Rob Zaleski: Foreign students have more negative experiences at airports

Rob Zaleski  —  11/19/2007 11:01 am

If you're among the 27 million people who will be traveling on U.S. airlines over Thanksgiving, this probably won't come as a shock. But travel experts say the odds are fairly high you won't have a pleasant experience.

This has been the worst year ever for cancelled flights and long delays, and passenger complaints are up 50 percent over 2006. But are the odds of having a bad experience even higher if you're a non-American?

Tom Popkewitz, a professor in the school of education at UW-Madison, was pondering that question after three foreign students in one of his classes recently mentioned the negative experiences they've had at U.S. airports and maintained that non-American travelers are treated differently than Americans. Several other foreign students in the class agreed, Popkewitz says.

And while the students were referring to U.S. airports in general, Popkewitz says he was surprised that they've had problems at Dane County Regional Airport as well.

Popkewitz says he has no way of verifying the stories, but notes that all three students are extremely bright and pursuing Ph.Ds.

"So I don't think they're making this stuff up," he says.

Yi-Chen Lee, a 30-year-old from Taiwan, told the professor that she and husband had a video game stolen from their luggage in August while flying from Madison to New York City, with a stopover in Detroit.

She said there was no note inside the luggage indicating that it had been inspected by Transportation Security Administration (TSA) employees, so she and her husband didn't know what to think. But they recently found out that a friend who's also from Taiwan had the exact same thing happen while flying out of Madison.

Was it just a coincidence that they're all Asians?

"I don't know," Lee told me last week. But she noted that their names were on their luggage.

"We thought it was unusual," she said.

Another student -- a Puerto Rican woman in her 30s who asked that her name not be used -- said she's been pulled out of line at least four times by security guards at the Madison airport and forced to undergo long security checks. And in each instance, she says, the guards were "very aggressive" and "on power trips."

And Vivian Kit Lo Kam, 26, of Hong Kong, said a ticket agent for United Airlines berated her and her husband for checking in just an hour before their flight from Madison to Vancouver last May. She said the agent pointed out that passengers on all international flights are required to check in two hours before a flight and threatened to not let them board the plane.

"She was very mean and rude," Kam said. "We felt embarrassed."

Popkewitz, who says he often checks in just 40 minutes prior to international flights at the Madison airport -- "O'Hare is a different matter," -- says he's not sure if these were isolated incidents or whether this is one of the harsh realities of post 9/11 America. But if the students' stories are accurate, "there's no excuse for it," he says.

Sharyn Wisniewski, marketing and communications director at the airport here, cautioned against reading too much into the complaints of three people or suggesting that it signifies a trend.

"If I've learned anything in this job, it's that there's always two sides to a story," she said.

Wisniewski agreed that "there are lots of of rules at airports these days, and I think sometimes staff, just doing their jobs, can be perceived as treating someone unfairly when they're actually just doing what they need to do."

If a traveler feels they do have a legitimate complaint, they can contact the airport "and we'll certainly listen and, if we can, be a bridge of some sort," she said. But she pointed out that the airport is only responsible for its own employees and that travelers with complaints about security personnel need to contact the TSA, while those with complaints about airline-related matters need to contact the specific airline involved.

Of course, as any traveler knows, that in itself can be an exasperating experience.

Lee, for instance, says her husband did file an email complaint to TSA about his stolen video game and was informed that he needed to provide proof that he owned the game. And that was just the beginning, she said, of what promised to be a long process.

"So we just gave up," she said.

Popkewitz emphasizes that he's always had high regard for workers at the Madison airport and says he's never had a bad experience there. "But then, I'm an American," he says.

Still, Popkewitz says his guess "is that this airport probably treats non-Americans better than most, because there are so many foreign travelers that come in. On other hand, if what these students are saying is true, they aren't treating them great."

Popkewitz says there's no denying that airline employees and security guards are under a lot of strain these days -- some of it due to 9/11. But perhaps they need to be reminded, he says, that travelers are under a lot of stress too, and that each one deserves to be treated in a respectful manner.

"I don't think that's too much to ask," he says.

Rob Zaleski  —  11/19/2007 11:01 am