So if a white person sits there going “Oh my God, oh my God” and rocking back and forth, would you say that was sufficient reason to kick them off too? Because I sat next to a nervous traveller who did just that.

Who is to say this chap wasn’t doing exactly the same?

Christian suicidal bombers and terrorists are quite rare these days. I think you’ll have to take a trip to 1100 A.D in order to see a crusade or two.

Beleive it or not, there was a rant about that in a “readers column” in a paper I read. Some women thought it was a totaly racist motivated event. That he was being made an example of because he wasn’t white!! 😮 Silly bints. I was literally shouting at the paper!

We had a similar incident in Sweden a couple of years ago, where the captain decided to ban a couple of arabic guys on a flight due to their aggressive behaviour. I reckon they were shouting at each other and refused to follow the stewards orders.

Now the funny part is that these smart-heads actually tried to sue the airline for racism. Luckily they failed.

US has played dirty tricks before.

During the czech fighter tender a couple of years ago, the US ambassador in Prague (Craig Stappleton) threatened the czech politicians by telling them that the relationship with US would be deep frozen if they didn’t go for F-16’s.

Why should it be different in commercial aviation?

If we speak about unified Europe, both the brits and the french should learn from the germans. They aren’t anywhere near as nationalistic as the others.

Hi to everyonne, I have a question to you military aviation buffs: why is it that the French pulled out of the EF project and proceeded to develop their own plane, the Rafale? I have read a couple of things on this on the web. English sites argue that this is simply due to french arrogance.

When PILOTGHT steps into this thread and writes a couple of posts it will get much clearer to you. Believe me. 😀

I think it would be far better to have one or two dual-purpose flight attendands aboard who combine serving drinks with the job of air marshall. Flight attendands see and interact with the passengers, are a lot less restricted in their movements, and can avoid problems by preventing terrorists to enter the cockpit.

I totally agree with you on this one Arthur. There will be no time to stop an intruder on flightdeck if the intruder is already on his way in.

And if we talk about hostage situations in the cabin – should you send in a pilot in close combat? It wouldn’t be very wise take the risk of loosing one of the only two guys capable of flying the plane. Fact is, in that situation you will not be helped by having a Glock or so in the cockpit.

Besides, it would definetely not hurt to learn a few things from the professionals – the israelis.

This is indeed a very complex matter. But going into combat (or close combat) always means that you take the risk of getting wounded or killed. From that point of view I wouldn’t send the only two guys capable of flying the plane into a blaze of fire.

If we necessarily need to arm the personel aboard the airliners I would prefer getting more well trained cabin crews. By that I mean getting rid of the tiny/weak but good looking flight stewardess and replace them with guards (possibly armed).

The pilots should never – no matter what happens – open their cockpit doors. Instead they should get the airplane down on the ground as fast as possible and let the police deal with the problem.

But my preferred first step would be to really make sure that no weapons can be brought aboard. If there are no weapons aboard – there will be no problems.

regards,
Castor

What’s this all about? Is O’Leary trying to forbid his pilots to join a Pilot union or what?

I know that he’s been having a fight with the swedish aircrew union a couple of years ago, and the unions in Sweden are really strong – so if he p!sses them of in Ireland I guess he can wait for the reaction to follow even in Sweden and other countries. They could easily block all handling at the airports etc. meaning he will not be able to fly to Sweden.