Category: Travel Page 15 of 29

I’ve held a deep dislike for AirTran since it was named ValuJet and dumping people into the Everglades.  Every contact I’ve ever had with the airline reinforces my notion that it is run by the cheapest and most incompetent labor force it can scrounge up.  Which leads to incredibly stupid things like this scene that unfolded at National yesterday:

A Muslim family removed from an airliner Thursday after passengers became concerned about their conversation say AirTran officials refused to rebook them, even after FBI investigators cleared them of wrongdoing.

Atif Irfan said federal authorities removed eight members of his extended family and a friend after passengers heard them discussing the safest place to sit and misconstrued the nature of the conversation.

Irfan, a U.S. citizen and tax attorney, said he was “impressed with the professionalism” of the FBI agents who questioned him, but said he felt mistreated when the airline refused to book the family for a later flight.

Because an organization can’t be run entirely on stupidity, I presume that the issue eventually made its way up to someone with a little sense (if still completely lacking in tact), resulting in the airline issuing a statement that concluded with:

The nine passengers involved were all offered full refunds and may fly with AirTran Airways again after having been released from questioning and cleared by the law enforcement officials.

Yeah, probably not.

Update: Per the comments, they found someone at AirTran who managed to grind out an apology on behalf of the airline.   Of course, they try to avoid responsibility and hide behind the usual security excuse:

“We regret that the issue escalated to the heightened security level it did on New Year’s Day, but we trust everyone understands that the security and the safety of our passengers is paramount and cannot be compromised[.]”

The part that is entirely AirTran’s fault had nothing to do with security, and everything to do with AirTran’s utterly ridiculous refusal to let the family rebook for the next flight.

The following comes from a longtime reader (and friend), in response to my post highlighting Megan Stack’s article on her experience as a woman in Saudi Arabia:

I can’t believe you, of all people, would post that article on Saudi Arabia. I don’t mean so much about the content (although I do partly mean that, in some places) as to the whole way it was written. Parts of it read like Ann Coultier or whatever the fuck her name is. At least she is out and out nasty. This wolf in sheep’s clothing reporting.

I love the oh so subtle (and then sometimes not so) perpetuation of the idea that the great white race once again knows best how to ponder the shortcomings of the the inferiors, and feels defeat at not being able to liberate them. I loved the journalistic integrity in the piece that set such an objective tone right off the bat with the heavy abaya dragging her along and the comparison of sludgy Arabic coffee and the pure, clean American coffee.  I wonder if she, like Bush, also likes the brown people.

And if the kingdom made her slouch, she maybe didn’t have much of a backbone to begin with. But then, it wouldn’t make for thrilling reading, would? Man, those chiropractors in SA must be shoveling in the money.

(I don’t claim to know anything about living day in and day out in Saudi Arabia, where I know women’s rights are far different and much more restricted, almost non existent[.]  But really, what does an article like this which still reads as inflammatory towards its very subjects, the woman, while trying to seem so above it all, hope to achieve?)

I must be missing something from this article from the view point of someone not from the Middle East, or my anger at the tone is too much and I am not seeing something. Because otherwise, I don’t get it. I hate this kind of journalistic reporting. You could have posted something much better addressing the same issues. Or, if you didn’t have it, you could have waited. Not this. Not this piece of crap that reduces hostile situations to “glares” (her) and “baring of teeth” (them, always with the animal references of course.)

[And sometimes we find pieces for which we simply never hit the “Publish” button.  This is about a year and a half old, but still perfectly relevant.]

Check out this excellent piece by Megan Stack, reporter for the LA Times, on her experiences in Saudi Arabia:

I was ready to cope, or so I thought. I arrived with a protective smirk in tow, planning to thicken the walls around myself. I’d report a few stories, and go home. I had no inkling that Saudi Arabia, the experience of being a woman there, would stick to me, follow me home on the plane and shadow me through my days, tainting the way I perceived men and women everywhere.

[ . . . ]

I spent my days in Saudi Arabia struggling unhappily between a lifetime of being taught to respect foreign cultures and the realization that this culture judged me a lesser being. I tried to draw parallels: If I went to South Africa during apartheid, would I feel compelled to be polite?

That last question is something I’ve considered myself, especially during my travels this past year.  The photo on the right was of a Dubai-based newspaper that I read on a flight from Mumbai to Dubai.  It was a little jarring, to see that as front page news (and not free of irony, with its position right under headline about “Fashion Week”).

Update: Here’s a response that I urge all to read.

like.

Awesome and nauseating, all at the same time.