Northwest Airlines Apologizes, Dodging Potential Jihad from Muslim Group

According to the Encarta Dictionary, Jihad is translated as meaning "a campaign waged by Muslims in defense of the Islamic faith against individuals, ORGANIZATIONS, or countries, regarded as hostile to Islam." So when a Muslim group from Detroit Michigan threatened a boycott, or Jihad, against Northwest Airlines, the airline caved and apologized for an incident that took place on January 7th.

The incident the airline apologized profusely for involved 40 Muslim pilgrims that had been trying to return from the Hajj earlier this month. The group of 40 Muslims had been refused boarding for a connecting flight while in Germany, in order to return to Detroit, after their long trip to Saudi Arabia. The group cited "racial profiling" and decided as a group, they were going to issue a statement to which the Muslim community would "boycott" Northwest airlines unless an apology was released, along with compensation as well as disciplinary action be taken against the employee that did the actual "profiling".

Al-Qazwini released a statement after the groups return stating "With tens of thousands of Muslim customers, Northwest could be hurt financially by such a boycott. I hope Northwest will be wiser."

According to the airline, the group had showed up at the gate late, which was the initial problem. For international flights, such as this one, Northwest requires that passengers check in at least one hour before the flight and board the plane at least 30 minutes before they take off. This has turned into a case of "he said, she said" since Al-Qazwini has stated that the group was actually at the gate and hour and a half before the scheduled flight. There were also other issues that occurred such as misleading and apparently incorrect information printed on some of the tickets as well as some of the baggage had not made it to Germany for the next flight (and some passengers lacked the required receipts for luggage).

Another passenger in the group, Jennifer Zreik, stated that some of the group was allowed on the plane but 40 of them were not and "they were treated really, really, really badly."

Apparently since some of the passengers were not allowed to board the flight, they then had to either spend the night at the airport or pay for a hotel room and pay some sort of penalty and fees that was approximately $77; none of which was reimbursed.

To add insult to injury and further the "discrimination" that had taken place with Northwest, Al-Qazwini also stated that there had been an incident previous to this where he was not allowed to pray while on a Northwest Airlines flight.

As of Wednesday, January 17th Northwest Airlines has apologized for any inconvenience that the incident had caused, however also pointed out that the group was put on the next flights to Detroit without hassle. The spokesman for the Airline has denied any sort of "discrimination" had taken place, but they would be discussing compensation with the group. The Council on American-Islamic Relations accepted the apology but definitely expect compensation as well as clarification of the incident to follow. The Director of the Council, Dawud Walid, stated "Northwest has not taken full responsibility".

The Associated Press has reported that Northwest Airlines has agreed to reimburse the passengers for any hotel costs and flights they had taken in order to return to the US. However, the senior Vice President of government relations for the Airline, Andrea Newman, stated that she would also travel to Detroit on Friday the 19th to meet with the disgruntled passengers and clergyman.

According to Mr. Walid, there were other passengers allowed to board while members of the Muslim group were denied. However, after getting wind of the compensatory measures made by Northwest, Mr. Walid then stated "the group welcomes the airline's apology and offer as a positive step toward addressing the concerns of the Muslim passengers." Crisis averted.

*Sources*

-The Seattle Times, http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/travel/2003529317_webmuslimflight17.html, Niraj Warikoo, 2007 January 17.

-Reuters Online, http://today.reuters.com/news/articleinvesting.aspx?type=comktnews&storyID=2007-01-18T015103Z_01_N17444716_RTRUKOC_0_US-AIRLINE-MUSLIMS-APOLOGY.xml&WTmodLoc=USNewsHome_R1_comktnews-1, 2007 January 17.

-The Star-Tribune, http://24hour.startribune.com/24hour/nation/story/3475746p-12710889c.html, The Associated Press, 2007 January 18.