To Kashif Irfan, his brother and their families, vacations in Orlando will always be a reminder of the horrible New Year’s eve day experience at Reagan National Airport. Because apparently, Sen. John McCain is the only one who’s allowed to say “Bomb, Bomb, Bomb!”

I don’t mean to single out the good Republican Senator from Arizona, considering he’s still not recovered from the whuppin’ he got at the hands of Barack Obama, but McCain is a rich white male - The kind of person who never ends up on no-fly lists and can say things like ‘bomb’ and ‘explosion’ on board a plane, and no one will bat an eyelid.

On the other hand, when three young American citizens, and two of them women, are chatting about which seat on a plane is the safest place to be in case of an accident, what happens is that they get hauled off the plane and interrogated by the FBI. And then the airline tells them to bugger off. Why? Because they’re muslims.

This is what happened on New Year’s Eve Day to a party of 9 muslim passengers from  Alexandria on board an Air Tran flight out of Reagan National Airport headed for Orlando, FL. A couple of other passengers (two teenage girls…) overheard the conversation, reported it and the pilot delayed the takeoff. All 104 passengers were ordered off the plane.

Members of the party, all but one of them U.S.-born citizens who were headed to a religious retreat in Florida, were subsequently cleared for travel by FBI agents who characterized the incident as a misunderstanding, an airport official said. But the passengers said AirTran refused to rebook them, and they had to pay for seats on another carrier secured with help from the FBI. - Washington Post

Don’t get me wrong. I’m no placard waving ACLU activist. And the fellow passsengers, the Air Tran pilot, air marshalls, airport police and the FBI were well within their rights to ensure everyone’s safety and follow the proper procedures. What ticks me off is what happened afterwards.

When it became apparent that the group was perfectly legit, the FBI cleared them and even helped them secure a flight with another airline. What Air Tran did, on the other hand, was to show them the middle finger. An Air Tran spokesperson laid the blame squarely and entirely on the muslims, and refused any compensation for the extra cost of the new tickets, and did it in a way which made it perfectly clear that Air Tran was not interested in accomodating them.

Air Tran explicitly refused to re-board them after they were cleared by the FBI. TSA says that’s standard procedure??? How the heck is it standard TSA procedure for Air Tran to refuse to accept these passengers while at the same time federal agents were helping them find and book a flight on US Airways?

Just to recap. These are young American citizens born in Detroit, and living upwardly mobile lives in Alexandria, VA - Kashif Irfan (age 34 , anesthesiologist) and his brother (age 29, lawyer) and their families including three children aged 7, 4 and 2. And compare that against the sheer callousness of the Air Tran spokesperson who said that they wouldn’t be refunding the additional cost of the new tickets, and then said that the muslims ‘may fly on the carrier’ now that the investigation was complete.

First, Air Tran owes a complete and full apology to the group. Second, they need to compensate the additional cost. Third, they need to fire the arrogant SOBs who made the decision to hang the muslims out to dry after they were cleared by the FBI. Fourth, they need to get a new and more ‘tactful’ spokesperson (as in less bigoted).

To their credit (and due to the media uproar and threat of a civil liberties lawsuit), Air Tran has now issued an apology, and offered free return tickets to them. They still haven’t taken any action against those responsible. Don’t hold your breath…

Posted on January 3rd, 2009 by Thomas
Filed under: News