An American Airlines ConciergeKey passenger, one of the carrier’s top customers, shared to social media that they were flying from Portland to Dallas on Tuesday’s flight 2655 and wound up suspected of being a child predator – because they tried to do a good deed, giving up their first class seat for an unaccompanied minor seated in coach.
They were heading to Dallas to connect to a British Airways flight to London. Pre-boarding (since ConciergeKey members board ahead of first class, even), they noticed “a very young unaccompanied minor” and let a flight attendant in first class know they’d be happy to swap their first class seat with the child and sit in coach. This didn’t seem like a big deal.
- A regular frequent flyer may find domestic first class, especially for less than four hours, to be not all that much better than coach.
- Meanwhile, an infrequent flyer might value the extra space and prestige tremendously.
The passenger explained, “I know how hard it is to fly alone at that age and I figured it would make the staff’s job easier with regards to keeping an eye on him” and noted that the flight attendant offered thanks and “said she’d ask.” However,
Once we took off and the seatbelt light clicked off, on her next pass she mentioned she hadn’t heard back from the rear [flight attendant] and she would later; I offered to ask myself if it would save time and she told me to go ahead.
I walked back and asked the [flight attendant] and was taken aback by her response.
Offering the flight attendant at the back of the cabin that they’d switch seats, the response was jarring: ”Why would you want to do that? Do you know him? Why do you want to separate him from his group?”
The passenger thought they were traveling alone (an unaccompanied minor), were offering to switch seats not to sit next to children, and apologized for interrupting her service. She had “a visible look of disgust.”
But it didn’t end there. An American Airlines employee met the flight and flagged down the ConciergeKey first class passenger, asking to speak about the incident. In a hurry to their next flight, the passenger offered to discuss the matter on the way to the airport’s D terminal. Here’s what happened next,
[I]t was an interrogation on whether I felt it was appropriate to try and talk to children on planes and if I had approached this boy at [Portland airport]. I felt very much that I was on the verge of being accused of a crime or being a pervert or some kind.
The [American Airlines] agent asked me if I could stick around for a moment (at this point I was at the escalator for the sky train). I told her no and suggested that unless something was urgent enough that I needed to delay my outbound to London that I would be hopping on the next sky train. As I headed up the steps, she promised someone would be “in touch” to discuss the concerns raised about my conduct.
Now this customer is worried they need to ‘clear their name’. Feeling no good deed goes unpunished, wanting simply to “help someone out who might be having a stressful flight,” (and never even having spoken to the child, according to the passenger) now they’re concerned about some sort of ‘permanent record’ they’ve been tagged with.
Why am I reminded of the movie Airplane! here? (“Joey, do you like movies about gladiators?”)
I don’t think they have anything to worry about. Odds on the matter will be dropped and they’ll never hear about it again. However if it does resurface, they need a lawyer.
Airline and hotel employees are taught to use their prejudices to spot and report human trafficking, and this often works out badly. Flight attendants are told they need to be on the lookout, and you have to sympathize with the position that puts them in. Imagine if they didn’t say something when they could have stopped a bad situation? That would haunt them. So better to raise the accusation or flag innocent people for law enforcement to sort out. And that gives you situations like,
- An African American social service worker was traveling with a white baby and accused of kidnapping by an American Airlines flight attendant as a result.
- Armed Port Authority police boarded an American Airlines plane at New York JFK because a flight attendant saw an Asian American woman follow her Hispanic husband to the lavatory (he was feeling unwell) and saw that they shared an orange juice. The flight attendant called for a sex trafficking investigation. It found their drivers licenses displayed the same home address because they were married, just different races.
- Southwest Airlines demanded to see Facebook posts when a white mother checked in with her mixed-race son, claiming this was ‘federal law’.
This family is on a holiday weekend adventure to support @Kenzie4bs at @usabasketball U18 trials. 💙💛🐻 pic.twitter.com/cbAcRdKyhJ
— Lindsay Gottlieb (@CalCoachG) May 26, 2018
Hotel staff are trained by the Department of Homeland Security to report guests with too many used condoms in the trash, as well as:
- frequent use of the “Do Not Disturb” sign (you’re tired and don’t want to be bothered)
- guests who avert their eyes or don’t make eye contact (you’re tired and don’t want to be bothered)
- people with “lower quality clothing than companions” (no one ever accused me of fashion)
- people who have “suspicious tattoos” (you’re from Austin or Portland)
- having multiple computers, cell phones, and other technology (you’re a blogger)
- “presence of photography equipment” (you’re a blogger)
- refusal of cleaning services for multiple days (you ‘made a green choice’ or assume hotels no longer offer it)
- rooms paid for with cash or a rechargeable credit card (you have to unload your gift card purchases somehow)
- guests with few personal possessions (you refuse to check a bag because you’re a frequent traveler)
See something, say something, when you’re encouraging amateurs to do it, leads to so many false positives that real cases of sex trafficking seem likely to get less attention. Employees think they are ‘trained’ when they’re really using their prejudices.
Woke people rule this country.
What next ? Arrest a parent for telling their child to behave and so loose his freedom?
No good deed goes unpunished.
The Airplane movie NEVER gets old!!
I once gave up my FC seat in a small regional jet to a tall military guy. Lord, I hope he didn’t think I was hitting on him.
This country is on a witch hunt for a lot of things, groups, people and the list of ‘flavor of the month’ hunts this society is addicted to. We have turned very mean spirited (not everyone) and worse, against each other. Also, this has nothing to do with woke. “Woke” kind of means anything people want it to nowadays.
I had a related experience years back – was flying on business in a 2-3 (MD-80 or -90), DL or AS, had elite status but no upgrade due to late booking – window set on the 2-side, with a tight connection. Some girl, maybe 10 years old, was seated next to me, her Mom somewhere in the back, middle seat. Mom came up and made a loud scene about a ‘strange man’ sitting next to her daughter. Expected me to take her middle seat in back. I am pretty tall, so middle seats are a pain so I said ‘no’ – she can switch with her daughter (presumably not next to a strange man back there). But she made a fuss enough.for the flight attendant to come up and sternly ‘ask’ me to swap seats so as not to delay the flight. I said no, I am tall, have a tight connection, etc. So eventually someone next to the Mom in back switched with her daughter. But the looks of scorn on that flight, as if I was some predator were quite unpleasant.
Honestly, these are the stories that terrify me. How many actual trafficking cases were totally missed by immigration or police, but nabbed thanks to an observant FA? Now consider how many innocent people had to suffer the time and indignity of sorting out a false accusation for something completely innocuous like this. I remember when I was 12 flying up to Boston to visit my cousins. Apparently my mom wrote on the form that my aunt would pick me up, but my uncle showed up at the gate (these were the days when you could actually meet the flight airside). Fortunately, the FA just asked, “do you know this guy?” I said yes, and off we went. These days, my poor uncle would probably have been tackled to the ground, arrested, and tortured until he confessed.
Obviously “things” have happened and folks should be aware that sex trafficking and the like goes on. Occasionally these situations has been caught too, so that is a positive. But if anyone remembers how a poor guy was “convicted” by the press of the Atlantic Olympics bombing or day care workers were falsely accused, and sometimes convicted, of molestation in the 1980s and 1990s, it’s obvious how fast hysteria can feed on itself. Perhaps that is how humans are wired.
But there are many other examples in the “Land of the Free.” The persecution of conscientious objectors in WW1, the periodic Red Scares, including McCarthyism, recent attacks on Asians, Sikhs and Muslims, and the internment of the Japanese-Americans easily come to mind. But then anything involving calling the good old USA a “Homeland” is immediately worth being skeptical about. It is a truly disgusting term for this nation. But there always will be people who like to have a little power under its umbrella.
Offering to gift the F seat to a random child seems like a nice gesture.
Pursuing the issue after the offer wasn’t accepted, to the point where he took it upon himself to actually walk back to the main cabin, is suspicious behavior that the flight attendant would be negligent to ignore.
The flight attendants are charged with protecting the unaccompanied minor. How could they view a grown man’s fixation on a child for no discernible reason as anything other than suspicious?
I’m not saying the OP is a predator, and believe it is much more likely he is just socially awkward and doesn’t quite understand how people interpret his behavior.
@Matt – He made an offer, it was generous, and it DIDN’T EVEN GET A RESPONSE from the flight attendant. That was rude on someone’s part. He made the offer directly. It was declined. End of matter.
The man never even spoke to or went near the child, there was nothing to investigate here, and certainly not based on the poorly trained, panic-laden suspicions of a crewmember.
For those blaming this on a “woke” mentality: Whose political indoctrination is more likely to single out a multiracial group of people as suspicious – the lefties who the right call BLM terrorists, supporters of undocumented families and transgender rights, or the right-wingers who stand against the teaching of racial history and call people who desperately want better lives for their children far away from the violence of their own countries gangsters and rapists?
@Matt: You’re part of the problem in such a situation. Reading into a scenario something that never happened.
This is why it doesn’t pay to try to save the world.
From personal experience: having multiple computers, cell phones, and other technology (work requires you to be contactable and have access to systems at all times, and also to segregate work and personal devises).
Gary, this guy made repeated attempts to get himself seated next to young children. Even if everything he says is true, so what? Thank God the flight attendants caught this and reported it.
@Jfkphl – we have no reason to believe he “made repeated attempts to get himself seated next to young children”
This is definitely witch-hunt territory!
> frequent use of the “Do Not Disturb” sign (you’re tired and don’t want to be bothered)
Hey, I still mask in public. Think I want the maid coming in while I’m there?
> guests who avert their eyes or don’t make eye contact (you’re tired and don’t want to be bothered)
Or on the autism spectrum.
> people with “lower quality clothing than companions” (no one ever accused me of fashion)
Or you’re in a position that doesn’t require dressing up. I’m a programmer–a field widely known for dressing casually. I’ve attended multiple trade shows dressed more casually than my companions–which pretty much instantly identifies me as the IT guy who is there to evaluate talking to the machine rather than the machine itself.
> “presence of photography equipment” (you’re a blogger)
Or even just a tourist that realizes phones can’t do it all. I hike with photography equipment–because 90% of the wildlife I encounter can’t be photographed with a phone.
> refusal of cleaning services for multiple days (you ‘made a green choice’ or assume hotels no longer offer it)
This one is slightly more legitimate–it’s a reaction to the Las Vegas mass shooting. Still, though, it’s going to have a huge false positive rate.
How many men were trying to trade seats from first to coach with how many small children? What is the ‘they’ pronoun doing in this story? Regardless of how many men were involved, it’s fairly common knowledge that travel providers are on the lookout for ‘human trafficking’ and these people were doing their jobs. It’s considered normal to switch seats with a military person, for instance … that person would enjoy sitting up front very much. A small child wouldn’t benefit from it at all. So the request that ‘they’ made to switch naturally generated unwanted attention.
Yeah, that’s weird that he made such a big deal after the offer was declined. He really does sound like a predator. I’d be weary of pedophiles too. Too many of them these days in this country.
Yet another episode of “don’t talk to flight attendants.” And from the asinine responses to the article, apparently don’t talk to anyone at all on a plane. Just sit there and shut up. It’s what the FAs want anyway. God forbid someone try to be nice – they’ll be tried and convicted of pedophilia and human trafficking by random strangers on the Internet.
Me (evil white man) my wife (Vietnamese) got a free one hotel stay in Korea because transit security in ICN had a feeling I was trafficking my wife. She easily gets motion sickness when flying so she takes medication. The medication makes her drowsy plus it’s an over night flight SGN-ICN. my wife just gave simple yes/no answers to questions. she just let me answer all other questions. After 15 minutes we were separated for 4 hours asked a million questions (she cried Hysterically for 3 hours) what makes it worse is that the Koreans asking you all these questions have heavily accented English to the point they have to repeat the question several times slowly for me and my wife to understand. we had to take a flight the next day. No business class seats but did have 4 seats in the back to ourselves
This is exactly what happens when you empower these crew members who are not law enforcement, are poorly or randomly trained and really have no idea at what they’re doing. They just go on these power trips, just screw things up, stir the pot and make an ass both of themselves and of, what appears to be at least, an honest fare paying client with good intentions. The old adage “no good deed goes unpunished…” you better believe it you guys.
@kalman kuhn, you and I must be living on two different planets. Seems to like “anti-woke” brigade are the ones threatening to throw parents in jail for providing them with healthcare, allowing tkids o accompany their parent to entertainment venues and transporting them to places where they can access certain services. Apologies for clouding your argument with facts.
Flight attendants are REQUIRED BY LAW to undergo training on spotting potential sex traffickers and similar crimes. Rather than skewering the flight attendants (this comment is not directed at you, you did not go on the attack against the FAs) may be we should view the situation as a learning opportunity to understand if the training needs to be improved, if the airline employees were being overzealous or if the response was appropriate and we’re only getting one side of the story.
If the passenger had actually been a predator (not saying either way) and the flight attendant identified it and saved a child they would have been hailed as a hero. Because they offended a flyer (who we still honestly do not know a thing about said flyer’s intentions other than what they are saying) it’s a thing and people trying to protect people from sexual abuse / slavery are being accused of being “woke.”
@jsn55
“They” as a pronoun for him or her is based on AP Style. Perhaps let the AP Style Guide know that you have a problem with it.
The man wasn’t going to sit next to the child–he was going to change seats. It’s also true that the child wouldn’t really appreciate the seat upgrade.
The most depressing aspect of this generally depressing story is the flight attendant’s question: “Why would you want to do that?” The phrasing of the question suggests that the FA finds it inconceivable and odd that someone might be kind to or commiserate with a stranger.
The second most depressing aspects are the responses of people who find such an offer “weird,” who believe that there are hoards of child predators running around these days, and who suggest that making such an offer again when it didn’t receive a response the first time constitutes making “a big deal” out of the issue.
Human trafficking is a real thing, and it happens a lot. Yes, FA’s need quality training and there are false positives. But as long as the false positives are dealt with discreetly and case closed promptly, I’d really rather see some uncomfortable conversations with people who turn out to be innocent than to see people trafficked. How many sex traffickers do you want to see go free to avoid the false positive?
Bruce Schneier, the security guru, has long argued that ‘see something, say something’ is a stupid slogan and a stupid policy. Without special training none of us know what the ‘something’ looks like, and we’re much more likely to get an innocent person in trouble than to foil a kidnapping. And the actual instances of ‘trafficking’ are way fewer than the custody disputes and simple commercial transactions. And there’s no evidence whatsoever that there are more pedophiles around now than there were a hundred years ago. Furthermore, most pedophiles prey on their relatives, not random strangers on an airplane. Again, you’re almost certainly NOT ‘seeing something’.
About 460,000 victims of human trafficking were identified between 2012 and 2018, according to the US State Department by FA’s !!!
So point is MOOT
,@Matt
This man was not looking to sit next to the child. He was giving up hus 1st class seat to sit in coach so that it would be easier for the FA to keep an eye on him.. He did not know the child was with a group.. If this man said there was an empty seat next to him, that’s a different story. That FA jumped to the wrong conclusion.
@Tim j – wait, you believe that flight attendants identified 460,000 actual human trafficking victims? Does it seem plausible that there are that many being trafficked on airplanes, let alone that flight attendants successfully identified that many out of the (presumably even larger) total? Have you ever been on a plane?
I’ve worked for several hotels as a housekeeper and even front desk. I’ve worked for Marriott, Days Inn, Ramada and Best Western and never not even once was trained to call authorities if there were to many condoms.
@Tim j: Nonsense. UTTER nonsense.
For those of you lacking reading comprehension skills, and there seems to be a lot of you, AT NO POINT DID THE PASSENGER ATTEMPT TO SIT NEXT TO THE CHILD. HE WAS SIMPLY OFFERING TO SWAP SEATS. HE DIDN’T EVEN SPEAK TO THE CHILD.
Geez, people.
As a 30+ year AAdvantage elite member, I’ll often repeat this… AA should just fly cargo. They constantly show how they intensely despise their customers.
I agree when you make an offer once and no action let it go. I can relate to the man saying he wasn’t sticking around to talk to them because of his connecting flight. I was accused of not paying for some gas. Someone ran outside and wanted me to come back inside. I said no. It’s your mistake. I paid for the gas once and that was expensive enough. I’m sure not paying twice. I have to be at work. You figure it out.
@Deliworker . . . “That FA jumped to the wrong conclusion.”
As have many here.
@tim. Even if we assume it’s 2012 to 2018 inclusive, that’s 7 years or 180 traffickers A DAY.
If true, FAs are the most effective quasi-law enforcement group in the world. Probably in all of history. If true, why are we not hearing these stories day after day after day? If true, why aren’t the FA unions trumpeting these numbers in order to gain universal praise and admiration?
Or maybe it’s not accurate.
Gary, he spoke to 2 different flight attendants and presumably the first flight attendant two different times (not entirely clear), so that is 3 attempts to trade seats with a child who was seated with other children. This is what alarmed the flight attendant in the back, as the man was trying to get seated next to those children. The fact that this guy then literally fled the country, rather than take 2 minutes to talk to the ground personel when they landed is just another suspicious behavior. Even if it was innocent behavior by the Conceierge Key, not allowing him to sit with other children and reporting him up the command chain was the correct response all around. Are there any reports from other passengers who witnessed any of this occur? I would be curious to hear their take on it.
Tim j – if those numbers are correct, during the years in question there would be 100 cases (on average) of human traffic reported at the Atlanta airport by FAs PER DAY.
The notion that flight attendants stopped 460,000 cases of human trafficking between 2012 and 2018 is ridiculous. The person who posted this evidently took the number from this article:
https://www.businessinsider.com/how-flight-attendants-are-trained-to-spot-human-trafficking-victims-2019-7
In relevant part, the article says, “About 460,000 victims of human trafficking were identified between 2012 and 2018, according to the US State Department. To combat this issue, airlines in 2016 began training flight attendants to identify signs that a person may be a victim of human trafficking.”
Had the poster actually read the article, he would have understood that nowhere does the article or any other suggest that all 460,000 victims were identified by flight attendants.
I did a similar thing on a flight from PDX to SNA several years ago but with much better results. I was seated in first with the seat next to me vacant. During boarding I saw a Make a Wish family come on board. There was a girl around 8 or 9 with her friend. Before departure a I asked the flight attendant if the two girls would want to sit in first and I would go back to coach. She looked puzzled for a moment but when she realized what I was talking about she approached the family and I switched. The little girl was a cancer patient and was going to Orange County for a special Disneyland trip. The treatment I got from her family and the flight crew was remarkable, but I kept telling them I felt like the lucky one. I swapped email info with the father and a few months later he sent me an email with a picture of his daughter. She was cancer free and her prognosis was great. Could be times have changed. I think it is more likely I had a smart and helpful flight attendant who understood what I was trying to do.
I traded First class seats with a lady coming back from her tour overseas that had been up 24 hours returning back home.
She also was traveling alone, should I also then be worried, it was about 15 years ago.
Ironic that people are blaming some “woke” culture, when the conservative right wing that follows Qanon, & all its insane paranoid conspiracies. Even getting some nutjob to try to shoot up a dc family pizza shop.
Perhaps the issue here is that the FA knew the child was with a group and that is why she ignored the request to exchange seats. She could have told the man that information, but in her opinion, the man had no reason to know anything about a random child anyway. Her question, “Why would you want to do that?” makes sense since the child was in a group and it would have been absurd to pluck the child away from the group and place a stranger near the other children. I don’t see why anyone takes offense to her actions–I would also have ignored the man’s request.
Most of these situations could be resolved on board by the FAs having a discussion rather than assuming, reporting it to the downline station and having station personnel do the dirty work only to add to the issue.
This story is pretty bizarre, but I just came here to say, I never let housekeeping in my room, regardless of how long I stay, and I never will. They might be suspicious of me, but not *nearly* as suspicious as I am of them.
The flight attendant’s suspicions of the Good Samaritan are just plain unacceptable. But even worse is the egregious use of a plural pronoun for one person. At times in the narrative it’s not even possible to know if the narrator is speaking of the first class passenger or the child with whom s/he offered to trade seats, because both are referred to ax “they”.
The French, who are so all-fired fussy about the purity and correctness of their language that they have an entire group of experts monitoring it in real time, have adopted a non-gendered pronoun to use in addition to “Il” and “Elle”. Why is it so hard for English speakers not to do the same? Or at least require that “s/he” and “his/her” be used when genderless pronouns are desired? “The student had completed their homework” is nothing less than an abomination.
@Morgan calm down.
Sounds about right, very much like the woke mob from right wing TX accusing people of things and turns out they are the pedo themselves.
The flight attendant’s involved needed to be pulled from active duty and immediately retrained regarding child exploitation, human trafficking. They obviously did not deal with this scenario properly. I hope the passenger is compensated in some way for the abusive manner which he was treated. I have worked in the Child Protection / Law Enforcement field for 20 + years and hate to see this kind of response by poorly trained individuals.
To commenters “Jfkphl, Lorrena” and others. You obviously did not read the article and went straight to posting nonsense. At no point was the passenger trying to sit next to the girl. , he was simply trying to change seats.
@Gary – You seem to not only assume everything the OP writes is accurate, but also that the FA understood his thought process and intentions.
Put yourself in the FA’s shoes and look at what the OP *actually did* rather than what he intended.
The Main Cabin FA gets a message that some guy in First Class wants to switch seats with a child, whom he doesn’t know, and which will result in that child being separated from their group. Can you imagine how bizarre that request would seem to someone who only has that information as the FA did?
You said it was “rude” not to respond to his offer. Whether he knew it or not the offer was bizarre, and requires no response or explanation. Are the FA’s supposed to explain the child’s traveling companion situation to a complete stranger?
Then, after ignoring the strange request the FA sees the OP coming back into the Main Cabin after take off to push the issue further. It sounds like an episode of Curb that ends with Larry getting maced by a FA.
I do agree with you that there’s nothing to investigate, since nothing actually happened, but that FA must have thought this guy was out of his mind.
I did this several years ago on a Delta flight and Delta gave me 5,000 Skymiles.
This has nothing to do with “wokeness” whatsoever. Legitimate policies to protect children from predators are critical. Unfortunately in this case the flight attendants were just too stupid to understand the offer. Offering to SWITCH seats would not have put the man any closer to the child. Maybe someone should have handed the flight attendants a dictionary and told them to look up the word “switch.”
Their response was ignorant, not woke, and a result of the fact that many of them see themselves as deputized cops due to 1) the increase in unruly passengers 2) their own power trip.
Thanks for coming to my TED talk.
“they noticed ‘a very young unaccompanied minor’ and let a flight attendant in first class know they’d be happy to swap their first class seat with the child and sit in coach.”
“The passenger thought they were traveling alone (an unaccompanied minor), were offering to switch seats not to sit next to children, and apologized for interrupting her service.”
Since unaccompanied minors are seated prior to any other passengers boarding, the CK saw the lone child since the CK was in the next category to board.
There is no indication other than a purported lone statement from a F/A that there was a “group” of unaccompanied minors.
Am a forex trader. Wherever I am, I normally have with me 2 laptops, and 2 phones. 1 laptop has 32Gb Ram. This is where I store my trading strategy and execute my entry and exit on positions. I never visit any website on this laptop. It’s purely for this. This is to make it safe from online threats. The other laptop, a 4gb ram is use it to extract data online which I then spin it into useful trading information. 1 phone has my broker app, postion sizing margin requirements app etc, my banking apps. The other phone I use it for virtually everything, calls visit any website I want. Now go figure what happens when I come across a flight attendant or hotel employee who don’t know how laptops and phones are important parts of my life.
And the righties always seem to have the dirtiest minds …..I wonder why that is
Oh, @Chad I think you need to take a good, long, hard look in the mirror. Last time I checked there were a lot of non “lefties” running around clutching their pearls wailing about how those pesky people fighting for equality were trying to…gasp…indoctrinate people into some boogie-man infused “woke” ideology that dare suggest America is not perfect and has a history we can all learn from.
There is a reason why people are being asked to keep an eye out for certain behaviors. It’s because children are molested, women (and men) are sex trafficked, people are psychological controlled / terrorized by others and people are sometimes out to do nefarious things.
But, hey, you do you and keep blaming people you disagree with politically for trying to keep the vulnerable safe.
I’ll never have to worry about this kind of situation because when I pay for first, I’m sitting in first and I don’t give a damn who is in coach. But still….it reads to me as though this guy is both clueless and bullheaded. Not sure why a child needs first class but it sounds as though once this guy made up his mind that the child did, he was going to push the idea. It’s unclear whether there was a group of kids in back or whether this child was really alone. It seems the latter as the man observed the child alone. Where was the alleged group during the boarding process? Regardless, the initial FA could have handled communication much more effectively by just telling him there was no need to swap and if he still went back, the second one could have done so as well. This whole story comes across as botched communication from everyone. As to the encounter after he got off the plane, I would have gotten the name of the agent who approached me and called my attorney and had him communicate with AA immediately. Let the lawyers sort it out. If not that, I’d sure be escalating this with AA. He was pretty gutsy to board another flight. AA comes across as so incompetent here that they might have had him hauled off that LHR flight before take-off.
Our country is truly screwed.
I am fearful for the future. Its all ridiculous. Changing seats with a UAM in a different class is not something a predator would do. They aren’t even near them and agents take UAM off the plane.
Chivalry is dead and so are good values.
Whoever mentioned the 460,000, this seems to come from a poorly worded Business Insider article where it reports 460,000 human trafficking victims (in total) were identified between 2012 and 2018, NOT that airline flight attendants identified that many. https://www.businessinsider.com/how-flight-attendants-are-trained-to-spot-human-trafficking-victims-2019-7
I thought only one concierge key passenger was involved. Who are “they”?
Have no clue as to the situation other than Gary’s narrative from the “victim.” Regardless, I do love how Gary manages to turn this around to be about him in the end…the list of suspicious activities and how that relates to bloggers.
It’s not all about you, Master Gary. Don’t worry, no one notices or cares about you on a plane, nor do they me. Good writers don’t insert themselves into the victims plight. It’s cheap and boring.
No Good deed goes unpunished. Next time just tip your Bartenders.
Only in America….
It’s really sad when we think it’s bad to protect a potential victim. Human trafficking is a very real problem. Better to be safe than sorry. A little inconvenience for an innocent person is nothing compared to a lifetime of abuse for a trafficked human.
To paraphrase Bill Burr, “Dude, get that thing away from me!” This is the attitude you need to have these days towards strangers’ kids, or to a slightly lesser extent, people in general. Try not to even look at someone. Of course, that’s also on the list, as is apparently something else I’m guilty of, the Do Not Disturb sign. Sorry, don’t care for strangers being around my unattended stuff, plus I feel like most stays are a week tops. I personally am not cleaning the bathroom or changing the sheets more than once a week at home, why do I need it daily when out of town? The world makes me sad and generally afraid to spend too much unnecessary time out there, unless it’s like “the outdoors”, which I’m sure is on someone’s watch-out list too…
Wow. I thought the FA was bad enough but the comments are even lower class. Gary was not inserting just himself or making it all about him but, rather, providing examples as to how these circumstantial examples can be applied elsewhere. Not everyone is a pedo. And for the woke BS … yawn. So so tired of some lame commentor having to inject their “asleep at the wheel” political bias into EVERY. GODDAMN. STORY. Ugggh. Offering his seat to a child was an incredibly kind & generous gesture. I applaud him and hope he isn’t burned by this unfortunate experience. The Art of gifting is not lost after all. Even amongst the greedy, red-faced haters.
I once went to a book store to buy my little nice a children’s book, then some Karen saw me in the children’s books section, which by the way I was the only one there, so she called a staff member and tried to sic them on me like a dog, telling the staff member that I shouldn’t be in the kid’s section, because I was an adult male without a child, the staff member actually stood up for me and the Karen left fuming, I bought my niece a book and everyone lived happily ever after.
happened to me on an AAL flight. Was seated next to a young lady who saw I was reading French and wished to talk about Victor Hugo. Later, she asked me for my address so we could I suppose become pen pals but a stewardess saw me writing down my name and address and accused me loudly of interfering with the girl. I had been drinking during the flight so didn’t protest for fear of also being accused as a drunken child groomer. I hate people.
I’ve learned of several incidents that have gotten out of hand on airplanes. From demanding, angry passengers who are ready to beat up attendants to annoying kids putting gum in your hair and having 2 hour temper tantrums, and everything else in between. Ik I would be outraged if they judged me and threw around accusations insinuating I’m a kidnapper, a human trafficker and everything else under the sun. It wouldn’t be nice.
So was the kids a UAM or not? It is usually overwhelming obvious because the UAM will be escorted and with paperwork. Certainly noticable to a seasoned flyer. And typically if I were to do this, is just talk to the GA or the escort BEFORE boarding. I’d never talk to the FA. Something seems off by this story. I guess there are some top FF who are just clueless
I swear to Christ! This is getting impossible.
Once, at a local fast food place, I saw a teenage girl wearing a very pretty dress, and I complimented on her on it. Her Karen of a mother, however, snapped at me “She’s 14! I don’t need you getting weird with her.”
And another time, I was with a woman whom I know, and I saw another woman walking by. I said, “she’s pretty; isn’t she?” And she replied “I don’t know. I’m not a pervert.” I looked at her and added, “All that I said was that she was pretty! It’s normal for men to like women.” And she retorted, “yes, but it’s not normal for men to be perverted.”
Jeez, is it any wonder that we haven’t won a war since 1945?
Yes they did right. The man is weird for that because the child was traveling with a group. Imagine you sent your child unaccompanied to fly and a random wants to change things up.. the flight attendant better fiercely protect and defend . No telling what his intentions was as predators tend to use kindness to groom and coerce. Not saying he is but this is os something that we all should be aware of and leave kids alone . Your “kindness” can be seen as something else when measures and policies put in place to protect these kids are being ignored. I’ve seen a flight attention tell a child to use a code “she whispered it” if anyone makes them uncomfortable. I minded my business and the crew was checking in and passing by every 5 or so minutes to check on that boy. It’s a system that works when you have a good crew and I applaud it
Guess it does no good to be nice, or right away your considered a predator or your racist.
What a crock!!
Would this have been an issue if a woman offered to exchange seats? Highly unlikely. We continually speak of change, equality and open mindedness but rarely do those views of men seem to change. It seems like a case of sexism. If he (the child) was with other children as someone mentioned, then the initial FO simply could have said that. And if she wasn’t aware then how could he (traveler) possibly be? These are the type of things that keep people from doing everyday simple kind acts.
I posted earlier that our country is in so much trouble. I do want to comment that most of us were talking about this issue and some had to interject tribal politics. This is why we are screwed. We can’t even have a discussion about a single incident without someone brining up BS tribal politics and talking about right wingers etc.
This has to do with the incident and common sense. If it’s as Gary states this was ridiculous and passenger was harrassed by a FA who assumed things and didn’t handle it well. The fact that we are so divided in this country is so sad. We used to be able to talk about any political issue and debtae civilly. Agree to disagree and try to find common ground. Now it’s instant hate, blame , anger, refusal to talk civilly and all out war. Country is so screwed. I really do think our great American experiment is coming to its end. We are so much in decline when we don’t need to be. Energy should go to being the country of values and democracy we have always been. Not to this tribal political s..t hole we have become.
This had nothing to do with politics. It was an FA who mishandled the whole situation.
Passenger tried to do good and was penalized for it.
And yes regardless of which side you are on things have gotten so out of hand. We need to be the country of values we have always been. Not what we have dinished into these past 10 years
The rear FA has some serious baggage to unpack in therapy. Sounds like a real hater on a mission.
When I was younger, if I saw an opportunity to create a net positive at minor cost to myself, I’d pursue it to a degree that came off as weird. A lot of people labeled this as autism-spectrum behavior but regardless, I now try to let it go because it’s a lose-lose. As the article points out, hypervigilance leaves massive room for bias. Even if you avoid the racial profiling, requiring “normal” human behavior is totally subjective and stigmatizes any non-conformity. We already can’t be suspiciously unfriendly or we’re possible terrorists; now we also can’t be suspiciously friendly or we’re trying to lure someone.
The man had no idea the kid was traveling with a group as the group normally boards together. He would have had zero contact with the kid. Anyone who feels this was inappropriate or anything short of a really nice gesture to provide a kid with a more positive flying experience should go back to your daily life as Karen and stay in a closed, dark room.
Wasn’t the AA passenger advised to not try to up attention to this situation? But it seems to have gone in the opposite direction as the info on here and on FT make the passenger identifiable to more.
“It’s really sad when we think it’s bad to protect a potential victim. Human trafficking is a very real problem. Better to be safe than sorry.“
Do you also justify firing bullets at “suspects” because someone imagines there could be a crime committed in the future by the “suspect”? Better safe than sorry, still?
The “better to be safe than sorry” mentality underestimates the long-term damage done to individuals and society by the paranoia and prejudice-driven false accusations/assumptions that are unleashed in the name of security/safety. What improves security and safety is social cohesion where empathy/fellow-feeling is high, but fear and feelings of ostracization/alienation are low. While I’m a believer in reminding kids of stranger-danger, kids are generally far more at risk of abuse by: 1) trusted” “non-strangers” who see them daily or routinely over a longer period of time; or 2) others — could even be other kids (traveling as UAMs or not) — when the child feels isolated and uncared for.
Offering to FAs to swap seats with a child does not put the seat-swapping child at increased chance of abuse.
Well said
Better to be safe than sorry is BS.
Excellent analogy.
Grown folk have no business approaching children unknown to them period. End of story.
> It’s really sad when we think it’s bad to protect a potential victim. Human trafficking is a very real problem. Better to be safe than sorry. A little inconvenience for an innocent person is nothing compared to a lifetime of abuse for a trafficked human.
We should all know where the road paved with good intentions leads. This is an example of that road. Applying a drop of common sense to this shows that his actions in no way provide an opportunity for a predator.
@Liz: Hey Liz, or should I call you Karen?
Facts matter, Sweetie.
The CK never approached the child. NEVER.
So get over yourself. And ensure you keep your kids locked in their room so they will be safe.
People . . .
> Grown folk have no business approaching children unknown to them period. End of story.
Grown folk have no business commenting on situations they don’t understand, period. At no point did he approach the child, nor would his actions have lead to approaching the child.
Sorry but y’all r stoopid. This hack journalist* takes directives that are part of a PACKAGE of security precautions air and hotel employees are instructed about which DETAIL what human trafficking and predator behavior is when those of that type are actually ENGAGED in doing that behavior. These tips are not things everyone would know like that pimps/traffickers and the unfortunates hawking the pimps/traffickers foul goods use multiple cell phones, pay with cash, and look funny because part of the group is always wearing street clothes and parts are always wearing expensive top shelf garments. This author does his very best to play dumb about CONTEXT and presents all kinds of illogical logic posturing that these guidelines are somehow stupid or extra. Yeah, that’s helpful. If that wasn’t enough he then mashes air specific personnel tips against hotel specific personnel tips presenting them wherever in whatever context like some drunk carnival barker who never finished elementary school. Finally, the comments section explodes with an army of you who also want to malignantly take facts OUT OF CONTEXT too, yay! We are a soup of stupid.
This is just f…ing ridiculous. Lazy law enforcement trying to turn everyday people into rats, and this is what creates the immense numbers of Karen’s in this cuntry. People who think that because the government told them it was OK to be a rat, it’s OK to stick their busy body noses into everyone’s business while ignoring their own shortcomings.
Meanwhile, any lawyer Wirth a dam will tell you, NEVER talk to police. And I’m telling you, don’t be a pinchy rata!!! Mind your own dam business!!
How many CKs were there who made this offer? ‘They’ is referenced multiple times.
Seriously all these flight attendant issues … maybe they’ll require an education and pay them accordingly. Instead they hire skinny ninnies, issue them a uni, and tell them they have power.
Our last flight we were confronted with a psycho gate attendant. He walked off when I started recording HIM.
Literally on a plane, you actually need a body cam now.
Wow. This poor guy was being a gentleman and everyone thinks he’s a perv. I’d sue that airline. Wow wow wow.
Great analogy GU Wonder!
This comment section is full of middle aged predatory men. Thank you for showing who you are. And tho the author of this post, thank you as well. You just outed yourself and your following as pedophiles.
Sorry not sorry. Boo boo. A presumably upper class man has to endure a touch of inconvenience and a smudge of humiliation so the airline can make sure he’s not a predator. Too bad. I’d rather have a million of these guys inconvenienced and embarrassed if it saves one child from being sexually assaulted and/or trafficked. Especially since, like it or not, guys like this usually are the bad guy. Good for the airline for investigating and make sure that the kid was not being targeted.
It’s a poorly written article. Immediately, it’s about one CK offering up his seat but in the same sentence it reads “they” are traveling to a connecting flight. Who’s the other person? Was he or she giving up their seat, too? I don’t recall that being spelled out. But I do believe there’s an over abundance of caution and that’s a sad reflection of society today, where only a suggestion of an act of kindness is suspected of being something nefarious. The FA at the back could have handled it so much more professionally by simply thanking the gentleman for his offer, and then saying something to the effect that by federal rules, this unaccompanied child must remain where they were originally assigned, which might be their policy. And left it at that. She had no reason to report the CK to authorities who’ll only make his life miserable for attempting to do a good deed. Reporting him is when the FA injected her feelings and prejudices over facts.
If you are given a hammer, everything will look like a nail.
I’d file a complaint bc how is this predatory behavior? First class board first followed by unaccompanied minors and obviously he saw a sad kid. He didn’t ask to sit next to the kid. He was being nice and felt bad for the child so offered to swap seats. First class services are wayyy better than coach PLUS the kid would be closer to the bathroom. Anyone who suggests he is a sicko are the ones who are the sick in the mind and probably have done some sick stuff to people. Shame on the airline!
Today in GAAry Gripes About American.. do you ever write anything positive? It must be exhausting being so damn negative all the time. Challenge yourself to write something positive and NOT spin it into some negative story. Or maybe step away from the low hanging fruit of groaning about AA and write something different.
> This comment section is full of middle aged predatory men. Thank you for showing who you are. And tho the author of this post, thank you as well. You just outed yourself and your following as pedophiles.
Do you really think there are that many pedos around? Isn’t it more likely that your perception is wrong? We see no way a pedo could have benefited from the situation, just anti-pedo witch hunting. Besides, most pedo problems are from people already known to the family, not strangers.
@PHX gal: You’re just a troll, but you gave me a good reason to never go to Phoenix again (like I really needed one).
I feel sorry for your emasculated son.
One of the commenters above suggested, with no evidence, that this comment section is “full of middle-aged predatory men.” And she claims, again with no evidence, that the author of this piece is also a pedophile.
Godwin’s Law posits that the longer online discussions go on, the greater the likelihood that someone will invoke Hitler. Perhaps in light of the ongoing moral panic about pedophilia, we ought to also start recognizing “PHX gal’s Law”: the longer online discussions go on, the greater the likelihood that one or more of its participants will be called pedophiles. Or middle-aged.
Seriously though, I thought this comment board was moderated. Whoever approved such defamatory nonsense made a serious error of judgment.
Even in reading the entire article, and not looking for another source for more detailed information, an unaccompanied, minor will always be handed off to a flight attendant, who will generally seat them near where they are accessible to the flight attendant. I can’t say what the gentleman’s motives were for making the offer, good deed, or not, he said himself up to be judged. Oh, and if he is a seasoned flyer, he would know that an unaccompanied minor would be in the charge of an airline employee. The parents couldn’t even purchase the ticket without making that known so where he got that from I have no clue but it doesn’t look good. As a mother who has allowed her children to fly unaccompanied, they were always handed off from gate to gate. They were never allowed to go anywhere out of the employee site until they were either in my hands or the person on the other end, picking them up with ID.
Chivalry is not dead, wisdom is clearly.
As a senior FA, I would have been impressed with the CK’s offer. It allows the unaccompanied minor to be better monitored and have the “thrill” of sitting up front, receiving the extras FC offers.
Where are all these unsupported comments about a “group” coming from? .UNACCOMPANIED MINORS travel ALONE (and sometimes with a sibling). Otherwise, they would not be “unaccompanied”! We often try to have unaccompanied minors sit together for their safety and so they have others to talk with.
The CK would have been sitting in the rear of the aircraft (where we put minors to be closer to the monitoring flight attendants to be easily supervised) and the minor at the front of the aircraft. How is that a predatory act?
Sounds like the FA in back was one of our Sky Nazi Karen types. Jumping to conclusions.
It’s not uncommon for FC passengers to offer their seats to members of the military. Does that mean that they have ulterior nefarious motives too?
Had it been my flight that day, the unaccompanied minor would have been in FC, leaving with a story to tell his family and friends, and the CK would have been in coach and none of us would be reading about this and seeing all the comments making unsupported assertions.
E Hansen
On what basis are you making this statement? Do you have any stats on the number of crimes assisted by aircrew or hotel staff? Did you reach out and make any inquiry to any of the airlines or the FBI about such stats?
Author: “See something, say something, when you’re encouraging amateurs to do it, leads to so many false positives that real cases of sex trafficking seem likely to get less attention. Employees think they are ‘trained’ when they’re really using their prejudices.”
If not… This is an uniformed opinion at best. Doesn’t seem quite right to presume you know the benefit analysis here.
In today’s world we watch as fewer and fewer people are willing to use their best judgement and expect “someone else’ to handle these problems.
While it might not be pleasant to be falsely suspect of something, Id rather we all be vilogant and encouraging of people using best judgement in a position to help than to act gunshy and sheepishly… That is the environment that breads predators… That let’s them know they have far reaching cover under the disguise of lack of “prejudice”.
As a father, I’d rather be uncomfortably questioned and know someone is looking out for my little ones, than to image something bad happening and a person ignoring their feeling that something MIGHT be off and saying nothing out of fear of getting it wrong.
This article stokes that fear and I find that to be a poor outcome for this article and I hope not what the author intended.
Dang Gary! Are you intentionally trying to get on “The List?! LOL!
Late night flight. Thirty percent capacity. Kid was traveling with a mother. They sat in front of me. It was his birthday. I bought him the kids meal/snack box basically because he was being so well behaved and it was his birthday. We all (FAs included) sang happy birthday to him. I would have never thought that could have gotten totally sideways for this white male traveling alone. Scary…
Jeez…I was on a LAS-LAX flight and had a bulkhead aisle seat. One row right behind me was Milton Berle. Out of respect, I offered to swap seats with him, and he accepted most graciously. He and I ended up chatting throughout the short flight, until, when coming into L.A., the FA offered to let him make the landing announcement! He cracked up everyone, and the FA finished off with the safety info.
I have been seated in FC next to a unaccompanied minor on his first flight, and he was much more comfortable with some friendly (non-threatening!) conversation. I would say kudos to the FC passenger for the offer. My first flight was at 17, and I would have been thrilled at the chance to ride “up front”!
How does “PHX gal” know whether the seat swap-offering person was even male? While the CK customer ranks seem to be way more male than the population at large in the country, people should check their sexism and consider that there are also female CKs in the rank.
Too many people have a kind of neurotic psychological pathology that makes them make mountains not just out of molehills but even just out of air. And the threat evaluation capability of people seems to have gotten especially worse since 9/11, for a variety of reasons including more extreme media-audience captivating dynamics, social media use dynamics and internet use in general. Unfortunately, they don’t get the mental help they need in order to not be part of the problem and psychological screening is inadequate in hiring problems as is mental health care for such people.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/insight-therapy/202012/is-it-really-better-be-safe-sorry?amp
People with prejudices are reflection of one sick society.
The reasoning for switching seats with the child is completely ridiculous, it simply makes no sense. An unaccompanied minor won’t be “safer” and “get more attention” in the first class. This is exactly what it looks like: a creep trying to offer an expensive gift to a vulnerable child in exchange for something else. No one who pays for first class just gives their seat up for random children they don’t know. The fact this creep is “non-binary” just makes it even more obvious that he’s a degenerate. Someone should check his hard drive.
It’s simply a bi-product of our country’s newest phase in the war on crime. Once upon a time it was terrorists, now it’s human trafficking. The me too movement and the government pushes forward a “suspicious is guilty” way of thinking to the public, and doesn’t bat an eye when good people get hurt by it. They are more than happy to destroy a hundred good people’s lives to catch one bad person!
I’ll even give an example.
I am a retired Marine. I work extensively with the Toys For Tots program. Every year at distribution, I bring my two little girls to help. Several years ago, my oldest, Sasha; who was four at the time, decided she had to pee. Long story short, the police were dispatched for a “possible kidnapping in progress” to a toys for tots distribution event because some lady saw “a man suddenly sweep up a little girl from the crowd and carry her off to the back” and decided she needed to immediately call 911. (Fun fact, two uniformed police officers were in attendance that year. She plainly stated she didn’t trust them because they were men.) Thank God that the our lovely Toys For Tots coordinator was such a wiz at de escalation.
My rule is to NEVER help a minor with anything, I would rather attend their funeral than be seen as a pedo. So if you are on fire, hurt, or drowning, don’t look at me, because l will just keep on walking.
I am the white father of a mixed race daughter,, she looks more black than mixed. I have stopped by multiple law enforcement, do-gooders not minding their own business. The most egregious was two cops in the grocery store. My daughter is hugging and kissing me from the child seat in the cart. Anyone “watching” for even a brief moment would have seen this affection, not to mention her calling me daddy. The cops stopped me in the check out line to demand who I was and the child. There was another cop blocking my car in the lot. I was a victim of over zealous racist cops no doubt. A few seconds of watching us would have given evidence of no foul play. Don’t jump to conclusions based on your racist thoughts.
I do not fly and I would never trust any of these clowns with my child. The entire airline industry needs grounded permanantly and no government bailouts . They are the biggest polluters of the ozone and have had enough tax payer bailouts . Restaffing and training and electric jets and until then no air travel .
Flight attendants are not taught to use their prejudice to be on the look out for human trafficking! This person is an idiot, giving false information. Pay no mind to this article and I wouldn’t read anything else this moron Gary Jeff writes.
I flew tons as a kid all over unaccompanied w/fishing pole & a tackle box – only thing a flight attendent ever said was don’t take the 12 inch long Fish Filet knife out or the Fish hook remover- plus my tackle box was literally full of pointed barbed hooked objects & my fishing pole itself ? If I whipped ya with it it’d leave a nasty welt or take out an eye
Idk I guess it was a different time for 9 & 10 yr old boys back in the 1970s
Now ya can’t do a good deed without being called a predator.
In the 90s I saw some kids playing on my jogging trail behind my house INSTANTLY turned around no WAY was I getting anywhere near kids alone & its the same with women.
Never date them alone in the U.S. since My family has a “little bit” of wealth and they’re like piranas swarming in for the kill with a Zombie like Radar for $$.
They love to weave their Spider web of Lies.
Moved to Europe 20+yrs ago where that U.S. BULLSHIT HYSTERIA isn’t tolerated or ALLOWED by the courts.
Good luck your gonna need it.
People READ the article. The guy offered to SWITCH seats NOT sit with the child! So if they had switched there would have been 20+ rows between them!
How is this nefarious???? The cild would have been better monitored and alone in the front, away from the status passenger.
Clearly the flight attendant is an idiot.
The top pined coments is full of pedo panic. its conservitives m.o. they think someone a day older is a groomer by default. Why would you ever do somthing with out an alternative motive .its almost like there trying to distract.from what there realy doing
@Anonymous. Don’t worry, I believe Gary Jeff is banned from View From the Wing.
@RLD Montana: You do understand that you are on an airline travel blog, correct?
Was offered a $10 upgrade on a flight from SJC-LIM. Had a child flying alone and asked Flight Attendant to upgrade him for the experience. No problems he sat across the Isle from me. Spent flight talking about airplanes. FA thanked me for keeping him happy with the flight. Don’t remember the name but year was around 1980 or 1982 on the old Reno Air. Wish the WOKE culture never go out of bed..
Let’s discuss the English language. When I taught it, the male passenger would be referred to by the pronoun he not they. They is reserved for referring to more than one. Of course the same is true for the boy. He is referred to by the pronoun He.
People that conclude some one is a weirdo are the ones with that weirdo mentality son that would make them the weirdos,they go about life thinking how and what a weirdo would do to a kid that’s sick ain’t it,?
I really don’t sense the first class passenger in this article was a pedophile, but they are definitely out there. About four years ago while I was traveling with my group of high school students on a university campus tour, a man from outside our student/staff group was sitting next to one of our travelers while we were at the gate waiting for our flight. Feigning interest in our group, he engaged conversation with one of my students, inappropriately touching her on her leg (it was summer, and she was wearing shorts). Immediately, another student pulled her away and came to notify me and another staffer. The man tried to go to another gate and blend in with other travelers. Turns out he wasn’t on our flight but another. He had come over to our gate, intentionally to sit next to the student. The police were called and they issued a citation for him to appear in court. I objected and felt more should’ve been done and became agitated. A cop stayed in the area to make sure I didn’t confront the guy as I had alluded in my heated encounter with one of the officers. Not blackening that guy’s eye is one of my biggest regrets. Then, he’d have to explain to others what had happened and how he had a court date in another city. Statements were given, the girl’s parents were given the responding officers’ cards and who to call to follow through with at the courthouse. Personal prejudice aside, it’s important to be vigilant.
Offering to switch seats sounds like something I’d do, i wouldn’t care how much i paid for the seat. But now.. after reading this and especially the comments, I’ll just hold off on the acts of kindness now.
The moral of this story is to never offer your seat. In fact, don’t give up your seat if someone begs for it. Tell them to foff.
Joe allen this is not the woke culture, it is the q culture who thinks that every man, democrat is a child molester. Type the words politicians and sex crimes and see who is there. Yes there are democrats but the sickest ones are the republicans who do things to their own daughters.
> Let’s discuss the English language. When I taught it, the male passenger would be referred to by the pronoun he not they. They is reserved for referring to more than one. Of course the same is true for the boy. He is referred to by the pronoun He.
English has always had a singular “they”. It’s typically used when the speaker doesn’t know if the person in question is male or female.
The problem is obvious: no one should American Airlines. Their service stinks, and they are surly to boot.
I dumped ’em in 2003 and never looked back.
Less than !% of all sex crimes against children are committed by a stranger, and yet the ‘Pedo’ hysteria continues to spread to the point than no one can even speak to a child anymore without being suspected of being a predator.
The old saying is true, ‘The lie will travel half-way around the world before the truth can get 10 feet.’
Don’t go near anyone else’s children for any reason, even to do good, or you might be the next on the predator suspect list.
The comments in thread are hilarious. I must say rhis is why people don’t help each other because of nonsense like this. A pedophile is a predator who will not call attention to themselves. If anything he would of tried to get the child alone. Plus even if the child took the seat, the adult would be in another section of the plane.
I did not detect pedophile from the man offering his seat, it’s obvious he did not know the child was traveling with someone and didn’t know the rules of engagement of how child travelers are monitored.
Clearly this was an overreaction from a flight attendant. End story. I used to travel every week for business and one time I had a strange reaction and story when I asked to give up my 1st class domestic seat for a soldier in uniform who was traveling in coach. The flight attendant refused to let me do that.
PHX gal outed herself as an extremely gullible narcissist.
How you were brought is instilled in one’s DNA. Just today, 3/3/22, PBI to BDL, I asked the lead FA to ask an elderly couple, (I’m 80), to swap their coach seats for my row 1D,( (aisle), with adjoining empty seats 1E, 1F, leaving them alone together.
Political correctness bolstered by WOKE awareness, need to consider a dab of old fashioned common sense, using values true to you.
There always were perps, and always will be.
May our society continue guarding our vulnerable. Overthinking every situation, immediately alerting authorities, in my view, is over the edge.