BA say all men on planes are sex offenders

[Lissa]

Almost.

BA has compensated a passenger who was "humiliated' over its policy of not allowing single male flyers to sit next to solo child travellers on its planes.

British Airways cabin crew told Mirko Fischer to move after he swapped seats with his wife and ended up sitting next to a boy he did not know.

BA apologised to the businessman but denied the policy was discriminatory.

Mr Fischer was on a flight from London back to his home in Luxembourg on 20 April 2009 when his pregnant wife Stefanie asked him to swap seats so she could sit next to the window. He took her middle seat.

He claimed cabin crew told him to return to his original seat as the child next to him was an unaccompanied minor.

The crew said the company's policy was not to allow adult males to sit next to unaccompanied children.

BA initially defended itself and said when staff originally made the request they genuinely believed Mr Fischer was travelling alone and had no intention of embarrassing, humiliating or angering him by asking him to return to his allocated seat.

The BA policy is a long-standing one and although it is still in place, it is currently under review.

A BA spokesman said: "We had 75,000 children fly with us last year and it is an issue we take very seriously. We look after these children as we have been given this responsibility by their parents."

So, basically, any man on a plane is probably a paedophile unless he has a wife there to reign in his bestial urges. You might think this is grossly unfair, you might think cabin staff would notice sexual abuse taking place during a flight and you might think that a presumption of guilt without any grounds for suspicion is a contravention of most human rights. But BA doesn't. I'm sure a lot of men travelling alone would be delighted not to have a wailing brat next to them but probably not at the cost of being labelled a pervert.

[SiHart]

BA are really going all out at to get customers on their side at the moment, aren't they?

Si xx

[Rob McCow]

What they need is a special 'Kindergarten' section of the plane where only parents can have access to children.

In fact that's what they need in every walk of life. Buses, trains, theaters, cinemas, concert halls - anywhere that a MAN might come into CONTACT with a CHILD. Separate them out and employ armed security guards to protect the child-friendly areas.

Except the security guards will all have to be neutered, just to be sure.

[Awesome Wells]

Perhaps British Airways executives were concerned by the shocking incident during a flight in 2001, where a child was offered food by an adult male travelling alone. The "food" in question turned out to be human brain.

Click here for a clip from the documentary.

[Si Hunt]

I read this today and I thought it was awful! I'm glad that man won his compensation.

Oh, and he gave all of it, PLUS £2500 of his own money, to a kids charity.

Si.

[Jason Thompson]

I am continually incensed by stories such as this that effectively label all men as sexual predators of some kind, mainly paedophiles. It is highly offensive, but of course when it's all in the name of protecting children...

And the fact that the recent very high profile case involving a female paedophile seems to have no bearing on this ridiculous situation just annoys me even more.

[Captain Tancredi]

So, basically, any man on a plane is probably a paedophile unless he has a wife there to reign in his bestial urges.

My reading of the story was that he and his wife had swapped adjacent seats.

Now I think about it, when I flew back from Los Angeles with BA six years ago I was moved from my allocated seat so as not to split up a family. I saw it as an advantage at the time, because it was an overnight flight and the alternative would have been to have had whoever was next to me nattering to the person in front all through the flight.

[Rob McCow]

The "food" in question turned out to be human brain.

Are you sure that's not just from the movie 'Hannibal'?

Anyway - I'd be quite happy if BA staff merely asked you to move, but it should still be your right to refuse if that's what you prefer.

[Lissa]

Why should they even have the right to ask a man to move without the slightest grounds for suspicion? A nervous old lady wouldn't be able to get an Asian man moved because she thought he might be a terrorist so why should a man be moved because of an imaginary risk that he's a pervert? Things like this should be dealt with at the booking stage with lone children sat in designated areas rather than given random seats which lead to awkward, embarssing and offensive situations like Mr Fischer's.

And what about a gay couple travelling together? Are they considered two single men for the purposes of this policy? They haven't brought a woman with them so they'd probably be flagged as high risk dangerous travelling pervs.

[Zbigniev Hamson]

You could solve all the problems by forcing all children to be bound in manacles and chastity belts and gagged on flights. That would make for an all-round more pleasant experience for other travellers too.

But yes... I imagine it's more a case of BA realising that if ever a single male traveller DID start stroking the leg of an unattended child, as unlikely as that may be, then everyone would be screaming blue murder and asking how it could ever have been allowed to happen, and they're just trying to avoid the massive lawsuits and negative publicity that would ensue, which in today's world is probably wise. The only flaw in the plan was that they should have done it subtly without anyone noticing by just arranging the seating plans and to not actually make it public that that's what they were doing.

[MinaHarker]

I think it's a shockingly discriminatory policy and wrong, wrong, wrong.

Jason was once asked by reception staff to leave the cafe at the community centre near us while he was waiting for me to come out of an appointment, because, "there are children here and we don't know you".

[Awesome Wells]

Are you sure that's not just from the movie 'Hannibal'?

Anyway - I'd be quite happy if BA staff merely asked you to move, but it should still be your right to refuse if that's what you prefer.

You didn't click the link, did you?

[Awesome Wells]

On a serious note, did 75,000 kids really travel without adult accompaniment on British Airways last year? My parents, God bless 'em, would never have allowed me to do such a thing - and that was back in the days before paedophiles had been invented.

[Captain Tancredi]

In this day and age, it probably reflects the number of split-up families where a child's parents (or grandparents) live in different countries. If you're in that situation it's almost certainly not unknown to put a 12-year-old (say) on the plane and arrange for Granny and Grandad to pick them up at the other end.

But the fault is surely in the booking system- the Fischers were presumably booked on as a married couple and BA's booking system allocated them individual seats so it didn't flag up the problem. It'd be interesting to see what it would do in a similar situation if the woman in the middle seat didn't turn up for the flight. Although I suspect that the reason they don't put all the unaccompanied children together is because they'd just end up throwing the complimentary peanuts at the cabin crew and making rude noises.