Why not? What's wrong with respecting someone's culture? I would
think you'd want to do that as a matter of common courtesy.

Not really. Most people in the West come from cultures where there are many
religions and ethnic groups, you cannot accomodate them all, so when you're
in public you have to give up the practise of some of your customs. For
example, it's a Sikh custom to carry a dagger but they are prohibited from
doing so on public transportation.

In fact, I have very little doubt if these people had been African
bushmen, or Polynesian natives, or something like that then
arrangements would have been made and everyone would have gone on with
their lives without any news articles being written.

I assume that these girls were traveling first class where there are limited
seats so it may have been impossible to accomodate them. There's a limit to
what can be accomodated.



The fact is, they were Muslim and so people weren't willing to give
them the time of day. Prejudice caused the conflict, not seating
arrangements. If it had been a group of little old nuns wanting some
seating arrangement rather than a group of wealthy Islamic people, do
you think anybody would have refused? I seriously doubt it.

You're wrong. If accomodating the nuns caused too much inconvenience for the
other passengers they would not be accomodated but told to try the next
flight.



On most flights passengers are packed like sardines, and it's next to
impossible to grant requests of the type made by the Arab princesses.

If these Arab prima donnas are so holy that they can't sit next to men
they don't know, then they should stick to traveling by camel.
Although, who knows, it may be against their religion to sit on a male
camel.


The nice thing with bigotry is that it pretty much always shows its
face eventually. It may try to hide behind legitmacy, but eventually
it comes out as what it really is.

"According to the customs of Qatar and other Gulf states, women are
not allowed to mix with men who are not relatives.

Cabin crew tried to rearrange the seats but passengers traveling
together refused to give up their allotted places. The captain tried
to mediate but after more than two and a half hours of wrangling he
ordered the bulk of their royal party off the plane."

Good decision.


The funny thing to me is how they won't sit single men next to
children as airline policy.

That's wrong and men should sue them for defamation. However, children
should be accompanied by guardians or should be seated up front with the
disabled near the flight attendants where they can be watched.


But when a Muslim asks for the same
thing, suddenly all those things about special treatment for a
ridiculous reason, and about inconveniencing people, etc all reappear
again. Where were those concerns when you were humiliating some poor
sod in front of the entire flight by rearranging seating and treating
him like a child molester?

He should sue.


I guess you get to pick and choose when a
person is innocent until proven guilty and when he isn't.

Quote from the Daily Mail

I applaud the passengers for refusing to give up their seats; the
filthy rich Muslim women can afford to charter their own jet.

I'm glad the captain kicked the Muslim women to the curb, but I'm
disappointed he wasted almost three hours arguing with them.

and that would be more prejudice -- just have to stick that "Muslim"
in there, don't you? They aren't people, right? They're Muslims. We
don't have to treat them with decency or respect.

The airline rules and the Captain's judgement trump any consideration of
these girls. If they were so concerned they should have made arrangements
beforehand and not disrupted a flight and had passengers stranded in a hot
plane for 3 hours. If Iwere a passenger I would have filed a lawsuit against
the airline and these "Princesses" )