04-12-2023
10:23 PM
04-12-2023
10:23 PM
> perhaps you could explain how SW knows the name of the person in seat 4A or 12D, or 20E, or any other seat for that matter.
They don't. I never said they did. They absolutely knew the name of the woman sitting next to us and for that to happen the person was already in cahoots with SW Airlines staff. For the flight attendant to tell us that "We are doing a survey, what is your last name" was a giant lie. As for "appeared suspicious", oh yes sitting in our seats for the entire seat reading and looking out the window was certainly suspicious.
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My son and I were racially targeted by Southwest Airlines on Flight 2943, April 6, from Phoenix to Sacramento. Not sure if Southwest is doing this on their own or because border patrol or some other branch of govt. is making them do it. I submitted a complaint on the website and received a case number but nothing more. Here is the submitted complaint:
My son--James Shires, adopted 2006 from Guatemala, a full US citizen with US passport--and I were racially targeted by Southwest Airlines staff during the return leg on our roundtrip flight from Sacramento to Phoenix. About halfway through the flight, a flight attendant approached us while we were seated and said to us, "we are doing a survey, what is your last name." I told him Shires and he asked me to spell it. He asked my son the same question and was told "Shires" and he then turned to the woman sitting next to us and confirmed her last name which he clearly already knew. In retrospect this was all a lie as Southwest has full knowledge of the name of every passenger on every flight. I thought it was all very odd but I went back to what I was reading. When the flight landed we exited the plane to find a number of sheriff dept officers waiting in the immediate dock area. We then walked up the ramp and out into the gate area of the terminal. As we attempted to leave the gate, we were stopped by an officer and told something vague about how Southwest was concerned about its passengers and were then asked to show our ID's to confirm our identities. We did that and were allowed to leave. Southwest had full knowledge of our identities -- we have flown Southwest for many years and have frequent flyer numbers -- but because our son is Guatemalan ancestry we were explicitly targeted. This is an outrageous violation of our civil liberties and I demand an explanation.
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