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Comment by jcampbell1 | Hacker News Reader

I want to know who the the passengers were sitting next to this child were that didn't help her with her transfer. The lack of human decency is a cultural problem as much as an airline problem. What the fuck is wrong with people that don't talk to a child traveling alone and make sure she makes her connection. I blame humanity as much as the airline.

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Well, if you're male, you won't be sitting next to any unaccompanied children, much less helping them:

- http://www.theage.com.au/travel/travel-incidents/seat-swap-o...

- http://www.smh.com.au/travel/travel-incidents/nurse-humiliat...

- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/3634055/Com...

If that's standard policy in the airline industry, then half of the adult population wouldn't be able to help the poor child even if they wanted to.

That's... wow. I mean, even overlooking the obvious flaws in this logic, even if it is a paedophile sat next to the kids, what are they going to do in the middle of a flight surrounded by other people?

Yeah, imagine if they said black men couldn't sit next to white women. There would be an outrage of the highest sort. Or single women couldn't sit next to married men lest they be temptresses. It's nuts.

Groom them and talk them into coming with them outside the plane, for example. Having been on the receiving end of that stick (not on a plane, but still), I'd ask you reconsider how easy it is for an adult to have power over kids.

Fair point, I would have assumed that even a long-haul flight isn't enough for that to really make any difference and therefore be a waste of a predator's time, but I'll bow to your experiences

And if you did, you would be likely to find yourself in cuffs.

As an investor I looked into United and I believe the issue was that, being staff owned for a long time, there was no effective management and poor performers could not be fired. As a result a culture of not-my-problem arose. Cultures, once established, are hard to shift.

I remember coming in to the US on a 16 hour flight, I was having trouble getting my bag out of the overhead compartment and was treated to an extended harangue by a fat, ugly, unpleasant woman (stewardess) about how stupid all men were. All I needed not to hear after a long trip (with another 8 hours to travel to look forward to). This was in business class. Last time I traveled with United.

It sucks to say this but in the US if you're male, the smart/safe thing to do is not have any contact with an unaccompanied child at all. There is a non-trivial chance that may be misconstrued as something else and you could find yourself in a whole world of trouble. Of course this should not stop someone from bringing a distressed child to the attention of the flight crew and other passengers.

This is a very interesting phenomenon.

1) A child approached by an adult man = everyone is alerted.

2) A helpless child that should be helped = nobody cares.

It seems that in case 1 it's more about getting the bad guy then to help the child. This is all sorts of crazy if there is any truth to it. I'd love to see a study on this.

> more about getting the bad guy then to help the child.

Another way to look at it is that the worst outcome of one is the child gets lonely and scared for a small period of time, the worst outcome of the other is they get kidnapped and worse.

That said, I'm playing devil's advocate here, not arguing that the above logic should be used by anyone.

> worst outcome of one is the child gets lonely and scared for a small period of time

Actually the outcome could be the exact same thing in both cases.

Fuck. That. If you're not willing to take the negligible* risk of the situation being misconstrued to help a lost scared child, you are no better than the United Airlines employees.

* Yes, it is negligible. For every scare story you hear, thousands of people interact with minors with absolutely no issues at all.

If it happens to you it is a 100% result.

Just today a man was ordered to move his airline seat away from two young children. Until he proved they were his children.

In another story out today a woman aggressively approached a man and threatened him with arrest for taking his own children to a store.

Another man found a lost child and returned the child to its mother, only to be abused and threatened by the mother.

You see enough of this, eventually you conclude "OK, have it your way".

Sorry, are you claiming these as factual stories, or are you just citing anecdotes?

Unfortuately I'm pretty sure they're all real reported stories. In one case the man asked to move away from his own children was Boris Johnson, the mayor of London[1], when he was an MP in 2006.

Edit: There's more on wikipedia [2].

[1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/3634055/Com...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airline_sex_discrimination_pol...

So, a handful of instances out of millions over the last 5 years. Got it.

All it takes is for one person getting burned to affect their entire social circle. Every person who's been shouted at for trying to help a kid has probably told everyone they know about the event; at that point, none of them are likely to help.

This is especially notable in the social media heavy environment we're in now. I personally know someone who got shouted at because he led a kid to customer service so their parent could be found; posted the event to Facebook, and now everyone he knows (who read the article) is going to be a little less likely to help.

There's a reason Good Samaritan laws had to be put in place; people have been prosecuted for attempting to help others in good faith, and that led to others not trying. Shitty situation, but that's how it goes.

Captain hyperbole to the rescue!

If you are a grown adult male in the USA, you will have experienced this. People believe these stories because it aligns with their own personal experiences.

So while few of us have actually been arrested for talking to a minor, and definitely very few have ever had to deal with the police over this, a large portion of us have felt the accusing stare for daring to interact with a child. We've felt the suspicious eyes of every single mother on us as we jog past a playground. We've seen our colleagues and acquaintances make paranoid, disparaging remarks about strangers around their children.

We're not scared of children because of a few scary stories in a few newspapers - we're scared of children because this happens incredibly often and the scary news stories demonstrate just how far these situations can escalate out of control.

So what? Seriously, so what? If 10 people died from eating crisps (en-US: chips) a year, would you stop? There are endless edge-case examples I could pull out. You can't possibly know what the real odds are because it isn't news when someone /isn't/ asked to move his airline seat away from two children. The reason it isn't news is because it is by far the more common event!

So: Do you want to risk a 1 in a million chance of someone tsk tsking at you until you explain yourself to help a little lost girl? If your answer is "no" then I think that makes you kind of a bad person, just like those United employees.

You could look at it this way: The only way of increasing the perceived probability that an adult talking to a child is just being nice is to increase the number of times that exact event happens.

If it happens to you it is a 100% result.

Just like it's a 100% result if your plane crashes. But we know that, statistically speaking, airline travel is safe and crashes are pretty rare.

So, of the million of interactions between men and unaccompanied children, how many result in some crazy, unjustified child-molester accusation? I'm guessing it's about the same as the percentage of flights that crash.

I don't believe that a handful of anecdotes, considered in isolation, are a good basis for making decisions.

The benefits of air travel outweigh the risk of dying in air crash and other modes of travel are riskier.

However the benefits to the person helping the child is minuscule compared to the risk of ending up in prison and being added to sex offenders list. It is minuscule even compared to the risk of undergoing a criminal trial.

If no one cares enough to point this child at the correct gate, I'd be surprised to find someone who cares enough to file a report with the police or to hail down security. We're not talking about putting this kid in a car, we're talking about a little guidance in an airport.

Do you have evidence to support this claim?

Enough people have posted links in this thread. Its also easy enough to search for. However, as mentioned, no matter what you read or infer, if there is a child in distress on an airplane or in an airport the very least you should do is bring it to the attention of airport or airline staff.

The child remains on the aircraft after all other passengers have disembarked. She should then be taken by a member of staff to her connection.

At no time would another passenger be in a position to assist. The only people who could have helped were likely United's staff and the out-sourcing firm (who are also by extension United staff).

The passengers have nothing to do with it. If a kid is seating next to me in an airplane, I won't engage in conversation with her. How would I even know whether she's accompanied or not? A normal assumption would be that her parents were sitting elsewhere, maybe with another kid.

In flights I've been on with obvious unaccompanied children, someone from the flight crew tells the child to stay in his/her seat until everyone else has gotten off the aircraft.

Nobody is responsible for other people's children. Not making sure an unaccompanied minor gets to her next flight is not "lack of human decency".

> Nobody is responsible for other people's children.

He didn't say anybody (other than United) was responsible.

> Not making sure an unaccompanied minor gets to her next flight is not "lack of human decency".

I'd say not helping a fellow human in distress, especially a vulnerable one (such as a child) in a situation where you can help at next to no cost, definitely qualifies for "lack of human decency".

Incorrect. He imposed responsibility on the passengers next to her.

> "I want to know who the the passengers were sitting next to this child were that didn't help her with her transfer."

And, no, you don't know she was in obvious distress, nor do you know the passengers next to her were aware of her problem as they were disembarking.

Not taking the time to help a child to the next gate is normal, any rational actor would expect the airline to take care of it; the fact that they did not does not mean the other passengers lack human decency, what the hell.

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