Posted on 07/28/2007 8:33:34 AM PDT by LurkedLongEnough
A British Airways flight was delayed for several hours after women members of the Qatari royal family objected to sitting next to men they did not know.
The three wives of Sheikh Badr Bin Khalifa al-Thani refused take up their seats on board Flight 563 from Milan's Linate airport to London Heathrow.
Police and Qatari diplomats became involved before the captain told Sheikh Badr's entourage to leave the aircraft.
The Qatari royals eventually ended up getting an Alitalia flight to London.
They had been on a shopping day-trip to the Italian city.
'Safety instructions'
In addition to his three wives, Sheikh Badr, a junior member of Qatar's 3,000-strong ruling family, was accompanied by a male relative, a cook and another servant on the flight.
After boarding, the women complained about the seats they had been allocated because they were next to men they did not know, a spokesman at Linate said.
The people were offloaded because they failed to comply with safety instructions when the aircraft was taxiing British Airways spokesman
Cabin crew tried to move the passengers to different seats, but those traveling with other people refused to change.
Sheikh Badr then reportedly got up and walked to the pilot's cabin to complain.
A delay of nearly four hours ensued as two members of the Qatari party refused to sit down.
A BA spokesman said the captain eventually had no option but to return to the terminal.
"The people were offloaded because they failed to comply with safety instructions when the aircraft was taxiing," he said.
Later in the evening, the royals travelled business class with the Italian carrier, Alitalia, with their staff in economy.
The Qatar embassy in Rome said it was a "private matter".
“Cabin crew tried to move the passengers to different seats, but those traveling with other people refused to change.”
Hurray for them!
Is this some kind of unusual commuter flight without assigned seats or boarding passes? I thought the time to arrange your seating preferences was BEFORE you board.
Or, if you are royal family, go buy your own plane.
What a bunch of spoiled brats.
Must be poor royals if they had to fly commerical and couldn’t even book the first class section. At least they didn’t have to fly easyJet or Ryan Air.
It’s good to see they were finally instructed in how to play well with others or face a timeout.
Good for those passengers who refused to move!!!!! Never give an inch to these sickos.
Their “shopping trip” expenditures probably would have fed a lot of ‘non-ruling family’ kids at home.
Amen! Too bad it took 4 hours. They should have been kicked off the minute they refused to sit down like everybody else.
I'd like to see the airline institute a civil suit on behalf of the other passengers and seek compensation for the wasted time and any other costs involved. I'd say attorney's fees and $1000 per passenger and crew plus any other substantiated expenses as a result of the Sheik's behavior.
I'd tell the Qatar embasy "Like hell it is a private matter!" It was very public.
I am so freaking sick of these people I could spit.
And, sadly, it’s only at airports that these fine folk are given the collective finger they deserve and then it takes FOUR FREAKING HOURS!
The other day I get a registered letter from a Dr. Mohammad. I don’t know who he is save I think he’s part of some medical group practice I go to for yon average cold. Seems Dr. Mohammad is no longer going to be accepting patients, I don’t know why, don’t know Dr. Mohammad, don’t want to know Dr. Mohammad, wouldn’t go to a Dr. Mohammad if he was the last medico on earth. Ever since those fine ROP doctors in England decided to “DO HARM” and blow up innocent people I made up my mind to avoid any Muslim anything in my life.
But, alas! This makes me prejudiced! This makes me not kind.
The American hoi-polloi, heh, you gotta love ‘em. They won’t like the Dixie Chicks anymore, they won’t go to Muslim doctors, they’ll smack any Muslim idiot in the head whilst in an airplane and acting like a fool. I’m betting it was only the airline trying to appease these nuts and the people on that airplane were pissed. I’d have been making such a loud protest they’d have to kick ME off the airplane.
You can lead a horse to water but...hey you can’t make us believe any religion whose people have lived in such abject poverty at the expense of the oil-wealthy, whose women are so mistreated they can be killed in “honor” killings at will, whose children are taught to blow themselves up....hey, tell this to the diplomats.
American ain’t buying it. Silly us.
We in the west clearly have to do more to accomodate the cultural sensitivities of diverse people. Our failure at this can only further anger those who have been victimized by our arrogance.
/pinheaded nitwit mode
why did it take four hours to figure that these clowns don’t play nice with others? If I refused to take my seat I don’t think that I would get four hours to throw a fit about it.
55 people missed connections as a result of this little shenanigan. BA should recoup the expenses for re-routing and/or overnight accommodation for those passengers, plus the entire plane load should, as you say, sue the Emir. I'll wager their were plenty of additional costs associated with being three hours late, lack of ground transportation, keeping meeters and greeters hanging around incurring parking fees and meal costs, etc, etc
Being a cynic — could all this “difficulty” with Muslims on airlines simply be another method of damaging confidence in Air Travel....
Standing procedures should MANDATE the immediate refusal of service at the FIRST sign of belligerent or confrontational behavior.....
These assholes have already inconvenienced the world enough....treating their lunatic customs with any respect is not appropriate on public transportation....
Let them stay home, or charter the whole damned plane...
Otherwise - screw em...
So now they know that on British Airways an obvious Arab Muslim can just get up and walk right up to the Cockpit.
Maybe all of this was done to establish this fact for future reference for Islamic terrorists.
Yay for sane passengers! What on earth took BA four hours to eject these burqua’d bozos from the plane?!? I betcha a thousand dollars if anyone but a Muslim acted the way these idiots did, they’d have been removed from that plane in under 15 minutes.
Back to the runway, 5 minutes. Total 12 minutes.
Problem solved.
As stupid as this is...the islamic property involved is actually saving her own life. She should have scheduled for this and made arrangements in advance knowing that the death-cult kills it’s own for alot less.
gdc314
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