Passenger leaves sexist note for female Westjet captain

[Tycho_Brohe]

http://abcnews.go.com/Travel/airline-passenger-leaves-nasty-note-pilot/story?id=22784067

"To Capt. / WestJet...The cockpit of ainlier [sic] is no place for a woman. A woman being a mother is the most honor not as "captain" Proverbs 31 (Sorry not P.C.) P.S. I wish WestJet could tell me a fair lady is at the helm so I can book another flight! Were [sic] short mothers not pilots Westjet."

Where to begin. The blatant misogyny, the outdated religious views which reflect poorly on all people of faith, the fact that he writes like a 12-year-old. He even goes so far as to say that there's no pilot shortage, which is simply not true.
I just can't believe that this sort of attitude is still prevalent in the aviation community, because it's certainly not acceptable.

 

[xj220]

Hater's gonna hate. It sucks that there are people out there like this but you can't really do anything about it. I just watched Super Troopers so this sticks in my mind "There was a time when we'd take a guy like you in the back and beat you with a hose. Now you've got your God-damned unions."

I was referring to the person who wrote the note, not the pilot if there was any confusion.

 

[azguy]

Where to begin. The blatant misogyny, the outdated religious views which reflect poorly on all people of faith, the fact that he writes like a 12-year-old. He even goes so far as to say that there's no pilot shortage, which is simply not true.
I just can't believe that this sort of attitude is still prevalent in the aviation community, because it's certainly not acceptable.

I love that the pilot shortage bit is what gets you most worked up! But you're being too generous - this guy would be held back from the 4th grade.

I'm not sure you can assume this attitude is 'prevalent' in the 'aviation community' based on one sky bus passenger's iditoic musings.

 

[picklesuit]

Probably the FO fucking with her...

 

[BusyBee604]

Why this story is worthy of national coverage on ABCNews, is beyond me. There are always a few idiots out there, making their archaic views public. A short boring read with no relevance in national media. Given freedom of speech, crap of this type is best simply ignored, that denies them their longed for "ten seconds in the sun"!

 

[jmcquate]

Non-story.....who cares. I f you can't cut it in the airlines or around the boat, you will hear about it. Women have been doing both for a while now. This was some religious zealot who's full of shit. Not aircrew.

 

[Tycho_Brohe]

I'm not sure you can assume this attitude is 'prevalent' in the 'aviation community' based on one sky bus passenger's iditoic musings.

This was some religious zealot who's full of shit. Not aircrew.

Yeah fair enough, I take back my "prevalent in aviation" comment.

Probably the FO fucking with her...

That'd probably be a better story, or at least funnier. Especially since he misspelled "airliner."

 

[A7Dave]

http://abcnews.go.com/Travel/airline-passenger-leaves-nasty-note-pilot/story?id=22784067

"To Capt. / WestJet...The cockpit of ainlier [sic] is no place for a woman. A woman being a mother is the most honor not as "captain" Proverbs 31 (Sorry not P.C.) P.S. I wish WestJet could tell me a fair lady is at the helm so I can book another flight! Were [sic] short mothers not pilots Westjet."

Where to begin. The blatant misogyny, the outdated religious views which reflect poorly on all people of faith, the fact that he writes like a 12-year-old. He even goes so far as to say that there's no pilot shortage, which is simply not true.
I just can't believe that this sort of attitude is still prevalent in the aviation community, because it's certainly not acceptable.

That attitude is not prevalent in the aviation community.

If you read the note, it looks to be written by a foreigner, and I don't mean a Quebecois. I could take a stab at the nationality and I wouldn't be surprised if he was muslim. But that attitude is quite common in many 2nd world/3rd world countries.

 

[nittany03]

Eh. If it was a Muslim, he'd be quoting Qur'an or Hadith, not the Book of Proverbs. Probably one of our own slack-jawed Cletii.

 

[AllYourBass]

Eh. If it was a Muslim, he'd be quoting Qur'an or Hadith, not the Book of Proverbs. Probably one of our own slack-jawed Cletii.

I sat here with my face stuffed with turkey sandwich thinking very hard about what religion "Cletii" was, and then a whole 10 seconds later, the meaning suddenly dawned on me.

 

[Hozer]

Clearly not serving top-shelf booze in the cabin on this leg.

 

[wink]

The CEO of a regional I flew for (now defunct) in the mid 80s was on one of our flights with a female captain. After she made her welcome aboard PA a male passenger made a comment about "another empty kitchen" and mocking concern over his safety. The boss got up, called the flight deck and ordered the engines shut down. He then physically threw the guy off the plane. Not kidding, grabbed his arm and collar and pushed him off the plane.

Oh, and there is no pilot shortage to speak of. Certainly not a critical shortage. There are plenty of apps on file at the major airlines, like Westjet, to cover openings for years to come. Regionals are finding it a bit hard to find guys to work at the wages they pay. Raise the pay/adjust the business model and plenty of qualified pilots who left regionals because of crappy pay will come back to aviation. In short, there are plenty of pilots. Just not enough willing to work for regional and commuter rates of pay.

 

[Tycho_Brohe]

In short, there are plenty of pilots. Just not enough willing to work for regional and commuter rates of pay about as much a bus driver gets.

Because that's basically what you get at the regionals in the first few years, especially in that probationary period.

How many of those applications are (a) qualified, and (b) competitive? We were told to start putting our apps up even while we were below the new ATP mins, let alone the airline's mins. Will the truly competitive apps be enough to fill the void from the forced retirements over the next 10+ years?

 

[jander12]

Why this story is worthy of national coverage on ABCNews, is beyond me. There are always a few idiots out there, making their archaic views public. A short boring read with no relevance in national media. Given freedom of speech, crap of this type is best simply ignored, that denies them their longed for "ten seconds in the sun"!

Well, my guess is that there is a media war against the "Christian" religion. So, whenever "they" can find a story with some nut-job that claims to be a Christian or who quotes from the Bible, the media will use it to show how "intolerant" ALL Christians are. If this person quoted from some other religion's holy book, this wouldn't be a story.

 

[AllYourBass]

Well, my guess is that there is a media war against the "Christian" religion. So, whenever "they" can find a story with some nut-job that claims to be a Christian or who quotes from the Bible, the media will use it to show how "intolerant" ALL Christians are. If this person quoted from some other religion's holy book, this wouldn't be a story.

If the line about Proverbs had been left out of this story, it still would have been a story. Be careful not to shift focus off the misogyny in an attempt to defend innocent, uninvolved believers who are completely irrelevant to this story. As for this being a media war—this smells more like a public uprising toward people who demean others by insulting them or attacking their rights. If the media picks up on these stories, it's because they're relevant to their audiences (i.e., a society that has grown very sensitive to discrimination).

If we wanted to talk about the American society and its views on religion in the last decade, I'd wager there's a trend toward "slightly miffed" due in no small part to our uprising for human rights (e.g., homosexuality, fair treatment of women) and our inundation in these wars (thereby making Americans' media exposure to violent religious extremists a daily event). If that were the case, the Proverbs line in the story might have served the media by making an already relevant story a bit juicier. But I pulled that out of my ass without any sources other than my own anecdotal evidence and years of general observation of news/social media, so my opinion isn't worth very much.