Sheikh delays plane over seating

Sheikh delays plane over seating
Fri Jul 27, 2007 2:30PM EDT
MILAN (Reuters) - A Qatar sheikh held up a British Airways flight at Milan's Linate airport for nearly three hours after discovering three of his female relatives had been seated next to men they did not know.

When none of the other business class passengers agreed to swap seats, the sheikh, a member of Qatar's ruling family, went to the pilot, who had already started the engine, to complain, an airport official said.

But the pilot ordered him and his traveling companions, the three women, two men, a cook and a servant, off the plane.

The London-bound flight took off nearly three hours behind schedule Thursday evening and around 50 of the 115 passengers missed connecting flights.

Traditions in the conservative Gulf Arab region bar women from mixing with unrelated men.

Having lived in one of Qatar's neighboring states, I understand the cultural issue here, but it's a bit much for this guy to expect a western airline operating in a western country to comply with his needs. He should have either used his own plane/charter, or if he was going to fly commercial, he should have arranged at the time of booking or check-in for them to sit together. BA employees deal with people from the Gulf all the time, it's a historically important market for the airline and they would do whatever they reasonably could to accomodate a sheikh if given prior notice. Unfortunately it's a cultural trait of people from the region to leave things to the last minute.