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?

But remember if he didn't give her the money he'd then be financially abusive. 🤔
And of course we've already had the

• he must have forced her/tricked her into drinking alcohol.
• he must have drugged or spiked her then.

It really is concerning the stretching people will do to absolve someone of personal responsibility!

"And if it had been the guy that was drunk and aggressive whilst the woman got on the plane with the children, you'd be just as concerned, right?

Thought not."

^^this

Its really concerning that the airport doesn't have staff responsible for safeguarding. Domestic violence is hardly rare and neither are vulnerable travellers. How do they react if they suspect human trafficking?

Its also annoying to see people on this thread seeing the potential risks being spelled out, and assuming that's somehow taking sides. It isn't. Its saying there is a possibility and that should be investigated.

She could have been drunk all week. She could have been drugged or have concussion. Neither or both could be true. None of us sitting here can tell, but we can see the risk.

Bingo.

Now we have human trafficking as a possibility.

I hope this is the "enough" moment he needs and he files for divorce the moment he gets home going for full custody. Those poor kids. Which is what i would tell a woman were the situations reversed. The alcoholic in question can sort his /her shit.

What do you care? What is it with people haunting these threads seemingly with the sole aim of furiously typing 'double standards on MN!!!' every 5 minutes? Do you seriously think a forum with a leaning to the support of women is going to harm men?

@PaddingtonBearStareAgain
Bingo.
Now we have human trafficking as a possibility

Since I didn't say that I'm just going to assume you are being goady.

Airport staff will be used to dealing with drunk people. It will happen on a daily occurrence.

If she wasn’t drunk and as some are suggesting he was lying to make him see the victim. The airport staff will be able to write letters supporting her saying he was lying and she wasn’t drunk.

To get her booted off the flight the staff would have approached her to talk to her which is how she was able to verbally abuse them. If she didn’t stink of booze security would have been called. They don’t avoid domestic altercations.

The youngest crying was probably doing so because “I want mummy”. Could be upset because she was verbally abusive to other people. The bruise on her face could have happened when she fell.

What do you care? What is it with people haunting these threads seemingly with the sole aim of furiously typing 'double standards on MN!!!' every 5 minutes? Do you seriously think a forum with a leaning to the support of women is going to harm men?

are you ok? You come across as absolutely furious. Maybe it’s your dramatic posting style but the poster has done nothing wrong and raises a valid point. You can’t seek to silence them if you don’t like their opinion.

Whatever the truth of it, and none of us will ever know unless one of those parents turns up on this thread, this is an absolute shit show for the kids.

I didn’t have as awful an experience as a couple
of the previous posters here - I’m so sorry for you all - but I remember one holiday where my Dad got extremely drunk on a boat trip and told everyone he was going to commit suicide. It was really one of the worst moments of my life, and I can still remember exactly how embarrassed and scared I was. A lovely, lovely lady came and found me and my brother later and offered us help, and I can remember that too and how I felt like I couldn’t ask for help and so desperately wanted to.

So yes the only people I really feel sorry for here are the kids, and I hope that seeing the other passengers trying to help their family gave them a small amount of comfort at least.

The airline has a duty of care to its passengers in the air, not on the route to the airport, or at the airport. A woman so drunk she needs a wheelchair, is a risk not just to herself, but to the whole aircraft in an immediate departure situation.

If she was allowed to board, she could have risked the lifes of many.

I assume an airport would call an ambulance to someone that needed one, so why not the police or social services in this kind of situation?

Now that's a reach isn't it!

I fervently believe in men being held to account for abusive, harmful and shameful behaviour, but MN is a very influential international platform with a very wide reach and it is arguable that the vitriol expressed on some threads does impact the way men are viewed on here in general. Obviously in the majority of cases, the cries of LTB are valid, but sometimes I have read threads on far less contentious topics than DV that result in the OP blowing up their life because posters tell them all men are bastards and they're steamrolled into believing it.

I'm sorry that happened, so unfair for you.

The duty of care extends well beyond the time spent in the air. If they refuse boarding they obviously have a duty of care to the person involved, regardless of reason, but they would probably argue that leaving the person in the care of the airport would be enough because there's a reasonable chance nothing serious would happen to them there.

Do you have an opinion on why people care so much that MN leans towards the support of women? Because that was the question I asked. I'm not particularly interested in your pretence that you think I'm unwell or irrationally angry or your opinion on my posting style. But I am interested in that.

@5128gap

What do you care? What is it with people haunting these threads seemingly with the sole aim of furiously typing 'double standards on MN!!!' every 5 minutes? Do you seriously think a forum with a leaning to the support of women is going to harm men?

Well said. Handmaidens for the menz.

Thank you. I agree entirely about the LTB threads. There is indeed a vocal minority that at times are very hasty in condemning other people's relationships.
However, I'm actually referring less to that, and more to the increasing trend of late to set up a false equivalence as a vehicle to demonstrate that men are maligned. Sometimes with a very tenuous link to the subject of the thread.
Its no secret that MN is a woman centred forum, but as influential as it might be (within its demographic, most people don't use it) the views expressed here do not represent a risk to men in general, most of whom couldn't care less what a group of women on MN think, because few would take the site seriously.

In answer to some questions. I didn't smell alcohol on her. I was relatively close but probably not close enough. I don't know if she fell out of the wheelchair. To me it looked like she just wanted to lie down. She was able to get in and out of the chair ok from what I could see. The gate staff didn't speak much to her. They did a very cursory check mainly speasking with the dp. They then spoke with cabin crew out of sight. The cabin crew did not see the woman at all.

Regardless to who was at fault, it was a sad situation all round and especially for the children having to fly home without their mummy

👏

It's also quite infantilising when it's assumed the woman probably wasn't just drunk and her partner must have had some malevolent hand in the situation.

Thank you smartcardriver 🙂

I get what you're saying about MN in general, but I don't think anyone's been using false equivalence in this case. Posters are simply pointing out that there's lots of reaching going on to condemn the husband as being at fault and not the wife who was so pissed up she can't board the plane.

I had to drive through our town centre last Friday night about 11pm. Saw a group of women shouting, stumbling, and wandering into the road. All of them had clearly been drugged by some evil man. The sick bastard had even dressed one of them up as a bride.

This place is full of pickmes and handmaidens. It's wild.