Yes, it's unfortunate that the flight attendant lied in this situation.
However, it would have been impossible for the pilot to verify this - even if the author showed him the camera. Since the author was willing to 'prove' it, it had to be a digital camera - which the author could have very easily used the built-in delete function to remove all photos but one (or be a sneaky terrorist and swap SD cards).
In addition, the author made the statement "I am not a terrorist." There's no way for flight crew to know this to be true until the plane lands at its destination and you provably haven't blown it up, killed people on-board, or hijacked and redirected it to another location. There is absolutely zero value in making a declaration like that.
... In fact, I'd say there's negative value in making that statement. In a security conscious environment like an enclosed aircraft, it immediately escalates a situation from "photo-happy tourist or possible bad guy" to "higher probability bad guy or maybe making a political statement ... or just not very smart". It's also a (very small) step in the direction of yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater as you've potentially now caused (possibly over-sensitive) people hearing this statement to begin to have concerns about you and their flight. You've turned what should have been an uneventful flight into a situation where tension can only increase before you've even left the ground.
When you add all of this up, especially when a flight is trying to get out of the gate on time, the pilot is going to err on the side of caution and kick you off the plane.
You'll either blow up in a rage of righteous fury (thus proving to all that you should never have been on that plane) or you'll leave quietly, a one-time mistake, and board another flight (hopefully with much less bother to the next crew considering how much time you just wasted).
You were not kicked off for taking pictures. You were kicked off for acting odd.
Much dissonance in this discussion originates from equating the blogger's situation with the general traveller's. Making a scene increases his blog's visibility and has a decent chance of resulting in corrective action. For him, this may outweigh being late for Baku.
As Francis Fukuyama notes, "unlike money, which can simply be divided, dignity is something inherently uncompromisable: either you recognize my dignity, or the dignity of that which I hold sacred, or you do not" [1]. Trading immaterial dignity for getting to one's destination on time makes sense for most travellers.
That is, unless you are trying to make a statement. Fukuyama continues: "for democracy to work, however, citizens of democratic states must...develop a certain irrational thymotic pride in their political system and a way of life." If everyone optimised for their personal utility the aggregate situation would degrade.
There is a fine line between a prima donna and an activist. It is largely a function of the popular support for one's statement and the probability of it resulting in corrective behaviour.
Except, as others have pointed out, it wasn't odd at all. It's actually an idiom and an absolutely common response in a photographic context. http://goo.gl/CnV1s
Moreover, it was probably just so incredulous to the blogger that there would be any chance at all that anyone would imagine he'd be a terrorist because he was taking pictures of the little monitor in the seat in front of him that it didn't even cross his mind that it could possibly be taken in that context.
(slight tangent)
Reminds me of this one time I mentioned nirvana in a school essay (not even the band, the actual word itself) and the teacher reported me to a counselor as a possible suicide threat in reference to Kurt Cobain. I didn't even know who Kurt Cobain was. This was in like 9th grade. WTF?
Wow, so people seriously thing that saying "I am not a terrorist" is reason enough to kick someone out of a plane?
I honestly will never understand how a one-time attack carried out a decade ago could throw the American society off its rocker so much.
In my country (Spain) apart from an Islamic terrorism attack we have had local terrorists (ETA) killing people almost every year from the 60's to 2011, and there just aren't such taboos and irrational fear in our society.
NB: I'm not one of those Europeans who bash on Americans, I admire the American society in many aspects... but this one I just can't understand. Ánd I could expect to see this kind of thought among uneducated people, but in HN? Oh wow.
The only reason people are talking about terroist and airplanes is because the airport continue to remind people of it each and every minute on the speakers.
If someone say "don't think of the red elephant", its not odd for people to say "what red elephant?". That's normal behavior. In same way, if you stop someone at the airport, the first thought people will think is "I am not a terrorist!".
You right however that saying "I am not a terrorist" is a bad strategic thing in a discussion. It anchoring you to something bad in people mind. It would be better to say "I am not the president of the air line, but I am a VIP priority customer for united", thus anchoring "the president of the air line" and "VIP priority customer" to peoples mind.
They could easily verify him. He "accrued nearly 950,000 lifetime flight miles with United" and had been upgraded to business class. You normally don't kick customers out because they take pictures of the seats, this is BS, staff could invent lots of ways to ease this situation if they wanted to, but post 9/11 defacto standard for flight personnel is they can do this kind of silly things and get away with it in the name of security.
>When you add all of this up, especially when a flight is trying to get out of the gate on time, the pilot is going to err on the side of caution and kick you off the plane.
That makes no sense to me because they off load the baggage from the hold of passengers who are not actually on the plane. A security measure that actually makes sense.
You were not kicked off for taking pictures. You were kicked off for acting odd.
Exactly. It's a long-haul flight, you might have a grudge against the flight attendant, you've already behaved slightly oddly - thinking it appropriate to say "I hope you didn't think I was a terrorist" is odd - and there are so many ways the flight could become a nightmare for all concerned, all thanks to you remaining on the plane.
Maybe the captain could have handled things better. At the same time, the author went off the plane calmly and without making a scene. The author's disappointment aside, it sounds like a success to me.
Yeah, saying "I'm not a terrorist" is kind of a line I'd expect to hear to in a tv show or something. Do you tell the cop "Don't worry, I'm not a kidnapper"?
"You were not kicked off for taking pictures. You were kicked off for acting odd."
I agree - you can come a long way by just saying "My apologies, I dit not know that", give a short smile and look another way. Inside you might mean something different, and you can silently ponder on what a jerk the opposite person is.. but you need to let the opposite person feel that he/she is in control - especially it it's their job to stay in control.
He oddly took a picture of his seat, as he'd oddly done numerous times before. He oddly got embarrassed by being singled out for oddly not knowing that an oddly common benign act is now regarded as odd. He oddly felt the need to clear the air. When punished for acting oddly human, he oddly pointed out that he oddly felt that he had been maligned.
The risk avoided is ... that the FA feels annoyed while serving this guy who talked back?
It sounds like the captain also made no attempt to evaluate whether the passenger was actually crazy (making eye contact would be a start). Seems like captain is earning points w/ the FA - "you don't like the guy? I'll throw him off".
>However, it would have been impossible for the pilot to verify this
The OP could have added the guy behind him who also took photos into the conversation. But I agree, the pilot was right to take him off the plane without any further information.
Never ever directly accuse someone of lying. Mostly because it's usually a communication problem where they said it unclear and your heard it wrong. Also because you should always give someone a way out without losing too much face.
I would have said something like: Sorry if I gave the impression of not cooperating, but I can assure you I did not and will not take any more pictures this flight. It would mean a lot to me if I could stay on the plane.
Not that it's an excuse for what they did but why the hell would you suddenly spout "I am not a terrorist" when no-one has even implied as such. Yeah that's helpful to calming strangers in any situation, just suddenly say that without any reason.
"Naturally, the FA's warning bothered me and I felt the need
to explain myself."
Why? The only appropriate response to being informed that you are not permitted to take pictures in a non-public space is "I understand" or simply "Okay". No explanation is necessary as it won't change the rule that the flight attendant is likely obligated to enforce. However, the author feels compelled to justify himself rather than just let it be by saying:
"I want you to understand why I was taking pictures. I hope you
didn't think I was a terrorist. Here is my business card
[offering her one]. I write about United Airlines on an
almost-daily basis and the folks at United in Chicago are even
aware of my blog."
This is quite ambiguous. The flight attendant is probably thinking "Oh great, here's some critic who is going to scrutinize and complain about everything I do and then write about it publicly. If he's so notorious that the guys in Chicago are aware of him, he must be bad news. Is he telling me this to try and con me into letting him take more pictures? Some disgruntled self-important writer is the last thing I need...". Imagine how the response might have been different had he said:
"Sorry about taking that picture. I just want to say that I love
United and everything you guys do. I'm really excited about being
in BusinessFirst class on this new aircraft and wanted to capture
the moment. Thanks for letting me know about the photography
restriction, though. I respect that and won't take another
picture."
But again, that whole exchange should never have happened. Then later, this gem of a sentence:
"Me: That's a lie, captain."
Ouch. Now the only way to get your way is for both the captain and the flight attendant to lose face and admit that, yes, it was a lie. What was he expecting? That the captain brings the flight attendant over and asks her "Did you lie?" where she responds "Yes, Captain, I lied about this passenger taking additional pictures because I was afraid that he might write about a negative experience with me." I could go on with how the conversation with the captain should have gone, using face-saving phrases like "she may have been mistaken" and such, but at that point the battle was long since lost.
None of this excuses the flight attendant's alleged retaliatory action. However, having the situation escalate to that point could easily have been avoided.
No other comments in this thread make this point, so I'll bring it up. While the passenger should not have been booted off, he was absolutely in the wrong but only based on what he told the crew.
It says photography is strictly prohibited of aircraft equipment, and if not of aircraft equipment, prohibited unless of "personal events".
His explanation:
"I want you to understand why I was taking pictures. I hope you didn't think I was a terrorist. Here is my business card [offering her one]. I write about United Airlines on an almost-daily basis and the folks at United in Chicago are even aware of my blog."
This falls outside of personal use. This is professional use, and therefore absolutely outside of the personal events category. Taking pictures under his business card and related to his blog is strictly prohibited, and his arguing means he was arguing with the rules that were shown to him by the FA before he began arguing.
Aside from being absolutely in violation of the rules, perhaps this had nothing to do with "I am not a terrorist"; perhaps the FA and captain were disinterested in having their entire route evaluated and blogged about.
No idea what United will say in response. And frankly, I am shocked to be siding with United. But in this case, they handed him a printed rule, and he chose to explain himself in a way that put him in violation of it, and took himself out of the regular passenger category.
In their shoes, I'd point out that by his own explanation, he was wilfully breaking the rules.
How could someone who had flown 950,000 miles on United, blogging about it the whole time, be totally unaware of this rule? There are two explanations.
1) He knew about the rule and decided to flaunt it anyway.
2) He did not know about the rule because it is so rarely enforced as to be invisible.
Personally speaking, #2 sounds more likely to me. I take photos onboard most times I fly, and not once have I been asked to stop, even on United flights. I've never heard of any friends or family being asked to stop. I've never even read about this on a blog before, and lots of people blog about flying and travelling.
In short, whether or not he was in technical violation of the rule, it's ridiculous to hold someone strictly to a standard that is never enforced with any regularity.
There's a difference between doing the wrong thing right, and doing the right thing. If people wouldn't forget that rules should be encoded for their own benefit instead of being dictated by some people above as some holy scripture we wouldn't have TSA and all this airport security nonsense to talk about.
Captain: I don't have any, but United will have no trouble finding me. My name is...[removed].
Why do victims protect their aggressors in this way? The captain made a wrongheaded decision, and he should at the very least have his name attached to it.
> Why do victims protect their aggressors in this way?
Legal liability. The author could be sued for defamation of character if any of the details are wrong, or in the case that a truthful account emphasizes negatives over positives, something called "false light". Some readers may find this hard to believe, but it's true:
I really resent the way you used "victim" and "aggressor" there. Really quite manipulative.
As the article its self said, from the captain's perspective he was likely always going to believe a FA over a pax, in particular if the FA claimed the pax wasn't being cooperative.
Now if the quotes were accurate I think the captain was quite rude, but we really don't know what the FA said to the captain, maybe he got the impression the guy was being a massive ass.
But regardless, the author was very professional for not releasing the name. It adds nothing to the story. It would just be petty revenge.
I wouldn't say the captain is an "aggressor". He made a bad decision, probably due to incomplete or wrong information he was given. So this is not entirely his fault, he shouldn't take 100% of the blame, and he deserves to have his name hidden.
Because if it did not happen exactly the way the OP wrote it - and he has the ability to prove it, he might get himself in real trouble that way.
I do not know the US law in that case, but in Germany, the captain then could go to court on terms of "wrong accusation" and the OP would have to prove his accusations.
The Captain is always right, that's why. There are no customers on an airplane: only weight. They're not customers again until they're walking up the gangway ..
Flying has become such a hassle these days. I often just keep my mouth shut when going through security just for the sake of getting through quicker. I feel like if I asked for a pat down as opposed to just walking through the body scan, I would position myself into a potentially troublesome situation. In a way, I do feel like I am being suppressed these days.
Naturally, the FA's warning bothered me and I felt the need to explain myself. I signaled for her to come back and asked her to hang my coat.
What's with the need to exercise control over another human being like that? Hang up your own coat. The fact that he feels entitled to such service says something about him. People that bark orders at flight attendants probably feel that are part of some untouchable/infallible class of citizen. It makes me suspect his retelling of the facts has been greatly marred by his feelings of superiority in the situation.
This is completely unacceptable. You don't take people of a plane for taking pictures - they are no thread to everyone and certainly paid for their ticket. I am flying with United Airlines in March, I hope for a better experience - but after reading this, it might be my last flight with them, ever.
Sorry, what I do not get is, that this person describes something, he claims clearly troubled him. He was wronged (by his account) by UA. He even had to buy a new ticket on his own account to have a connection-flight.
So what I do not get is, why is he not holding UA responsible for the lost money, lost time and his trouble. Is he such a big fanboy, that he does not want to cost his big love some (by his account) well deserved money?
Or might it just be, that there are some other aspects to his story, not told in the written blog post? His tone of voice, while talking to the FA? Was he calm, might he come about as being aggressive? What was his body language? Might she have felt threatened.
Maybe he is right in his point of view - but maybe - and just maybe, he acted from a position of blogger-power, taking his blogger-influence for granted and letting this show.
I know, that this is just me speculating, but I haven't been there and did not hear anything from the other side of the story. But reading the comments here and in the blog, UA is guilty until proven innocent, or so it seems.
Why did they throw him off then put him on another flight? I mean either he was a danger (= should be thrown off original flight, but should not be allowed to endanger other flights either), or he wasn't a danger (= could fly on the original flight).
Possibly, the original Flight Attendant said something to the Captain. Pretty much everything that happens on or around an airliner is at the Captains discretion. The decisions can be questioned and challenged by the airline supervisors, the FAA etc. and the Captain can be relieved of duty by the airline, but its Captains prerogative to remove someone off their aircraft.
The other factor involved is CRM, Crew Resource Management. The days were the crew passively follow the Captains decisions are over, and for good reason. Captains are trained to listen to their First Officer and FA, and actively respond to questions.
This means its quite possible that the Captain didn't want his flight delayed, or cause unnecessarily tension on the flight with his FA, and so took the easy (but highly questionable) option to simply remove him from the flight.
Note: This should not be interpreted as taking the airlines side, just explaining my thoughts on the factors involved.
They never used danger as a reason. The captain can kick anyone off the plane for any reason or no reason. He chose to and will accept whatever the consequences are. (But remember: it's a union job, so there aren't going to be consequences.)
I estimate the author will get 50,000 frequent flyer miles and an apology. Seems to be the standard procedure when the central office wants to make up for poor customer service on the line.
Two issues:
1. 'Terrorist' seems to be a keyword that will get you into a lot of trouble if uttered in the vicinity of an airport.
2. Why not provide evidence of the truth there and then? Show your camera photo roll containing the one photo, and then you have a solid case. Otherwise, we have to consider that perhaps more than one photo was taken, it is a "your word" against "their word" scenario.
Something similar happened a couple years ago involving photos being taken of employees.[1][2] What struck me as different this time was that neither the FA nor the GS Rep attempted to take the camera away or have the pictures deleted. If this was a security issue, it makes sense that they wouldn't just let him walk off the plane with the photo(s).
It's possible that his saying "terrorist" was part of it, or maybe UA has a very strict no-photos policy, or maybe there's something else we don't know (and I think this is probably the case,) but this still seems pretty absurd.
Tips for air travel:
1. Don't bring up terrorism or bombs.
2. If a disagreement with anyone arises and is settled, don't bring it up again.
3. Be polite and humble, particularly whilst on the actual plane.
4. Do not accuse anyone of lying. It's confrontational and leads to conflict. Instead assume miscommunication, apologize & clarify.
5. Don't accuse anyone of threatening you. It's confrontational and leads to conflict. Instead assume miscommunication, apologize & clarify.
Hi, upgrd.com is my site. I always wondered what would happen if a story was picked up on HN. Now I know! There's some interesting comments from other passengers, on the same flight, about the behavior of the flight attendant.
Regardless of your view on Matthew's story - has the site been working well for everyone? Is my little FreeBSD VPS (with photos on cloudfront) setup performing well? I can see the stats from my side, just wondering how it loaded for you. Thanks!
Why didn't he simply show the captain the photos that were on his iPhone? That would have verified that he only took one photo, and it violated no one's privacy.
Actually showing the photos would have been a stronger argument than saying "That is a lie." Also, he could have volunteered to delete the one photo that he took.
Someone in the comments suggested that this is a "he said, she said" situation. Not really, because there was a camera involved. The camera is the authority on the subject of whether he took photos that he should not have taken.
I recently was at the Port Authority, in New York City. I was amazed at how busy it was at rush hour, so I pulled out my iPhone and took some pictures. I did not realize this was forbidden. A policeman approached me immediately and asked me what I was doing. I showed him the photos I had just taken and I explained I wanted to send them to some friends who had never visited New York. He suggested that I delete the photos but he walked away without making me do anything, so I was able to keep the photos.
Not in the same league, but I've been escorted out of a train station of taking a photo of a piece of signage too. The electronic sign in question had condensed a station name to something mildly profane, which I considered amusing enough to take a photo of.
The justification given that I could have been planning a terrorist attack, so it was regarded as suspicious behaviour.
Well, as I see it, the guy wanted to wave the fact that he is a "semi-famous writer on the subject of air travel" for whatever reason. Apparently, the captain didn't like this attitude, which does not excuse him for kicking the guy out, but I can see why he might have done it.
[+] [-] pudquick|13 years ago|reply
However, it would have been impossible for the pilot to verify this - even if the author showed him the camera. Since the author was willing to 'prove' it, it had to be a digital camera - which the author could have very easily used the built-in delete function to remove all photos but one (or be a sneaky terrorist and swap SD cards).
In addition, the author made the statement "I am not a terrorist." There's no way for flight crew to know this to be true until the plane lands at its destination and you provably haven't blown it up, killed people on-board, or hijacked and redirected it to another location. There is absolutely zero value in making a declaration like that.
... In fact, I'd say there's negative value in making that statement. In a security conscious environment like an enclosed aircraft, it immediately escalates a situation from "photo-happy tourist or possible bad guy" to "higher probability bad guy or maybe making a political statement ... or just not very smart". It's also a (very small) step in the direction of yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater as you've potentially now caused (possibly over-sensitive) people hearing this statement to begin to have concerns about you and their flight. You've turned what should have been an uneventful flight into a situation where tension can only increase before you've even left the ground.
When you add all of this up, especially when a flight is trying to get out of the gate on time, the pilot is going to err on the side of caution and kick you off the plane.
You'll either blow up in a rage of righteous fury (thus proving to all that you should never have been on that plane) or you'll leave quietly, a one-time mistake, and board another flight (hopefully with much less bother to the next crew considering how much time you just wasted).
You were not kicked off for taking pictures. You were kicked off for acting odd.
[+] [-] rurounijones|13 years ago|reply
Not even odd, slightly odd which is now apparently grounds for getting kicked off an airliner.
The terrorists have won a great victory if acting slightly odd is enough to terrify an airline company into kicking a passenger off a plane.
[+] [-] JumpCrisscross|13 years ago|reply
As Francis Fukuyama notes, "unlike money, which can simply be divided, dignity is something inherently uncompromisable: either you recognize my dignity, or the dignity of that which I hold sacred, or you do not" [1]. Trading immaterial dignity for getting to one's destination on time makes sense for most travellers.
That is, unless you are trying to make a statement. Fukuyama continues: "for democracy to work, however, citizens of democratic states must...develop a certain irrational thymotic pride in their political system and a way of life." If everyone optimised for their personal utility the aggregate situation would degrade.
There is a fine line between a prima donna and an activist. It is largely a function of the popular support for one's statement and the probability of it resulting in corrective behaviour.
[1] http://www.amazon.com/End-History-Last-Man-ebook/dp/B003DYGO...
[+] [-] intenex|13 years ago|reply
Moreover, it was probably just so incredulous to the blogger that there would be any chance at all that anyone would imagine he'd be a terrorist because he was taking pictures of the little monitor in the seat in front of him that it didn't even cross his mind that it could possibly be taken in that context.
(slight tangent) Reminds me of this one time I mentioned nirvana in a school essay (not even the band, the actual word itself) and the teacher reported me to a counselor as a possible suicide threat in reference to Kurt Cobain. I didn't even know who Kurt Cobain was. This was in like 9th grade. WTF?
[+] [-] Al-Khwarizmi|13 years ago|reply
I honestly will never understand how a one-time attack carried out a decade ago could throw the American society off its rocker so much.
In my country (Spain) apart from an Islamic terrorism attack we have had local terrorists (ETA) killing people almost every year from the 60's to 2011, and there just aren't such taboos and irrational fear in our society.
NB: I'm not one of those Europeans who bash on Americans, I admire the American society in many aspects... but this one I just can't understand. Ánd I could expect to see this kind of thought among uneducated people, but in HN? Oh wow.
[+] [-] belorn|13 years ago|reply
If someone say "don't think of the red elephant", its not odd for people to say "what red elephant?". That's normal behavior. In same way, if you stop someone at the airport, the first thought people will think is "I am not a terrorist!".
You right however that saying "I am not a terrorist" is a bad strategic thing in a discussion. It anchoring you to something bad in people mind. It would be better to say "I am not the president of the air line, but I am a VIP priority customer for united", thus anchoring "the president of the air line" and "VIP priority customer" to peoples mind.
[+] [-] gokhan|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] beedogs|13 years ago|reply
...which is still a fucking terrible reason.
[+] [-] maurits|13 years ago|reply
That makes no sense to me because they off load the baggage from the hold of passengers who are not actually on the plane. A security measure that actually makes sense.
[+] [-] mootothemax|13 years ago|reply
Exactly. It's a long-haul flight, you might have a grudge against the flight attendant, you've already behaved slightly oddly - thinking it appropriate to say "I hope you didn't think I was a terrorist" is odd - and there are so many ways the flight could become a nightmare for all concerned, all thanks to you remaining on the plane.
Maybe the captain could have handled things better. At the same time, the author went off the plane calmly and without making a scene. The author's disappointment aside, it sounds like a success to me.
[+] [-] batgaijin|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mcantelon|13 years ago|reply
Basically, one has to be mindful not to use words that will cause people too stupid to parse the context in which they were used to be anxious.
[+] [-] larsmak|13 years ago|reply
I agree - you can come a long way by just saying "My apologies, I dit not know that", give a short smile and look another way. Inside you might mean something different, and you can silently ponder on what a jerk the opposite person is.. but you need to let the opposite person feel that he/she is in control - especially it it's their job to stay in control.
[+] [-] specialist|13 years ago|reply
He oddly took a picture of his seat, as he'd oddly done numerous times before. He oddly got embarrassed by being singled out for oddly not knowing that an oddly common benign act is now regarded as odd. He oddly felt the need to clear the air. When punished for acting oddly human, he oddly pointed out that he oddly felt that he had been maligned.
Yes, travel blogger was acting quite odd.
[+] [-] jongraehl|13 years ago|reply
The risk avoided is ... that the FA feels annoyed while serving this guy who talked back?
It sounds like the captain also made no attempt to evaluate whether the passenger was actually crazy (making eye contact would be a start). Seems like captain is earning points w/ the FA - "you don't like the guy? I'll throw him off".
[+] [-] andrewfelix|13 years ago|reply
There was a very simple solution to this situation; Suck it up, swallow your pride and apologise, whether you were in the wrong or not.
If he had been humble about it, he very likely would have been able to stay on the flight.
[+] [-] blablabla123|13 years ago|reply
The OP could have added the guy behind him who also took photos into the conversation. But I agree, the pilot was right to take him off the plane without any further information.
[+] [-] tripzilch|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DoubleCluster|13 years ago|reply
I would have said something like: Sorry if I gave the impression of not cooperating, but I can assure you I did not and will not take any more pictures this flight. It would mean a lot to me if I could stay on the plane.
[+] [-] ck2|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] biot|13 years ago|reply
None of this excuses the flight attendant's alleged retaliatory action. However, having the situation escalate to that point could easily have been avoided.
[+] [-] Terretta|13 years ago|reply
Here is the photo policy:
http://cdn-img1.upgrd.com/featured/united-photo-limits.png
It says photography is strictly prohibited of aircraft equipment, and if not of aircraft equipment, prohibited unless of "personal events".
His explanation:
"I want you to understand why I was taking pictures. I hope you didn't think I was a terrorist. Here is my business card [offering her one]. I write about United Airlines on an almost-daily basis and the folks at United in Chicago are even aware of my blog."
This falls outside of personal use. This is professional use, and therefore absolutely outside of the personal events category. Taking pictures under his business card and related to his blog is strictly prohibited, and his arguing means he was arguing with the rules that were shown to him by the FA before he began arguing.
Aside from being absolutely in violation of the rules, perhaps this had nothing to do with "I am not a terrorist"; perhaps the FA and captain were disinterested in having their entire route evaluated and blogged about.
No idea what United will say in response. And frankly, I am shocked to be siding with United. But in this case, they handed him a printed rule, and he chose to explain himself in a way that put him in violation of it, and took himself out of the regular passenger category.
In their shoes, I'd point out that by his own explanation, he was wilfully breaking the rules.
[+] [-] Anechoic|13 years ago|reply
He took one picture when he was unaware of the rule. Once informed of the rule, he immediately stopped. How is that "willfuly breaking the rules"?
[+] [-] snowwrestler|13 years ago|reply
1) He knew about the rule and decided to flaunt it anyway.
2) He did not know about the rule because it is so rarely enforced as to be invisible.
Personally speaking, #2 sounds more likely to me. I take photos onboard most times I fly, and not once have I been asked to stop, even on United flights. I've never heard of any friends or family being asked to stop. I've never even read about this on a blog before, and lots of people blog about flying and travelling.
In short, whether or not he was in technical violation of the rule, it's ridiculous to hold someone strictly to a standard that is never enforced with any regularity.
[+] [-] 4ad|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] swah|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jemfinch|13 years ago|reply
Why do victims protect their aggressors in this way? The captain made a wrongheaded decision, and he should at the very least have his name attached to it.
[+] [-] lutusp|13 years ago|reply
Legal liability. The author could be sued for defamation of character if any of the details are wrong, or in the case that a truthful account emphasizes negatives over positives, something called "false light". Some readers may find this hard to believe, but it's true:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_light
[+] [-] UnoriginalGuy|13 years ago|reply
As the article its self said, from the captain's perspective he was likely always going to believe a FA over a pax, in particular if the FA claimed the pax wasn't being cooperative.
Now if the quotes were accurate I think the captain was quite rude, but we really don't know what the FA said to the captain, maybe he got the impression the guy was being a massive ass.
But regardless, the author was very professional for not releasing the name. It adds nothing to the story. It would just be petty revenge.
[+] [-] flexie|13 years ago|reply
Kudos to the blogger for not exposing these people to internet anger.
[+] [-] adorable|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sdoering|13 years ago|reply
I do not know the US law in that case, but in Germany, the captain then could go to court on terms of "wrong accusation" and the OP would have to prove his accusations.
[+] [-] primitur|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dmak|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hermannj314|13 years ago|reply
What's with the need to exercise control over another human being like that? Hang up your own coat. The fact that he feels entitled to such service says something about him. People that bark orders at flight attendants probably feel that are part of some untouchable/infallible class of citizen. It makes me suspect his retelling of the facts has been greatly marred by his feelings of superiority in the situation.
[+] [-] oellegaard|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] raverbashing|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] droithomme|13 years ago|reply
No wonder things are the way they are - the general public supports it.
[+] [-] sdoering|13 years ago|reply
So what I do not get is, why is he not holding UA responsible for the lost money, lost time and his trouble. Is he such a big fanboy, that he does not want to cost his big love some (by his account) well deserved money?
Or might it just be, that there are some other aspects to his story, not told in the written blog post? His tone of voice, while talking to the FA? Was he calm, might he come about as being aggressive? What was his body language? Might she have felt threatened.
Maybe he is right in his point of view - but maybe - and just maybe, he acted from a position of blogger-power, taking his blogger-influence for granted and letting this show.
I know, that this is just me speculating, but I haven't been there and did not hear anything from the other side of the story. But reading the comments here and in the blog, UA is guilty until proven innocent, or so it seems.
[+] [-] adrianmsmith|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] neurotech1|13 years ago|reply
The other factor involved is CRM, Crew Resource Management. The days were the crew passively follow the Captains decisions are over, and for good reason. Captains are trained to listen to their First Officer and FA, and actively respond to questions.
This means its quite possible that the Captain didn't want his flight delayed, or cause unnecessarily tension on the flight with his FA, and so took the easy (but highly questionable) option to simply remove him from the flight.
Note: This should not be interpreted as taking the airlines side, just explaining my thoughts on the factors involved.
[+] [-] jrockway|13 years ago|reply
I estimate the author will get 50,000 frequent flyer miles and an apology. Seems to be the standard procedure when the central office wants to make up for poor customer service on the line.
[+] [-] 10dpd|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] PavlovsCat|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Mithrandir|13 years ago|reply
It's possible that his saying "terrorist" was part of it, or maybe UA has a very strict no-photos policy, or maybe there's something else we don't know (and I think this is probably the case,) but this still seems pretty absurd.
1: http://consumerist.com/2011/07/28/united-says-photographing-...
2: http://consumerist.com/2011/04/25/allegations-of-photography...
[+] [-] jfoster|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mcargian|13 years ago|reply
Regardless of your view on Matthew's story - has the site been working well for everyone? Is my little FreeBSD VPS (with photos on cloudfront) setup performing well? I can see the stats from my side, just wondering how it loaded for you. Thanks!
[+] [-] lkrubner|13 years ago|reply
Actually showing the photos would have been a stronger argument than saying "That is a lie." Also, he could have volunteered to delete the one photo that he took.
Someone in the comments suggested that this is a "he said, she said" situation. Not really, because there was a camera involved. The camera is the authority on the subject of whether he took photos that he should not have taken.
I recently was at the Port Authority, in New York City. I was amazed at how busy it was at rush hour, so I pulled out my iPhone and took some pictures. I did not realize this was forbidden. A policeman approached me immediately and asked me what I was doing. I showed him the photos I had just taken and I explained I wanted to send them to some friends who had never visited New York. He suggested that I delete the photos but he walked away without making me do anything, so I was able to keep the photos.
[+] [-] nwh|13 years ago|reply
The justification given that I could have been planning a terrorist attack, so it was regarded as suspicious behaviour.
[+] [-] znowi|13 years ago|reply