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(Transportation-News.com, August 19, 2012 ) San Francisco, CA -- A man traveling from Brisbane to Sydney on a April Virgin Australia flight was asked to move to another seat because he had been seated next to two unaccompanied minors.
A Virgin Australia flight attendant requested that 33 year old fireman Johnny McGirr to switch seats with an unidentified woman after he was seated next to two young boys flying without their parents. The boys were approximately 10 years old, according to McGirr.
McGirr said that he was approached and told that he had to move. When he asked why, he was told that it was airline policy that men were not allowed to be seated next to unaccompanied minors. He told the flight attendant that he thought the request was both sexist and discriminatory, but his complaint did no good.
McGirr goes on to state that as he collected his belongings from the seat pocket people around him were staring at him, obviously wondering why he was being moved. His face was red from embarrassment, and he felt like he’d been found guilty of a crime that he hadn’t committed. The whole situation was very uncomfortable for him, and he even felt ashamed (he said it was wierd to feel ashamed when he hadn’t done anything wrong).
When he wrote to the airline to complain, he got very little satisfaction as the airline simply confirmed their policy of not seating men next to unaccompanied minors. They didn’t acknowledge that the situation should have been handled either in private or by ensuring the seat assignments were correct before anybody even boarded the plane. They were actually rather dismissive of McGirrs’ feelings and commented that ‘most passengers understand that the welfare of the child is our highest priority.’ Another rather dismissive statement said that embarrassing men was not the goal of the rule.
The same person who made the comments in the paragraph above said that their usual rule was to keep the seat next to an unaccompanied minor or minors empty, and if they couldn’t do that then they would seat a woman next to the children. Why then was McGirr even seated next to the children? Something fell through the cracks on Virgin Australia, and they chose to respond to it in a very public and embarrassing manner.
Virgin Australia has since backpedaled on their earlier statements and are reviewing their policies with respect to discriminating against people who’ve done nothing wrong.
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