Plastic dinnerware for arabs on KLM
 

I just found this article, unfortunately only in swedish. What it says is that two swedes with arab-sounding names on a flight AMS-JNB on KLM recieved plastic forks and knives instead of metal ones that the other passengers got. KLM has no comment.

http://www.expressen.se/expressen/js...p?d=10&a=13416

Shock, horror, end of civilisation as we know it.

Expect the poor dears to run screaming to the UN or some other bunch of unrepresentative swill because their "rights" were violated....

This is so preposterous. Does anyone anywhere really believe that the plane would be in danger if these two people had been given metal forks? Come on, if they were real terrorists with bad intentions at that moment, they could have merely grabbed a fork from another passenger and done whatever they could do -- with a fork!!! I suppose some idiot felt a bit safer, bgut it's just a joke to me.

Bruce

It's racism, pure and simple if people's cutlery depended upon their race or ethnicity. What a disgrace! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/frown.gif

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"Give me Liberty or give me Death." - Patrick Henry

If it's true, which is a great big if, they probably should choose a different airline to fly on in the future, since they were mistreated.

I wonder under what sense of prioritization this even represents a news story?

I must say, I was trying to use my lovely metal knife the other day to cut my chicken, which was otherwise lovely on an LH flight ATH-FRA, and gave consideration to the threat of the cutlery. I can't even cut chicken with the knife, so I am not sure how I am going to seriously harm a plane-full of people with it. Maybe I don't have the "terrorist"-thinking processesm but it would seem to me that if that blunt piece of metal, by deafult called a knife, is to be considered a weapon than a ballpoint pen must be of at least similar danger.

Perhaps under the sense that news is news and it doesn't need to be prioritized to suit any one individuals' requirements for it to be considered news. Here, just like with a newspaper, you can read the stories that interest you and ignore the ones that don't.

I'd actually be very interested in reading the story. Does anyone know of a translator that would work on Swedish?

Very disgraceful for KLM to treat these passengers this way http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/frown.gif


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"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety
deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Ben Franklin

I agree with you that they should probably choose to fly a different airline, but it is nonetheless a disgrace for any airline to behave in such a reported manner once they have cleared whatever passes for "security".

This does represent a news story affecting frequent fliers under any sense of prioritization, and even more so if you are Swedish, if you fly KLM or if you do not support reactionary anti-modern policies such as racism, etc.

No, Tazi, actually there are objective standards for what constitutes news.

If this turns out to be
1. True, and
2. Part of a company sponsored or endorsed effort to offer plastic cutlery only to individuals of Arab descent,
then and only then it is news.

In either case, I am not arguing that it doesn't belong here.

I am asking the question so that perhaps someone who reads the language in question can clarify if the article makes either of those points.

Otherwise it is bad service for the airline, and a waste of newsprint for the newspaper.

Why you must frame every one of these conversations as somehow being about me is beyond me, but I appreciate your interest in my opinions.

[This message has been edited by Brian (edited 02-18-2003).]

I'll do my best to translate it:

KLM discriminated swedes

Two swedes around 20 years old with arabic-sounding names were discriminated at a flight last week.

When the dinner was served the swedes were the only ones to recieve plastic cutlery, the rest of the passangers recieved metal cutlery. The two youth who are doing an intern at the Olof Palme International Center were very angry.
-It can't have anything do with safety. Because there were metallic cutlery in the plane. I think of it as pure discrimination and harassment, says Carin Jämtin, supervisor of foreign aid at the Palme Center.
The swedes were on a plane from Amsterdam to Johannesburg. The flight was operated by the dutch company KLM. The spokesperson at KLM had this morning nothing to say.

In light of the translation, a boycott of KLM would not be out of order. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/mad.gif

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"Give me Liberty or give me Death." - Patrick Henry

So, in short, we have an unverified claim by two people, that as of yet, is backed up by no other claims. Although if more appear, that would suggest a pattern.

We have a newspaper that did zero research to verify if the claim was even true, much less try to see if others had the same problem. They just repeated the claim, but did it in the newspaper.

And we had an airline that doesn't know if it has a problem or not yet, that decided to just keep it's mouth shut for now.

Professionally speaking, this has the possibility of being news, but doesn't yet even begin to meet the standard of news, based on the information available here.

And before I get anyone's back up.. I am not questioning whether it belonges here... just whether it is news or lazy reporting of a possible incident masquerading as news.

I'll agree with your first reason but not with the second. That would be only your opinion. I hardly think that the many instances of racism we hear about are company sponsored occurences but nevertheless, they still are potential news stories.

You asked the question, I responded and I am not the only one here that has done so either.
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"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety
deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Ben Franklin

[This message has been edited by tazi (edited 02-18-2003).]

Many Newspapers are guilty of this---but people still read them.

Actually, 6 people on board witnessed this.

They contacted the Swedish office of KLM, whose manager, Marko Redicker, stated that there is nothing in the KLM policy to support this behaviour, but until he can investigate further, he doesn't want to comment.