I received a great letter today from Northwest Airlines Customer Service regarding the Rob Anders incident.
Frankly? The story’s been distorted by irresponsible reporting in the media and irresponsible action on the part of the ACLU. Here’s the real deal, as explained by a Northwest rep:
Thank you for your correspondence regarding allegations lodged against
Northwest Airlines, Inc. by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)
about an airline employee pass provided to an Air New Zealand employee.
I would like to assure you those allegations are false …
You should understand that Northwest Airlines offers the same employee
benefits and travel privileges to its employees’ domestic partners as it
does to employees’ spouses, including benefits and privileges that
extend to domestic partners’ children. Northwest does not discriminate
against domestic partners and is fully compliant with California’s
employee discrimination laws.
The issue underlying the ACLU’s false accusations involves a unique
travel benefit shared by most airline employees. Many airlines provide
employees of other airlines the privilege of traveling on a
space-available basis at a significantly reduced rate. In other words,
for a nominal fee airline employees are permitted to fly on another
carrier when the carrier has vacant seats. This is referred to within
the airline industry as interline or non-revenue travel.
Interline travel privileges typically are not uniform. Some airlines
permit the employee, the employee’s spouse or domestic partner, the
employee’s children, and even the employee’s parents to travel on this
space available, reduced rate basis. Other airlines may limit the
privilege to the employee or to the employee and spouse. Some airlines
do not offer travel privileges to domestic partners.
Northwest’s policy is to only offer travel privileges to other airline
employees to the same extent that the other airline offers travel
privileges to Northwest employees. In other words, we require
reciprocity. If the other airline does not permit our employees’
domestic partners (or parents, children or any other class) to travel
on their airline, Northwest does not permit the other airlines’
employees’ domestic partners to travel on Northwest. This is not a
matter of unlawful discrimination, but one of fairness. It would not be
fair to offer other airline employees privileges that the other airline
does not offer to our own employees.
When Northwest extended travel privileges to domestic partners, it
reached out to all airlines it had interline agreements with and asked
them to sign a new interline agreement that granted mutual interline
privileges to employees’ domestic partners. Many airlines signed the
new interline agreements and we currently extend interline privileges to
those carriers’ employees and their domestic partners. Other carriers
did not sign the new agreements.
In August 2000, Northwest sent Air New Zealand a letter requesting them
to sign the new interline agreement. Air New Zealand never responded to
Northwest’s letter, and since that time neither airline has permitted
the other’s employees’ domestic partners to travel on an interline
basis. Northwest has always been willing to offer such privileges to
Air New Zealand employees and their domestic partners, but only if Air
New Zealand were willing to offer such privileges to our employees’
domestic partners.
The airline employee involved in the ACLU’s press release, a Mr. Robert
Anders, is an employee of Air New Zealand. He apparently won an
interline pass from Northwest Airlines as a prize at an Air New Zealand
holiday party. Unlike typical interline travel, the pass won by Mr.
Anders was for travel without the nominal fee normally charged. It is
not uncommon for Northwest to trade such no-fee interline passes with
other airlines to be given away for employee celebrations or fundraising
activities. In exchange for the pass that Northwest provided it
received a similar pass to offer one of its employees for travel on Air
New Zealand. These passes are subject to the terms and conditions of
the interline agreement between Northwest and Air New Zealand.
When Mr. Anders contacted Northwest to use his newly won pass, he was
informed that Northwest’s interline agreement with Air New Zealand does
not permit domestic partners to travel.
Northwest has since reviewed the pass letter Mr. Anders received and
concluded that, while intended to be subject to the interline agreement,
it is not clearly stated on the letter. Consequently, Northwest has
decided to permit Mr. Anders and his domestic partner to use the pass.
We apologize to him and his partner and we hope they will understand how
and why the incident arose. Northwest will also reiterate its proposal
to Air New Zealand to sign the interline agreement that permits mutual
travel privileges for our respective employees and their domestic
partners.
We want to reiterate that Northwest offers equal benefits and travel
privileges to employees’ domestic partners and does not discriminate on
the basis of the employees’ sexual orientation.
Sincerely,
Kathy Childs
Customer Care
Northwest/KLM Airlines
Supports your earlier request for Better press corps.
ANZ’s alleged policy of abusing domestic partners is hardly a moral or legal justification for Northwest to join in the abuse.
If an Arab partner airline were to deny service to Jews, would Northwest do so in the name of “reciprocity”?
Mike,
I appreciate your comment, but the Northwest affair is nothing more than what logic teachers call a “straw man” — a manufactured controversy with no basis in fact, tossed out to elicit an emotional response.
Meanwhile: a number of points you make lead me to conclude you could benefit from taking a few logic courses yourself.
– “ANZ’s alleged policy.” Air New Zeland does not extend domestic partner benefits to its own employees. This is a matter of record; nothing is being “alleged.”
– “of abusing domestic partners.” Failing to extend a perk (in this case, free travel) to domestic partners hardly qualifies as abuse. You’re exaggerating the situation.
– “is hardly a moral or legal justification for Northwest to join in the abuse.” Northwest extends to the employees of partner airlines the same privileges those airlines extend to Northwest employees. Charactering this situation as “abuse” makes you come across as disingenuous (at best) or hysterical (at worst).
– “If an Arab partner airline wer to deny service to Jews…” Here, you posit that:
a) an airline denying service to an entire class of people on the basis of religious discrimination
is parallel to
b) an airline refusing to extend one perk (always given to its own employees) to to employees of partner airlines (who don’t offer its own employees that benefit).
If you can’t see that these two situations aren’t parallel, you may have issues that go beyond my ability to help you.
Gay people in America have real equality issues — particularly with regard to marital rights — to address.
To manufacture controversy and invent prejudice where none exists is irresponsible.
Mark, your points are well-taken and might be perfectly valid in states where domestic partnerships do not enjoy a substantial degree of legal recognition and support.
In California, the attempted invalidation of a domestic partnership would seem to be problematic.
I do see a distinction between blanket denial of all services and the denial of one service or perk. I also agree that there are weightier issues than this one facing our nation. And I agree further that other airlines likely exhibit greater bias or prejudice than Northwest.
Nevertheless, as small as this case may be, there seems to be some picking-and-choosing going on, regarding:
1) which groups may ethically be treated in a discriminatory fashion, and2) whether it is legal for reciprocity agreements to treat domestic partnerships unequally in California, particularly when some of the airlines have agreed to heed state and local laws in exchange for government travel contracts.
Mike,
Good comment, overall (and much less shrill). Some things to consider:
1) You mention that, in California, the “attempted invalidation of a domestic partnership would seem to be problematic.”
I would sumbit that denying a free companion ticket to a domestic partner of an employee of another airline” is hardly an attempt to invalidate that person’s partnership.
2) It remains to be seen whether the domestic partnership of the individual involved in this case — a New Zealander, not a U.S. citizen, and someone not even employed by Northwest — is (or should be) addressed or protected by California law.
Further, it remains to be seen whether Northwest should be held accountable for the potentially discriminatory practices of other airlines (even those airlines who are listed as “partners”).
3) The practice of reciprocal agreements should likely be reviewed, as this case does suggest they can prove problematic.
From where I sit, the manufactured furor over this case — which quickly fell from media attention, especially after Northwest allowed the guy to fly with a free companion ticket anyway — remains a waste of time and energy.
Northwest remains a strong supporter of the gay community, and they have repeatedly gone out of their way to treat me and my partner as they would any heterosexual, married couple.
The ACLU’s attempt to paint them as “anti-gay” or discriminatory, based on a gross misrepresentation and oversimplification of the facts of this case, were irresponsible in the extreme.