All the "Well he shouldn't have used the T word" when he explained that he was taking the photos as part of his travel review job.
There were no faults in the way he handled it. The airline was completely to blame, severely inconvenienced him, falsely accused him, and cost him money. Outrageous behavior against any passenger. That he is a 950,000 mile traveler on the airline and often writes articles recommending them to others (at a time when United is well known for being among the worst of the carriers) makes it completely idiotic from a business standpoint as well.
No one's taking the airline's side here, but he shouldn't have brought up terrorism. That was a mistake in judgment on his part, as I explained elsewhere.
The irony here is that you're demonstrating the same sort of knee-jerk misinterpretation that arises when people say "terrorism" on an airplane.
I still don't understand why using the word "terrorist" is a no-no. It is a word. Context matters. Context in this case would suggest there was nothing to worry about.
I swear sometimes it is like the whole world is a slightly mentally handicapped child who, upon hearing a bad word, starts repeating it getting more and more upset.
I guess being adults and thinking things through is too much to ask from your average full grown adult?
It's not the word itself. The word could be "terrorist" or "bomb" or "Muslim" or anything, really. It's denying some wrongdoing without having first been accused of it. Humans learn very early on to be suspicious of people who offer denials prior to accusations, and we likewise learn in childhood not to offer such denials ourselves.
When no one has accused you of stealing a cookie from the cookie jar, saying out of the blue, "I didn't steal the cookie from the cookie jar" instantly makes you a suspect. This is Encyclopedia Brown level stuff.
(As an aside, your lack of intuitive understanding of this principle, combined with your righteous indignation and judgment of the world at large, makes me feel very much like you describe while writing this reply.)
Except it wasn't used in that manner at all. As others pointed out, it's a fricken idiom and automatic response in a photographic context. http://goo.gl/CnV1s
It's the same as if he replied 'okay, don't worry, the photos will be dead and gone', and the flight attendant misinterprets that to mean he's going to blow up the plane and kill everyone.
If the story is as he's relayed it, he's absolutely 100% not at fault and the flight attendant is a total fricken idiot.
Yes. Words won't hurt you. When they can use words to bring down an aircraft then I care, but until that occurs then, they're just words.
Context matters. A sentence matters more than a word. A group of sentences matters more than just one. A conversation matters more than just a few sentences.
I don't think it's people defending the airline, I think people just understand the unfortunate way things work now. When travelling by plane it's best to just shut up and do what you're told. The trouble caused by speaking up is obviously not worth it. If the writer had decided to follow the rules and not take anymore photos why did he feel the need to further explain himself? It wasn't going to change anything and at the very least was a waste of his time.
He doesn't mention the other passenger who took photos getting booted from the plane. This suggests it was his reaction rather than the taking of photos that saw him left behind.
