VA/Seating of male pax nr unaccompanied minors

[Justin L]

This has now made the news here in America, with this USA Today article. It also mentions the policies of other US and international airlines.

Southwest Airlines seats children traveling alone close to the front of the plane, says the airline's spokeswoman, Whitney Eichinger.

Spirit Airlines spokeswoman Misty Pinson says the carrier assigns seats to them "in areas where our flight attendants can best assist them throughout the flight."
The airline doesn't allow unaccompanied minors on international flights or domestic itineraries that require a change of aircraft.

Virgin America, which is separately owned from Virgin Australia, has no restrictions on seatmates, spokeswoman Abby Lunardini says.

Delta spokesman Morgan Durrant says the carrier has no restrictions but tries to seat children flying alone next to the galley area where flight attendants work.

British Airways spokeswoman Michele Kropf says that on some flights, the airline creates an "unaccompanied minors zone" near the galley.

And Air France says it seats unaccompanied minors together and without adults in adjacent seats, except when a plane is fully booked.

[Wayne D]

I think that in the USA the airlines would avoid policies such as the discriminatory ones employed here, simply on the basis that many men there would be far more likely to litigate.

This also demonstrates that despite the USA undoubtedly having a higher number of sex offenders from both genders in their society, they don't feel they need to discriminate against all men, and as stated earlier in this thread, they might just recognise that predation by females is largely underrepresented in statistics for the reasons earlier mentioned.

[Craig Murray]

OK Wayne, we get your point..........

[Mick F]

Where's the Like function on this board? Thanks Murray

[Andrew P]

I would love to ask an actuary to work the likelihood of an unaccompanied child on a flight being seated next to a person with paedophilic feelings. I expect the answer is so close to zero, that the real answer is probably zero. It would take the person with paedophilic feelings to book the last row, on the off chance of getting an unaccompanied child next to him/her. Being honest not place to pick up children; we don’t separate children on the train/bus to school, a more likely scenario.

That person will not be convicted paedophile; as such person will have travel restrictions etc. under the Sex Offenders Registrar.

Now this letter from an abused victim in today’s SMH, says it all, The airlines policy has nothing to do with children and everything to do with adults

My 2 older kids have travelled the world unaccompanied, (their mother lives in London), and have never had a problem. In fact knowing my son if something went wrong his voice would be loud enough to wake up all passengers on the plane.

Andrew

[Ray P.]

Perhaps we shouldn't let males teach kids as well. It's a sad reflection of our society when we have policies that are developed to fix a perception. In this instance (and many others), people are so paranoid for the safety of their children when in reality, the parents themselves are more likely to harm their children in an accident whilst driving them to the airport in the first place.

I recently heard a child protection investigator saying that even after investigating some of the most heinous acts performed against children, he still lets his own young kids walk a reasonable distance to school, unaccompanied. He said that he won't be sucked in by the unjustified paranoia that seems to exist in todays society and he would much prefer that his kids participate in society and not be mollycoddled. The overprotection of some parents often does greater harm in the long term.

[Ash W]

Ray your right about unjustified paranoia, there are many many examples of this. Airline security in general being one.

The media play a large part in this. For example last night I was in Sydney watching the footy whilst my wife was in the CBD "All alone". When I got back and asked what she had been up to she told me she went back to the hotel about 6:30pm because the streets of Sydney were so dangerous. Now whilst yes there have been issues in Sydney recently, the simple fact is most of that crime is targeted or could happen anywhere. But because of the way the media hypes it she thought it was true.

The same goes with these policies and the general fear that drives them.

[Gareth Forwood]

I thought I might as well throw my two cents into the mix here... I have two points to make - one is about the policy itself and the other is about its execution on the aircraft.

The Policy
What Virgin and Qantas are doing here is basic risk management based on the fact that men are statistically more likely to commit a sexual crime than women. They are also considering the possible consequences of failing to act.

There are essentially four possible scenarios based on whether or not the "no males" policy is in place, and whether or not a child molester is, God forbid, seated next to a child.

• Scenario 1: No policy, no molester --> no problem
• Scenario 2: Policy in place, no molester --> assuming the male passenger is notified in a courteous and appropriate manner, the consequence to the male passenger is a rather minor inconvenience.
• Scenario 3: Policy in place, child molester seated next to child --> the passenger is moved, thereby removing (or at least significantly reducing) the threat.
• Scenario 4: No policy, child molester seated next to child - I am sure you can all understand the seriousness of this situation and the potential outcomes. Physical and emotional impacts aside, from a purely financial standpoint, it is in the airlines' interests to enforce this policy to avoid a potentially massive lawsuit of scenario 4 does eventuate.

Now I understand that the likelyhood of scenarios 3 and 4 occurring are very low, but as long as the situation is handled appropriately, I am happy to suffer a minor inconvenience to improve the safety of children.


Policy Implementation
I think most people here would agree that the situations were handled poorly by staff (assuming the media reports are accurate). And this is the key reason that the airlines have come under such public criticism. It would be more prudent for the airlines to ensure that males are never seated next to children (I'm sure they're seat allocation system would be capable of this...). Additionally, to say "this man cannot sit next to children" was an absurdly stupid thing to say, and I think it is this that could open the airline to litigation.

Some people here and in the media have inferred that the next step society is likely to take is to not let males teach or have any career involving children. Males and females in those professions are required by law to undergo regular checks to ensure they do not pose a risk to children. I don't yet have any children, but if I did I would have no problem whatsoever if they had a male teacher, knowing that that teacher had undergone a background check.

[Ash W]

You could add a few more scenarios to the list too.

How about child molester (male) sits next to child and nothing happens, simply because an aircraft for the most part is a very public place with very little time to groom the kid and commit the offence and for it to go unnoticed.

Or heaven forbid child sits next to female molester and something happens. Though again even this one is very remote for the reason above.