[MrMichael]

AlfredPollo, from you two posts it suggests you were a regular traveller on BA. I deduce therefore that previously you have been content with the airline and that this is the first racist incident you have experienced. It is a sad fact that racism exists, in all walks of life and likely any large organisation has a share of them. You do not, rightly, suggest that BA in itself is a racist organisation, but that this is a rogue employee that does not represent the values of BA. It is for that reason that I do urge you to report it to BA. Although I have to admit that 2 months down the line would suggest you may have missed the boat.

[FDOS_UK]

May I respectfully suggest we ignore this poster? [I mean AlfredPollo)

[SimonS1]

Yes FDOS. Pointless thread. Proves exactly why we need moderation.

[LuganoPirate]

I think we have to give AlfredPollo a chance here.. Many of us started on the forum with a rant and went on to become useful contributors. He’s had his rant and the first replies he got were sympathetic. He seems to be a regular traveller and perhaps he can be a regular and useful contributor.

AlfredPollo, I think we are all against racism on this forum, in fact we are of many different nationalities, creed and race. Perhaps your post could have been slight differently worded but hey, who am I to judge and we’ve all written things trying to express something that has been misconstrued.

So I would like to invite you (not that I run this forum) and I hope my fellow posters will agree, to put this post behind us, move on and ask you to perhaps contribute something about your travels or maybe reply and give an opinion on some of the current threads.

Cedric’s “Schizophrenic Spending Syndrome – a Friday thread” would be a great place to start.

[Ahmad]

LuganoPirate – 07/05/2016 17:28 BST

+1

[rferguson]

I just cannot understand why a customer wouldn’t complain immediately or within a reasonable time frame.

Saying that…..and removing my ‘PC’ hat….there are certain routes that are unpopular with airline crews and I don’t just mean BA crews by that – we do get together with other airline crews in hotel ‘crew rooms’ around the world and exchange stories.

There is a difference between being racist and struggling due to cultural expectations sometimes. The ‘routes that are intense to work’ are diverse but TLV is one of them.

From personal experience on TLV flights some of the challenges include:
– passengers not ordering Kosher meals and insisting other food be provided from premium cabins.
– more passengers than average taking it upon themselves to move to seats other cabins (sometimes repetitively).
– large family groups that do not use online check in, end up being split up and then cause chaos moving seats.
– males refusing to sit next to females.
– people moving around the cabin during taxi and still doing so after being firmly told to sit down.

Being jewish myself I have to admit I find the TLV route challenging. Of course crew are human. If I heard a crew member mutter something along the lines of ‘jew zoo’ quietly to another crew member in the galley I would be disappointed but I wouldn’t make a song and dance about it. It’s unfortunate that such terminology would be used. If I heard a crew member make a disparaging comment regarding race or religion directed to a passenger I would report them.

Being Scandinavian it’s seldom suspected i’m also jewish so i’m often partial to overhearing comments in the galley and they are like water of a ducks back. I hear the same on Indian flights and on other routes about other nationalities too. Over the years i’ve certainly heard a lot worse than a comment along the lines of ‘jew zoo’ in many environments.

I’ve also heard racist/disparaging comments from the scottish about the english – and vice versa. The british about the french. And vice versa. And the swedes about the Norsks! And of course against the muslims. I didn’t use the term ‘racism’ here as stupid off the cuff remarks generally don’t constitute true racism. As jews we certainly don’t have a monopoly on ‘racism’. It’s just that given history it seems to be taken much more seriously. And as a jew I can get that.

What the OP didn’t realise is the power that he had during his unfortunate encounter with the crew. Does he realise how small he would have made that crew member feel by simply saying, calmly – ‘excuse me….I just heard you refer to this flight as a Jew zoo’. That crew member would have wished the floor would give way beneath him and would likely not do it again. It would have been far more effective than recounting it on a forum two months post.

Next time you fly Lufthansa or Air France or Emirates or Etihad and chat with a crew member ask them what the more ‘challenging’ routes for them are. I can almost assure you that the same ones will crop up again and again. And there are reasons for this – and it has nothing to do with being racist.

***These are my personal opinions only***

[FDOS_UK]

RF

A very balanced post. BTW, EK and EY crew are not going to have any stories about TLV flights 😉 (unless it is on prior employers).

I still regard the opening post with strong degree of skepticism and as I am hardly a true defender of BA, it is not my love of the airline driving my reaction 🙂

In a galley environment, with a lot of background noise/distortion it would be easy to hear a phrase containing the word ‘zoo’ and be subject to Confirmation Bias, hearing the phrase ‘jew’ instead of another word, true for instance.

Given the litany of complaints from the OP, it seems he wasn’t a fan of BA before this alleged incident and thus the cognitive drivers of Confirmation Bias were apparently in place.

Short Summary of Confirmation Bias

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xMaR8au-YU

[Author]

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