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.