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Directly from the article: "In one incident (scroll down to find it) a family traveling from Denver to Baltimore with two sons, aged 4 and 8, asked if a monito

Directly from the article: "In one incident (scroll down to find it) a family traveling from Denver to Baltimore with two sons, aged 4 and 8, asked if a monitor showing “Alex Cross,” which features some violent scenes, could be turned off or retracted, and was told no. They asked if the captain might be consulted. To do that, they were told, they’d have to wait until the plane landed. Then:" [Added in response to comments below] Critical reading lesson here, if you look at the quote from the article you will notice that it says "they were told, they’d have to wait until the plane landed." That is how you know they were asking to see the captain without it explicitly saying, "They demanded to see the captain." I think it is pretty obvious that the article is sensational and is lacking the information to fill in the gap on why they diverted and had this guy taken off the plane. His request over the movie is ridiculous but his request to see the captain or have the flight attendant talk to the captain about it is completely ridiculous. At the very least, he asked the flight attendant to have a conversation with the guy flying the plane about a movie being shown in the back of the plane. On what planet is that a reasonable request??? [also added] I shouldn't have made the critical reading quip, that was rude of me. That being said, we must assume that the author who wrote the article had the facts when he wrote it. If not, we can't rely on any piece of the article at all. At the very least, everyone can agree that the article does not have the full story. I hope we can also agree that it is likely sensationalized. We may not be able to agree that he asked to speak with the captain, but we should be able to agree that he did ask the flight attendant to speak with a pilot at the very least. Additionally, I hope we can all agree that asking the flight attendant to speak with the captain about a movie playing is an unreasonable request. Even more so, we can agree that diverting the plane for a person not getting up from their seat and not yelling or making threats is probably the wrong decision. One thing we don't know though, is whether he was up from his seat. If he was standing in the flight bridge asking to speak to the captain, that would make this situation much different than if he were sitting in his seat.

nknighthb 14y ago
Asking if someone can be consulted is not the same as asking to talk to them yourself.
anigbrowl 14y ago
That reads to me as 'can you go and ask the captain?' I think the complaint/request was unreasonable (tell your kids not to look at the screen), but not the mere request that the captain be the arbiter of the dispute.
incision 14y ago
1) What you're quoting "directly from the article" is paraphrasing what I posted - the source. 2) Asking if the "captain might be consulted" and "asking to speak to the captain" are not the same thing. The claim that they were "demanding to see the pilot" is something you apparently imagined. --- In response to the parent edit: >Critical reading lesson here, if you look at the quote from the article you will notice that it says "they were told, they’d have to wait until the plane landed." The fact that you're continuing to argue based on second/third hand language chosen by the writer of the article, against a direct quote from the source makes this "critical reading" quip particularly ironic.
vidarh 14y ago
> Critical reading lesson here, if you look at the quote from the article you will notice that it says "they were told, they’d have to wait until the plane landed." That is how you know they were asking to see the captain without it explicitly saying, "They demanded to see the captain." No, that is how you know they'd made a request that the flight attendant wasn't willing to answer. Whether that request is - as claimed in the article - for the captains name, or something else is not something we can know for sure, but the source does not provide any basis for your assumption that they asked to see the captain. It is fairly amusing that you start your edit with "Critical reading lesson here" and go on to jump to totally unsubstantiated conclusions. It is perfectly possible that this guy is lying through his teeth about the real reason, given that we only have one side of the store, but his reliability is a separate matter. > At the very least, he asked the flight attendant to have a conversation with the guy flying the plane about a movie being shown in the back of the plane. On what planet is that a reasonable request??? On any planet where his subordinates claim not to have authority to make decisions affecting passengers about what is going on elsewhere in the plane. Either the airline needs to delegate authority for matters like these, or they have to accept that customers will make requests for requests to be considered by the captain, whether or not the airline staff opts to ignore them In any case this fantasy of the pilots as someone who needs to spend every second concentrating on keeping you in the air is of recent origin and has no basis in reality. There's not long history of planes falling out of the air because the pilot had to spend a few moments answering questions relayed through a staff of trained professionals who surely do know when they should not interrupt. For that matter, on my first flight as a 10 year old I was brought to the cabin and got to talk to the pilot, and that was normal at the time (1985). The only reason it isn't these days is fear of the passengers, not fear that the pilot might be unable to keep the plane up. [edit: > Additionally, I hope we can all agree that asking the flight attendant to speak with the captain about a movie playing is an unreasonable request. No, we can't. As I described above, it is not unusual for the captain to deal with requests from the cabin crew, and if the airline does not believe the captain should deal with this type of request then they should delegate the responsibility to the purser. If nothing else this situation demonstrates that a cabin crew that is unable to make effective decisions on their own leads to undesirable situations that might very well have been avoided if authority had been properly delegated. Further, even if we were to agree that it would be unreasonable for the flight attendant or purser to actually forward the request to the captain, I would not agree that it would be unreasonable for a passenger to ask when faced with a purser that claims to not have authority to consider his grievance, as long as said passenger did not then escalate things if told that it was against airline policy. > Even more so, we can agree that diverting the plane for a person not getting up from their seat and not yelling or making threats is probably the wrong decision. That, and the rest of your edit, we can agree about.
kenjackson 14y ago
Additionally, I hope we can all agree that asking the flight attendant to speak with the captain about a movie playing is an unreasonable request. I don't think it's unreasonable at all. It takes all of a few seconds. You don't have much of an escalation path on a plane. And if they insist on showing something on the monitors you object to, I don't know where else one might go. I guess one could try to hack the TVs, but that seems less reasonable IMO.
MaysonL 14y ago
Note: most commercial flights, for most of their duration, are on autopilot.

nknighthb 14y ago

Asking if someone can be consulted is not the same as asking to talk to them yourself.

anigbrowl 14y ago

That reads to me as 'can you go and ask the captain?' I think the complaint/request was unreasonable (tell your kids not to look at the screen), but not the mere request that the captain be the arbiter of the dispute.

incision 14y ago

1) What you're quoting "directly from the article" is paraphrasing what I posted - the source. 2) Asking if the "captain might be consulted" and "asking to speak to the captain" are not the same thing. The claim that they were "demanding to see the pilot" is something you apparently imagined. --- In response to the parent edit: >Critical reading lesson here, if you look at the quote from the article you will notice that it says "they were told, they’d have to wait until the plane landed." The fact that you're continuing to argue based on second/third hand language chosen by the writer of the article, against a direct quote from the source makes this "critical reading" quip particularly ironic.

vidarh 14y ago

> Critical reading lesson here, if you look at the quote from the article you will notice that it says "they were told, they’d have to wait until the plane landed." That is how you know they were asking to see the captain without it explicitly saying, "They demanded to see the captain." No, that is how you know they'd made a request that the flight attendant wasn't willing to answer. Whether that request is - as claimed in the article - for the captains name, or something else is not something we can know for sure, but the source does not provide any basis for your assumption that they asked to see the captain. It is fairly amusing that you start your edit with "Critical reading lesson here" and go on to jump to totally unsubstantiated conclusions. It is perfectly possible that this guy is lying through his teeth about the real reason, given that we only have one side of the store, but his reliability is a separate matter. > At the very least, he asked the flight attendant to have a conversation with the guy flying the plane about a movie being shown in the back of the plane. On what planet is that a reasonable request??? On any planet where his subordinates claim not to have authority to make decisions affecting passengers about what is going on elsewhere in the plane. Either the airline needs to delegate authority for matters like these, or they have to accept that customers will make requests for requests to be considered by the captain, whether or not the airline staff opts to ignore them In any case this fantasy of the pilots as someone who needs to spend every second concentrating on keeping you in the air is of recent origin and has no basis in reality. There's not long history of planes falling out of the air because the pilot had to spend a few moments answering questions relayed through a staff of trained professionals who surely do know when they should not interrupt. For that matter, on my first flight as a 10 year old I was brought to the cabin and got to talk to the pilot, and that was normal at the time (1985). The only reason it isn't these days is fear of the passengers, not fear that the pilot might be unable to keep the plane up. [edit: > Additionally, I hope we can all agree that asking the flight attendant to speak with the captain about a movie playing is an unreasonable request. No, we can't. As I described above, it is not unusual for the captain to deal with requests from the cabin crew, and if the airline does not believe the captain should deal with this type of request then they should delegate the responsibility to the purser. If nothing else this situation demonstrates that a cabin crew that is unable to make effective decisions on their own leads to undesirable situations that might very well have been avoided if authority had been properly delegated. Further, even if we were to agree that it would be unreasonable for the flight attendant or purser to actually forward the request to the captain, I would not agree that it would be unreasonable for a passenger to ask when faced with a purser that claims to not have authority to consider his grievance, as long as said passenger did not then escalate things if told that it was against airline policy. > Even more so, we can agree that diverting the plane for a person not getting up from their seat and not yelling or making threats is probably the wrong decision. That, and the rest of your edit, we can agree about.

kenjackson 14y ago

Additionally, I hope we can all agree that asking the flight attendant to speak with the captain about a movie playing is an unreasonable request. I don't think it's unreasonable at all. It takes all of a few seconds. You don't have much of an escalation path on a plane. And if they insist on showing something on the monitors you object to, I don't know where else one might go. I guess one could try to hack the TVs, but that seems less reasonable IMO.

MaysonL 14y ago

Note: most commercial flights, for most of their duration, are on autopilot.