Denied boarding due to excess alcohol. What happens next when abroad?

[Cheeseandlobster]

I will try to keep the details vague and I know this isn't an aibu but I am posting for traffic

I flew home from holiday recently. At check in there was a woman in a wheelchair who looked unwell travelling with her dp and 2 young children. She was at our gate lying on the floor and her partner said she was drunk and had been the whole week they were away. He said he had had enough. The gate staff asked cabin crew who denied the woman boarding. At this stage her dp was openly crying and people were being really kind helping him to source spare nappies for his youngest and giving water etc. One woman in particular was being incredibly kind and helpful.

However the situation has been playing on my mind. She told cabin crew he was violent to her. The helpful lady said she had witnessed the woman physically going for her dp. But she did have a bruise on her face which he said was caused by falling over drunk. She was also verbally aggressive to staff.

So her dp and children boarded and she was left behind. Her dp said she had money but I don't know how much. I am certain insurance won't pay out for a hotel etc but she was obviously very vulnerable and it has been playing on my mind. I don't know whether the airline would have had a duty of care but the last I saw of her was her slumped sideways in the wheelchair at the gate. Violent or not she must have been very frightened and I don't know whether the airline would have looked after her. Does anyone know whether they would have ensured she was safe?

What a ridiculous thing to say. I posted based on an actual situation I saw recently which concerned me, because whether she is a nasty alcoholic or not, she was left in a vulnerable situation and I wanted to see if anyone knew if she would be safe. At no point have I ever said it must be the man's fault 🙄

Brian Laundries and Gabby Petiti have nothing to do with this situation. There are zero similarities. I could easily counter with look up Matt Harper and Emily Pakpahan. And we can go tit for tat posting cases where man killed woman, or woman killed man. Theyd all mean nothing in relation to the situation the OP witnessed.

What concerned you was that this man did all kinds of things wrong. He didn't have nappies - he doesn't look after the child, he left his intoxicated wife alone in an airport - what kind of man does that, his child hit his face - copying what child has seen him do at home, you don't know who is in the wrong - clearly not thinking the woman did anything wrong. You wonder about alternative - did he spike her drink.

That is all misandrist thinking. You only looked at him through a critical, judgmental and questioning lens. Your focus is on what he is doing to the woman and making her unsafe by leaving her there. You ascribe all responsibility to him and none of it is positive.

@pixie5121 how is that comparable? And @BadNomad posts excellent examples!

This is a woman centred site. Most posters are women. Most women have encountered abusive men, know women who have been abused, or at minimum, know intellectually that it's fairly widespread. For most of us, this experience and knowledge of the world enables us to look beyond the obvious and consider there might, just might, be other possibilities. Particularly when a woman is claiming she was assaulted and has a bruise.
Yes, some of the suggested scenarios are far fetched, but taking those out of the equation, it's not unreasonable to consider a woman, albeit drunk, claiming her bruised face is a result of an assault, could be victim of abuse.
What to me is more puzzling in the number of posters who become 'furious' at women being supportive of women, and whose life experience has somehow led them to believe that men need their protection. Objectively, men enjoy far more of life's privileges and securities than women, so it seems odd to me to become so emotionally invested in challenging one of the few platforms where opinion may lean towards support of women.

To be fair, he tried his hardest to get his drunk wife home. He got her all the way to the gate where she was refused boarding. And I don’t think it was wrong of him to tell the truth that she was drunk. If he really was intending to leave her behind he would have left her in bed at the accommodation with a note. An airport is very safe and if you’re refused boarding they are more likely to let you sober up and take a later flight, whereas if you miss your flight you definitely have to pay for new airline tickets.

All this tells me is that as a “woman centred site” that many women not only admit they are sexist against men/biased for women but think that’s something to be proud of. Along with accusing women who are a bit more objective and logical of thinking “men need their protection” what utter rot. 🙄

I never once said he wasn't looking after the children, I didn't say the child had seen the father hitting his partner or indeed vice versa though I did say she may have witnessed this at home from either parent. And I later agreed with another poster who stated the child hitting was probably borne out of fright, frustration and not being able to articulate thes feelings at such a young age. I also said the woman had allegedly according to another passenger, been abusive to both her dp and staff. I posted what I saw without attributing blame and to try to find out if the woman would have been safe. To accuse me of making this up to stir negative responses against men is quite frankly offensive. I don't hate men at all

How is it not comparable?! Do two situations have to be identical for you to see the similarities?

Both situations are a woman outwardly appearing to be in the wrong and judged to be in the wrong by authority figures. People here are saying the ground staff wouldn't have got it wrong...well, the fucking police got it wrong about Gabby. She was written up as being the problem.

There were people on the internet all along in that case who said it could be reactive abuse, that it was weird Brian was so calm, that things didn't add up, and they were shouted down and called misandrists. Mocked for making up 'crazy scenarios'. Told that it's possible for a woman to just be abusive, and that poor Brian should leave the crazy bitch.

Well, it turns out the 'crazy scenario' was 100% true. She was acting like a crazy person because he had literally driven her insane, and then he killed her.

You really can't see the parallels with this?

What to me is more puzzling in the number of posters who become 'furious' at women being supportive of women, and whose life experience has somehow led them to believe that men need their protection

Well maybe if you had seem what I have your view would be different.

Women supportive of women doesn't mean believe women at all costs and twist stuff to ensure men are blamed for everything.

As I said, this sort of attitude nearly led to the death of 4 people because it 'couldn't possibly be the woman'

Oh and btw I'm not furious. Disgusted the amount people will go to twist things as the man must be in the wrong, along with the mocking that has gone on, maybe.

I remember once I was at the airport and this poor stressed woman with 2 young kids was there with a guy, blind drunk. He was so drunk and verbally abusive they wouldn't let him on the plane.

While we were waiting the younger child needed changed and the woman said she'd run out of wipes and ask if anyone had any she could borrow! This was a total giveaway that she was a liar and hadn't cared for these kids for a damn minute of the past week! Abusive too I'd have thought.

Situations don’t have to be identical no, but there should be at least a few commonalities for them to be comparable.
Gabby Petito wasn’t a semi-conscious drunk or intoxicated in any way, meaning there is more evidence that the husband claiming his wife was drunk was actually true as numerous people could see she was in fact drunk. There were no witnesses to what went on between GB and Brian, but there were in the airport situation. There were no children involved with G& B but were in the scenario- so it’s a long term couple vs G&B who were very new couple in the early stages of the relationship. The man wasn’t cool as a cucumber and calm like Brian was, he was distressed and openly crying. The man didn’t claim his wife was abusive, just said he was sick of her being drunk…Brian claimed Gabby was abusive.

People here are saying the ground staff wouldn't have got it wrong...well, the fucking police got it wrong about Gabby.

I'm not sure why you are dragging the ground staff into this by way of parallels with other cases...

The ground staff/cabin crew here will have had to make a yes/no decision on fitness to fly....that's it.

Pretty sure that in all those cases, a man spiked their drink. Or if not, he made them do it somehow. Because women are all angels.

Seriously though, it's incredibly sad that in almost all those cases, those women had children with them.

We actually know almost nothing about Brian and Gabby's relationship. Everything you are saying about their intentions and motivations and feelings is speculation. He killed her and then killed himself. We have no information from either party as to what the relationship was like or what transpired. There are a thousand different dynamics and actions that could have existed in the relationship that ultimately culminated in her death and then his.

So youa re uasing speculation about what might have happened and now applying it to an entirely disconnected situation. The only link is your belief that men are bad and women are good and men have bad intentions and women have good intentions so you are using the same perspective across both cases, and likely ever case you come across.

@Midlifemusings now you're kind of doing what you're accusing other posters of doing .

What's more likely? That OP witnessed a high intensity, upsetting situation and then wrote about it from the perspective of someone that doesn't have a lot of experience of alcoholics, especially violent,female ones ? That her experience and statistics tell her that drunk women are vulnerable and should be looked after (we have this drummed into us since teenagehood) and thus making her concerned for the woman,even if she isn't a victim (she could become one) as well as concern over two distressed young children.

Or that she completely made it up /twisted the events to go on some kind of man hating agenda, especially when she has been willing to accept other points of view and explanations for everyone's behaviour and has admitted when she wasn't sure about certain things?

I'd also add, if male victims of abuse don't come forward for fear of not being believed, this isn't to do with any belief on part of the (male led) authorities that women are intrinsically good and men bad. Its because our societal norm is that men are strong and powerful and women weak and passive, and therefore a 'real man' couldn't be abused by a little woman. Most male abuse victims report reluctance to divulge due to shame, which is based in the same toxic masculinity.
Now women did not create toxic masculinity. Men did that all by themselves. Women don't benefit from it either, ever. And sometimes, like in the examples above, it's an own goal that also harms men. To try to pass the responsibility for men struggling to escape abuse to women on MN is as ill thought out as it is offensive.

I am - you are right and OP reacted in a how dare you speculate about my intentions and twist my words....

Yet is accepting of everyone else doing the same thing to twist this to make this man = bad and women = good!

I would actually be concerned about anyone so intoxicated that they are lying on the ground. Do you know how many young men die when they wander out of bars drunk and fall and hit their heads or fall in waterways and die. A lot. Many missing cases of young men last seen in bars end that way. It isn't only women who are vulnerable when drunk. The response to those cases is that those young men make poor choices and who the fuck cares if they die - they shouldn't have gotten drunk in a bar and tried to stumble home.

So both are vulnerable when in that state but for many there is only concern for women. I wasn't raised to only ever be concerned for women. I will help anyone in need and be concerned for their safety if it is compromised, but that doesn't mean I assume that someone else must be evil. I don't think it means the father did somethign horrible if she is vulnerable nor do I think there must be an evil woman behind a drunk man strumbling into the water and drowning.

Ehhhhhh....you don't seem to get the concept of comparisons between situations that aren't exactly the same.

No, Gabby wasn't drunk or intoxicated - Brian didn't claim she was. He claimed she was hysterical. Police and witnesses agreed she was. Witnesses had seen Gabby behaving in an agitated and hysterical way. The point is - does her being hysterical and even physically hurting him mean she wasn't ultimately the victim? No.

No, Brian wasn't distressed and openly crying, but he was behaving in a way that garnered sympathy, like airport man. He was publicly putting down his partner, like airport man, and portraying her as incompetent and volatile, like airport man. "She just went crazy at me out of nowhere and I can't deal with her" == "She's been drinking all week and I can't cope".

In both situations, there's a man who appears to be capable and in control and a woman they throw under the bus in front of others. It's a fairly common dynamic in abusive relationships.

I'm going to assume all these posters who think the man is to blame for leaving the 'vulnerable' woman alone, drunk in a foreign airport didn't grow up with an alcoholic parent. The 'vulnerable' parties here were the kids. The father got them out of the situation. Good for him.
FWIW my mother was an alcoholic (she eventually drank herself to death) and as a child I had a fairly similar airport situation, alone at age 8 with 4 year old sibling to look after in a foreign country when we couldn't speak the language. Nobody there could speak English so as the crew were concerned about us (rightly) we were taken to the airport police station where again nobody could explain what was happening. It was fucking terrifying. I'm VERY glad he got the kids away.

Also if you know any alcoholics you'd understand that they pretty much always have injuries due to getting blind drunk and falling over. It doesn't have to mean someone is beating them up.

Are you literally saying a man murdering a tiny, petite woman somehow could have been partly her fault?

Fucking hell.

That’s what jumps out at you? A dad struggling to take care of his family whilst the mother is lying in a drunken heap…but yeah wild the dad was looking for nappies.

@Faciadipasta that sounds awful for you.

I have a male friend, who took his six year old daughter away on holiday, two days before they came home, she revealed everything that her alcoholic mother was putting her through. This small child had been acting as a carer and was hiding what her mother was doing.

He had to arrange permanent custody, school (they didn't live close enough for her to continue at her current school, everything in the short time he had. She thrived and grew into a balanced woman, her mother however continued emotional and drunken abuse, her DF shielded her as much as he could, but ultimately she chose to cut contact in her early 20s. The letter she wrote to her mother as a "goodby" this is why I'm doing this, was utterly heartbreaking. She grieved the mother she wanted, she didn't grieve the woman that she cut contact with.

All for alcohol and not getting help when needed.