Thursday, January 18, 2007

Northwest Airlines: Unsafe?

On September 11, 2001 extremist Muslim jihadists hijacked four jet airliners and flew them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon buildings. Ever since, America has been less safe and flying on passenger airliners has been less safe. In response and to enhance safety, the airline industry enacted many new safeguards including an obligation to arrive at least 20 minutes before boarding to be permitted to board an aircraft.

Now Northwest Airlines has made flying Northwest less safe. Northwest Airlines has caved in to Muslim demands. After appropriately denying boarding to a group of Muslims who arrived late under airline rules, Northwest Airlines has now "apologized" and offered compensation. Why? Because CAIR protested.

What message does that send to Northwest Airlines employees who enforce the rules?

What message does that send to Northwest Airlines passengers who follow the rules?

Without Northwest Airlines caving in to this kind of mild pressure, will Northwest employees be reluctant to deny boarding to suspicious Muslim characters in the future?

Debbie Schlussel has revealed the name of the individual responsible for the cave-in: Andrea Fischer-Newman, Vice President of Government Relations for Northwest Airlines. We all have Ms. Fischer-Newman to thank for making Northwest airlines less safe.

As long as Ms. Fischer-Newman is on board at Northwest, I will not be.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Can I respectfully ask why you believe the Muslims were late when they arrived 90 minutes prior to departure? They were asked to step aside while passengers who arrived after the group of Muslims had no problem boarding.

You researched the story before writing your piece, correct?

Avalon

Conservatarian said...

According to the news reports:

Northwest spokesman Roman Blahoski said Monday that the passengers were denied boarding because they arrived for the flight just 20 minutes before departure, a violation of airline and governmental regulations.

"These passengers did not meet the standard check-in deadline of 60 minutes or onboard deadline of 20 minutes," he said. "It's nothing beyond that."

see: http://www.wzzm13.com/news/local/grmetro_article.aspx?storyid=68602
20 minutes before departure is not 90 minutes before departure.

Anonymous said...

David:

Your post is from Tuesday (1/16). Let me bring you up to date on the facts. From yesterday's(1/18) Seattle Times:

"Andrea Newman, senior vice president for government relations for Northwest Airlines Corp., said Wednesday barring the pilgrims should not have happened. She said the Jan. 7 incident resulted from a series of mistakes involving a German travel agency, the baggage handlers for the previous chartered flight from Saudi Arabia and misleading information on a printed ticket that the passengers had received, The Detroit News reported Wednesday on its Web site.

Northwest originally said the pilgrims arrived only 20 minutes before the flight was scheduled to depart, which is outside airline and international rules regarding overseas flights. The pilgrims held a news conference Tuesday in Dearborn where they refuted the airline's claim, saying they had arrived at least 90 minutes before departure — well within the regulations."

Blahoski misspoke. The airline did not stand behind him. The Muslims were not late. Why were some able to get on the plane if they were late? There have been other stories written about this, all confirming the same thing. Please don't rely on Debbie Schussel for facts.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/travel/2003530563_webmuslimfly18.html


Respectfully,
Avalon

Conservatarian said...

I remain skeptical. The opposing news conference was a denial, not a refutation. A refutation would involve actual evidence.

One word: taqqya.

Gender Silliness