The female head of Australia’s major air carrier was suspected of being a terrorist at a U.S. airport because a security guard refused to believe a woman could run an airline.
Qantas Airways chairman Margaret Jackson has said she was detained and frisked at Los Angeles airport last year after a search revealed she was carrying aircraft diagrams in her briefcase.
“The guy said ‘Why have you got all of this?’,” she said. “And I said, ‘I’m the chairman of an airline. I’m the chairman of Qantas’. And this black guy, who was, like, eight foot tall, said, ‘But you’re a woman’.”
After proving her identity, Jackson produced paper with her letterhead on it and wrote a note to the guard, whose name was Bill. “And I wrote, ‘Dear Bill, this is from the chairman of Qantas, who is a woman’,” the newspaper reported.
No comment.
Bill the eight foot tall sexist security guard is NOT an idiot. He was wrongly over-promoted against his will. I feel sorry for him. I think he should sue.
The screeners are being expected to do the job requiring a degree of intelligence while being paid the equivalent of a moron. The training is suspect because no one knows what to expect a terrorist to look like.
Easy fix- fire the guard.
I have a general idea what an islamic terrorist usually looks like — looks more similar to a young arab male than an old white woman.
oops, I’m not allowed to say that, am I?
The easy fix is to train people, pay them properly, and let them do their job. Of course, with our current tax situation this will never happen.
I go back to flying out of Amsterdam several years ago. Every one of us was interviewed by an guard before boarded. The interview lasted about 5 minutes, and I could tell that the interviewer knew what he was doing, which gave me great confidence.
We are willing to complain, but not do the right thing to solve the problem. Add an extra buck or two into your tax dollars and get the right people placed into these important positions.
“The easy fix is to train people, pay them properly, and let them do their job.”
That doesn’t sound easy at all 😛
Just like I said in the story about the 4 year old being stopped because its name was on a watch list. TSA employees are morons plain and simple. They are one step above mcdonald’s employees.
Mike–remember the British terrorist who was well over 6 feet tall, and red haired, and the American one who was Hispanic? Not all terrorists are Arab.
That said, the security guy was definitely not playing with a full deck. They need security people who are brighter than this guy, and actually have police and security training equivalent at least to what a regular policeman gets.
Of course, there is stupid discrimination on both sides. Do you think
that if the TSA person was white, Margaret Jackson would have said,
“And this white guy, who was, like, eight foot tall…”
Since when is the description of a person’s skin color defined as being “discrimination”?
Floyd,
Usually does not mean always; and I made no claim to the contrary.
Since the 1970s, what has been the percentage of airline hijackings not committed by middle-eastern men?
The whole security screening process is inept and wrongly directed. They should only worry about keeping guns and bombs off the planes. Forget about books, documents, knitting needles, and even pocket knives.
Just put a bounty of $1,000,000 on anyone that attempts to hijack a plane. Post the bounty on the back of each airline seat and we can forget about the whole TSA bullshit.
That ought to save us taxpayers a few billion each year and eliminate the pain of flying.
Everybody is presenting many differing opinions. As all people know America is a protect Minorities and outsiders country now. Nothing can be done to any minority or outsider by the United States. The allowed racial profiling is now Caucasian (being PC).
If people would realize that racial profiling has it time and place according to what is happening at the time. If people would only be open minded enough to realize, at these time, most terrorism and crime are being perpetrated by minorities and outsiders.
Look back when a writer for a major news publication was reporting the percentages of jail and prison populations by race. The reporting was by racial groups was stopped immediately by the minorities based on singling out specific races as being the problem … DUH! Well, that was the point, so that all people would know who are committing crimes by race and types of crime. Not one race is willing to be shown to be a major contributor of crimes, terrorism, etc. and then do something about it within their own communities.
This racial problem is going to continue especially at airports in the US. If you think about it, if the TSAs do not pick somebody periodically the upper echelon of TSA will down size the employee population. It would be thought there is not reason to have so many. Yet, at the same time actual terrorists are entering via the open boarders and a small number via air travel. Realize that in terrorists do not need to do air travel directly to the US to enter the US and prepare for assaults.
Therefore, the TSAs have to do something to keep from being let go. Maybe they should be trained for boarder duty since we are short of boarder patrols.
I hope this does not hurt any feelings, but if it does then, the truth may be hard to swallow.
that made me laugh
I remember when I was picking some friends up from the airport (when I lived in new orleans) – it was only like 9pm, but the security guard at the gates was asleep… still chuckling…
Lol…. “tall black guy”, could’ve said “this tall guy” but whatever…
One time we literally had an idiot unpack and search our bags. I try to be politically correct, so I would call him developmentally challenged… but you know what I mean…
We were at a regional airport with an international connection in New York. We tend to be paranoid with these flights, so we showed up plenty early and still almost missed our flight because this guy slowly unpacked ALL SIX OF OUR BAGS and carefully inspected nearly every individual item… all the while making goofy jokes as we were getting more and more nervous about getting to the gate. He seemed to have no awareness of our predicament.
I’m not calling him an “idiot” out of malice… he CLEARLY had an IQ that would put him in a special ed class. We’ve had lots of bad airport experiences but that was surely a low.
well, this is what you get when the government runs the airlines. when are people going to realize that with government comes lack of accountablity. privative the skies.
Having arrived at LAX with a passport from a Scandinavian country many times I without exception am pulled aside, have to go through close checks, shoes off, belt off, sniff here and there, dump all belongings for all to see – and an array of stupid questions. The story about the Quantas Chairperson does not surprise one bit.
But – the fundamental question is educational level…What happened to Womens Lib and ERA activists in the US. You were the forrunners did ity not change anything at all? ot did it all die and was forgotten when icons like Paris Hilton and Britney Spears were aspiring?
When I was visiting the states this summer I decided to fly in my kilt (being Scotish), partly as I wanted to show off and partly as a way of seeing how I was dealt with.
I flew from DC to San Diego and due to the metal buckles in the belt and the flashes (wee bits of material that hang out from the top of the socks) I set of the metal detector. This wasn’t a surprise. When I was later flying back home Via Heathrow from Detroit, I had to take off my belt and sporren and still set of the metal detector, but when I got to Heathrow and was getting ready to board my plane to Glasgow I figured “sod it, even with my belt and sporren off I set this thing off, so I am just going to keep it all on.” I then eventually got up to the metal detector and… never set it off.
When in the airport at Charlotte (I did a lot of flying this summer) some security guards called me over and since this was my first time flying in my kilt I was just thinking “Oh, no, they are gonna try and arrest me or something!” I felt this was a fair assessment of the situation, after some strange looks they had given me, pointing and debate. It just so happened that they were discussing my sporren, not knowing what it was called. (If you don’t know what it is, I guess the best description is the pouch that hangs on the front of the kilt in the groinal region, both for storage and I guess protection.)
I know this isn’t exactly directly related to the story, but I just figured I would share some of my TSA experiences.
Why should we trust this woman’s words? The security guy is doing his job, he is being careful. Who knows what’s the real word exchange between these two?
paul t. made an extremely good point. What color did the man’s skin have to do with anything? This says a lot more about Margret Jackson and can her account of the dialog be entirely accepted.
Some things I was wondering about. Why would the Chairman of an airline be going through normal security checks? Would she not be flagged as a VIP and quite possibly be coming through the Airline’s entrance? Did she not have a business card to show instead of finding some letter head paper? Why doesn’t she have some Quantas identification in the first place?This should have been something the guard would be expected to see.
The more I think about this, the more I am wondering about what really took place.
In fact neither paul t nor Pat have made a good point about Margaret Jackson’s comment. In case you haven’t noticed, as a group particularised by physiology, black people tend to large and well-developed physical stature. Recall your best athletes for the last century?
For Chairman Jackson to say that this ‘tall black guy’ confronted her, she was using the language for emphasis. Let’s not be too PC at every minor incident, people; there’s a bigger world to fry.
And, BTW – follow the leader, you Yanks: it’s Qantas – no ‘u’. Queensland And Northern Territory Aerial Services – from about 1920. Look up what the references are. (Hint: it’s OUTSIDE the magnificent USofA.)
Why would the Chairman of an airline be going through normal security checks? Would she not be flagged as a VIP and quite possibly be coming through the Airline’s entrance?
You expect the CEO to use the employee entrance?
The TSA has setup “VIP” screening-lines in the terminals – at taxpayer expense?
Why should a foreign national get VIP treatment by our govenrment’s employees upon arrival at her initial port-of-entry into the US?
The TSA “frequent traveler” program doesn’t even start until this summer. [And you need to fly at least weekly to qualify?? Details won’t even be published by the TSA until Jan 20th]
http://www.informationweek.com/security/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=175803263
Did she not have a business card to show instead of finding some letter head paper? Why doesn’t she have some Quantas identification in the first place?
From the article:
“After proving her identity, Jackson produced paper with her letterhead on it and wrote a note to the guard, whose name was Bill.”
She had ID, she just seems to have wanted to vent some of her frustration by giving Bill a “momento” of the occassion. I enjoy imaging what she really wanted to write.
The more I think about this, the more I am wondering about what really took place.
Agreed. We are jumping to conclusions based on a “report” regarding an anecdote told to a “media conference in Beijing”. Shame on us.
The screeners are being expected to do the job requiring a degree of intelligence while being paid the equivalent of a moron.
Agreed.
Who in their right mind would want a job as a screener??
Dubya would only approve of the nationalization of the screeners if they were not given the traditional protections [whole nother rant] of civil service workers.
All the Bureaucracy and none of the perks. Awesome!!
Your job involves adding to the frustration of everyone you screen, so you can be assured of an endless stream of smiling, friendly faces – all day, every day. Sweet!!
Where do I sign-up?? 🙂
Hey, if a senator from the Philippines could be detained at the airport, why not a white old woman who claims she’s an airline head?
After 9/11 the remark was: If these terroristic acts change the way of life for Americans, by being over-diligent in flagging its citizens and visitors — then the terrorists have won. These “terrorists” should have thought how their people would be permanently altered and not just how to win oil deals.
Although from a different country, different social strata, different lifestyle, and more humble accomplishments, through mutual Australian friend, have come to know Ms. Jackson personally. “Old?” Sure, if you’re 20; if you’re 80, she’s actually quite “young”. As raw a deal as minority races have been dealt for the past several hundred years or in times of war, pretty certain the longest standing “discrimination” is that applied to “the weaker sex”. She is actually a very warm, humble, “normal” person and as a result, a stranger well may have difficulty believing she had earned her internationaly acknowledged accomplishments despite “being a woman”. Sorry, folks; she ain’t no bigot and is a VERY nice person. I’m fortunate to know her and you might want ot consider that, being “normal”, she probably was just frusttrated at how ludicrous “Bill’s” concern was.
Quantas? It’s ‘Qantas’.
Chairperson? She’s the Chairman of Qantas.
CEO? No, she’s the Chairman of Qantas.