hughw

Well, it doesn't last long. UA is in the news again. This time a teen says she was molested on UA and all the flight crew did was move her away...they didn't call the authorities on landing...they didn't include it in their reports. The FBI is now involved.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.a1caf17a5618

bhunt

I find it hard to believe if girl told crew that she was being groped. They would not of had authorities waiting at gate to take man into custody.

hughw

are you saying it didn't happen because the crew didn't report it? I think that's the point of the story...the story seems to ring true for me....a supervisor at the airport and the FBI have taken it seriously....the crew did not, other than moving her on the aircraft, which is really quite negligent.

malgudi

Except for some minor details: The FBI thinks it is pretty serious to investigate, the suspect is out on bail.

JVPhoto

Especially when airlines will have police waiting for people that another passenger accused of sex/human-trafficking .

I think it's more of what did the girl actually inform the flight crew of? "I don't feel comfortable next to that person can I move?" vs. "That man is touching my genitalia."
So perhaps the event occurred, the teen out of embarrassment told the crew a watered down version, once landing the teen confides what really happened to Mom and then the family contacts the authorities.

Loren Pechtel

That makes a lot of sense. Or maybe she was intending to communicate reality but her euphemisms went over the head of the crew.

spin88

it is equally possible the fa's blew her off. Interestingly, right in the middle of the Post story is a link to their story of when United blew off the mother flying to Boston from Hawaii whose son they stole a seat from. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.f24e9b9f3c9a

Notably, when that happened the assertion was also made that perhaps she was not loud enough in her protestations as UA stole her seat....

United Airlines apologizes after giving away toddler's seat

it is possible that United's passengers are just too meek, its also possible that some of United's staff is a little too willing to blow off legitimate issues - which would not be too surprising given the message from the top...

hughw

Yes...it's quite possible that the girl may not have expressed herself in words that got the crews attention, but that's no excuse. Teachers and others in contact with kids are trained to be sensitive to signs of abuse, etc. even when a kid doesn't come to them directly. If the kid expressed ANYTHING that was enough for them to take action by reseating her (which they did), it should have been incumbent on them to ask a few questions to understand better why the kid was uncomfortable. They either didn't or didn't take action on what she said. I don't give the crew a pass on this one just because the kid might have been less than graphic in what she said.

lincolnjkc

Around 2012, I (at the time - mid-late 20s) was on a redeye flight and upgraded. The dude who flopped in the seat next to me was clearly under the influence of something and kept reaching across the armrest and to touch my leg/upper thigh, and tried ordering champagne as a PDB for "both of us" while I was making the "cut off at the throat" gesture to the FA and trying to order OJ.

As the interactions progressed, and he kept telling me to "chill out and enjoy" I tried putting my ear buds in to end the conversation and he reached over and tried to "help" me put them in my ear. I think that was the point where I shifted from "I'm not really comfortable sleeping next to this guy" to "I'm not really comfortable being awake next to this guy" and decided that I would get a room in SF and find a flight the next morning. Grabbed my carry on, went up to the galley and was like "The guy in 2B is drunk, high, or both and one of the two of us is getting off this flight."

First FA (the one who took the PDB order) said "Oh, he's not with you? Just wait here and we'll find someone to trade seats with you" -- I looked at him like he was out of his frigging mind and before I could respond the second FA clearly apprehended the situation and said "If he's drunk we cant let him fly. I'll get the captain..." captain came out, took one look, and said he was going to get the gate agent to have the other passenger removed.

I wound up having to fill out an incident report and you could tell the first FA was none too happy about having to deal with it but the 2nd FA and captain were very awesome and apologetic.

Unfortunately, based on that experience I can see how if a passenger was not extremely blunt and perhaps a bit forceful some FAs may not grasp the importance of a report

jhayes_1780

FA's are trained as well.

However, The last time (what, a month?) the pendulum swung the other way and UA and the FA's got taken to the woodshed for their response.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...afficking.html