wheelchair into question until the FA, N, outright said that she and the other FAs had discussed and agreed that the passenger was "faking the need for a wheelchair" (her words).

acmys

This is what I've come to believe in the past few days. On any US carrier, I'm 99% sure this would have been handled differently. The high amount of discretion/judgment given to FAs on UA/DL/AA, especially in situations like this, is often criticized for the powertrips that occasionally ensue but I guess there's an upside to that: a situation like what happened here would never have played out the way it did.

RandomBaritone

The whole situation sounds incredibly unnerving. Glad it ended ok.

Given that the other passenger was also a young adult, sadly I'd wager he's an incipient schizophrenic whose delusions aren't yet florid enough to affect his daily life. TBH I think you did the right thing just trying to keep a low profile. As someone with a close family member who suffered from intermittent schizophrenic episodes before she died, I know all too well that just as not all violent people are schizophrenic, not all schizophrenics are violent. You were probably never in any physical danger.