Are we to assume that Branson also makes it part of his "No Offendi" policy to force imams, priests, rabbis, maharishis, Mormon missionaries, etc., to also don a Virgin-Sleeping-Suit? No offense. m/r
A Morally Corrupt Virgin
By Bruce Bawer On March 12, 2013
If the many postings I’ve seen on Facebook this weekend are any indication, the story of Nicky Howse, as told in the Daily Mail on Saturday, has already achieved a good deal of visibility on both sides of the Atlantic, which is terrific. But in my view absolutely everybody in the free world should know about this, and here – in addition to my own Facebook posting – is my small attempt to help get the word out.
Petty Officer Nicky Howse, 32, who has been a helicopter technician in the Royal Navy for fifteen years, serving in Afghanistan and elsewhere, is now, on a three-month deployment in California. Recently she had to return from Los Angeles to Britain to attend her grandfather’s funeral. She flew Virgin Atlantic, and wore her uniform, and the entire flight passed without incident. Last Monday, however, when she turned up at Heathrow to fly back to LAX, the trouble started at once.
At check-in, an airport security guard, employed by the firm G4S, told Howse that she couldn’t fly in her uniform. “He was rude,” she told a friend by e-mail, “he wouldn’t let the check-in girl give me my passport.” After this encounter, she described herself as “shaking with rage.” But at least she thought that was the end of it. Nope: “when I got to the departure gate I was taken to the side by the flight supervisor” – a Virgin employee – “and they said I wasn’t allowed to fly in uniform and had to wear a sleep suit. I then stood feeling completely humiliated with other passengers, clearly curious as to what was going on, staring at me, waiting for him to come back with the black pyjamas.”
Howse asked if this no-uniform business was airline policy. The flight supervisor said yes. ...
Why was the Virgin flunky so insistent that Howse shed her uniform? According to the Mail, it was because they viewed it as “offensive.” She’d have to remove it to avoid “offend[ing] other passengers,” because, she was told, Virgin Atlantic doesn’t “only fly British passengers.” ...
...
On Sunday, a Mirror headline advertised that Sir Richard Branson, Virgin’s grand poobah, had apologized for Howse’s treatment. Well, not really. It turned out he had bothered to send out a couple of lame tweets, the manifest purpose of which was to shift the blame for the incident at Heathrow entirely onto the G4S employee for providing the wrong information to his own underlings – who, he wrote, “are mortified and have apologised profusely.”
Not good enough. Not by a mile. Branson didn’t even mention Howse’s name. He expressed no personal remorse whatsoever. He wrote nothing suggestive of respect for Howse and her fellow service members. ...
-go to the links-
Petty Officer Nicky Howse, 32, who has been a helicopter technician in the Royal Navy for fifteen years, serving in Afghanistan and elsewhere, is now, on a three-month deployment in California. Recently she had to return from Los Angeles to Britain to attend her grandfather’s funeral. She flew Virgin Atlantic, and wore her uniform, and the entire flight passed without incident. Last Monday, however, when she turned up at Heathrow to fly back to LAX, the trouble started at once.
At check-in, an airport security guard, employed by the firm G4S, told Howse that she couldn’t fly in her uniform. “He was rude,” she told a friend by e-mail, “he wouldn’t let the check-in girl give me my passport.” After this encounter, she described herself as “shaking with rage.” But at least she thought that was the end of it. Nope: “when I got to the departure gate I was taken to the side by the flight supervisor” – a Virgin employee – “and they said I wasn’t allowed to fly in uniform and had to wear a sleep suit. I then stood feeling completely humiliated with other passengers, clearly curious as to what was going on, staring at me, waiting for him to come back with the black pyjamas.”
Howse asked if this no-uniform business was airline policy. The flight supervisor said yes. ...
Why was the Virgin flunky so insistent that Howse shed her uniform? According to the Mail, it was because they viewed it as “offensive.” She’d have to remove it to avoid “offend[ing] other passengers,” because, she was told, Virgin Atlantic doesn’t “only fly British passengers.” ...
...
On Sunday, a Mirror headline advertised that Sir Richard Branson, Virgin’s grand poobah, had apologized for Howse’s treatment. Well, not really. It turned out he had bothered to send out a couple of lame tweets, the manifest purpose of which was to shift the blame for the incident at Heathrow entirely onto the G4S employee for providing the wrong information to his own underlings – who, he wrote, “are mortified and have apologised profusely.”
Not good enough. Not by a mile. Branson didn’t even mention Howse’s name. He expressed no personal remorse whatsoever. He wrote nothing suggestive of respect for Howse and her fellow service members. ...
-go to the links-
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