Paul5795

A mass strip search of women without any probable cause that any particular woman was the mother??? This would NEVER be done in a civilized country. My wife and I have flown Qatar before and liked it. Now, we will never, ever fly Qatar again.

ISTFlyer

Indeed yes, Australia flights have a special gate area as all passengers must be screened for liquids and some other stuff due to the Australian Government requests.
The baby might have been found at the gate toilet for the SYD flight. As far as I know, the aviation security is obliged to inspect all the secured areas after the gate security check before letting passengers in. This might be one scenario why the SYD flight was targeted.

By the way, I am not supporting any kind of action like this. They could have watched the cameras monitoring the entrance of the respective toilet and try to identify the mother instead. I also assume that there are no blind camera spots at Hamad Airport.

If we have the official statement from the Qatari government, we should have more details about this event.

kq747

Oh I am not suggesting that would happen at all; I am more wondering as to how this sort of investigation should be handled where a bunch of people are about to exit the jurisdiction. It is a heinous act to leave a newborn like that and obviously this sort of invasive search in unacceptable

seawolf

Flight should have been cancelled and and if exams were to be coerced, should have just done a DNA test instead.

ISTFlyer

If the flight would have cancelled, that would create more chaos. Although I don't support anything done to those women, I would prefer a delay while a reasonable investigation is going on.

Due to the Australian regulations, the capacity of flights from Doha to Sydney is capped to 40 passengers per day; assuming that the flight the next day doesn't have 34 available seats, this would mean that QR would need to provide a hotel for about 48 hours or more for passengers; especially in a situation that the Qatari border is closed and the airport hotel is mostly fully booked these days, that have would cause much more chaos.

bobbytables

This is deeply concerning and certainly not the best way to handle the situation. It also appears not to have worked, since the baby remains unidentified.

Those talking about "civilised" countries never doing this might consider that United States CBP and other police forces have the power to require similar (but likely more invasive) examinations, also without the ability to refuse consent, if they have probable cause due to suspected drug smuggling or similar. The alleged offence here is far more serious than drug smuggling. So, I would not be so quick to insist that this horror could never happen in a so-called "civilised" country.

The issue as I see it is that merely being a woman is far from sufficient probable cause to justify such an invasion.

ISTFlyer

By the way, according to a poster in the comment section of the OMAAT article for this issue;
A poster named "Tom" claims that these 13 women wasn't the only passengers who were searched in this way. That poster also claims that some women that were not Australian ( presumably on other flights ) had the same experience.

And here is the screenshot if the link gets broken

arjaok

Wow. My wife and I are booked on Qsuites to fly to the Maldives in April. At this point I think I might be more comfortable flying Y on a worse itinerary. I cannot fathom that human beings allowed this to happen. What a disgusting ....ing place.

hugolover

When admitting airlines like QR and when booking trips, alliances and pax rarely think about the human rights aspect of the carrier they choose to travel with. QR's PR image is much better than SV.

msm2000uk

This matter is of course important and should be discussed on Flyertalk in general.

However, this is Flyertalk not a news website, and thus it is a website for matters related to flying to be discussed.

The QR Forum is specifically for matters regarding Qatar Airways, not the State of Qatar, and that is why there are multiple pages regarding food and menus in J and none discussing the infrastructure of the country.

To discuss country affairs and human rights, the OMNI Forum is where you need to head.

We will reopen this thread later today, but should the discussion stray off-topic again, I will be forced to close it.

You can more information about Rule 5, here - https://www.flyertalk.com/help/rules.php#stayontopic

QR Moderator Team

bobbytables

That article is one of the most poorly written I’ve seen on FT, and that’s saying something. Say what you will about relevance [1], at least the posts in this thread make sense.

How does an aviation reporter read “on the tarmac” in a source and then quote it as “... given exams in an ambulance on the runway”?

Does he really think DOH parked an ambulance on the runway? Has he possibly never been to an airport?

[1] I find the idea that this thread is not relevant in the Qatar Airways forum utterly preposterous.

lokijuh

There are a handful of QR flights that (in normal times) this thread would not be relevant to, namely fifth freedom flights such as SGN-PNH, GRU-EZE, or (at the moment) BNE-AKL, as the laws of the country in which the airport is located apply when in transit or before boarding/after disembarking. Other than these small number of flights, just about every other QR flight will involve arriving at, departing or transiting DOH. Also, even for fifth freedom flights, I understand once in the air, the laws of the country in which the aircraft is registered are relevant.

That aside, it has been noted another 9 flights were caught up in this as well. A quick examination of flghtaware records (showing similar delays to the SYD flight) suggest most of these would have been QR flights to destinations including Jakarta, Beirut and Karachi. It seems there was at least one non-QR flight involved ... Indigo flight to Kochi, India.

https://www.theage.com.au/politics/f...28-p569ap.html

davidj1

Not sure if Flyertalk is aware of the context, but passengers had boarded the aircraft, and waited for departure. Some women were then asked to remove themselves from the aircraft for an internal strip search. If that is not related to flying and a 'service' they received (from either QR or airport), I'm not sure what is. Folks should be aware this is a potential pitfall when flying QR or any airline through DOH and prepare accordingly.

Appreciate Flyertalk needs to protect itself from any legal issues or possible flack from QR or related stakeholders but it would be unfortunate if this issue was silenced.

quinzinho

I wonder what all the experts slamming QR here suggest was the right solution after finding an infant in such a situation (in a garbage bin).. This discovery is incredibly disturbing and I can fully understand the authorities took this very seriously.
Trust all the people here saying "they'll never fly QR again" will indeed keep their promise and will therefore not be seen on this Flyertalk board anymore, right?

Edited my post to reflect the fact that the infant is fortunately alive

lokijuh

One suggestion I've read elsewhere was reviewing security footage around the said bathroom. That said a flaw in this is what timing to review and given customary clothing in that part of the world, it could be difficult to determine pregnancy from security footage, and almost impossible to determine identity.