Sarah has criticised the lack of a clear process in the case involving the wellbeing of a minor.
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An Australian Federal Police spokesperson confirmed they had responded to the request for assistance from Qantas “about an alleged incident on a flight from Perth”.
AFP said in a statement, “no criminal offence was identified, and the matter was considered finalised.”
Qantas stands by its crew, saying it is well-trained for handling disruptive passengers, and did what was necessary given the situation.
The flight attendant invited Sarah to speak to the man, who reportedly said he was an “old man” and knew he should not have been taking the photos of the youth.
Sarah later wrote to Qantas that “the man’s excuse for taking photos of my son should not have been accepted without question by the Qantas staff”.
At that point, Sarah was asked to decide whether or not the photos should be deleted.
Qantas disputes Sarah’s characterisation of the crew’s response. Daniel Dihen, executive manager of cabin crew at Qantas, said: “We take privacy concerns very seriously and understand how distressing this situation must have been for the family involved.”
Dihen said the “crew acted promptly to ensure the younger passenger’s safety and comfort, and followed all appropriate protocols,” which included “relocating the family during the flight, speaking with the parties involved, and contacting the AFP at the family’s request”.
Sarah said Qantas didn’t immediately offer to move the man or her family. At one point she had to position herself in the aisle to block the man’s line of sight of her son. Another passenger, watching the situation unfold, offered to change seats with Sarah.
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Qantas flight crew also had not informed Sarah they could prevent the man from getting off the plane when it landed, she said. Had she known this, and had the Qantas crew retained the phone for the duration of the flight, the police could have inspected the photos, she believes.
“The attendants had no idea how to handle [the situation],” Sarah said. Since Sarah was originally seated separately from her son and husband – the family had been bumped from an earlier flight – Sarah only learnt of the incident by her husband waving her down across the cabin.
After landing, rather than being disembarked separately, the woman, her son and family were told to wait on the plane with the man who had been photographing her son.
There, the police interviewed her son and spoke to the man separately. A second passenger also offered testimony to the police, she said.
Passengers photographing staff or other passengers without permission is a violation of Qantas’ conditions of carriage, which Qantas updated in 2023, aligning it with airline policies elsewhere.
Qantas tightened the rules in response to concerns from the Flight Attendants’ Association of Australia, who wanted to protect its members from being filmed by passengers only to have the footage shared on social media.
Philip Baum, visiting professor of aviation security at Coventry University, said unwanted photography of individuals in their private space in a plane’s cabin “loosely falls into the category of ‘unruly passenger incidents’ “.
Baum said that while Qantas has one of the most robust crew training programs in the world, “deleting photographs was not a good idea, if they know that law enforcement was going to be summoned”.
In situations where the police may be called, Baum said: “There needs to be a conversation with parents to ask what they expect to happen [following the crew’s intervention].”
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The variety of trouble possible on a plane is also an issue for even the best-trained flight crews, said Baum, who chairs the DISPAX World (short for “disruptive passenger”) conference.
In fact, “crew getting the passenger’s phone itself can be problematic because it can trigger an unruly passenger incident where a person could say the crew doesn’t have the right to inspect the phone”.
Sarah was told the AFP looked up the man in their database and he didn’t have a history, which she said was “reassuring but not conclusive”.
Qantas said that in these situations, once the AFP takes over, it becomes the police’s responsibility – but the airline “fully supports” the police and continues to co-operate with the AFP.
By the time the talk with the police was over, the Qantas duty manager had left the terminal, Sarah said, and “there wasn’t a Qantas staff manager in sight”.
“The terminal was completely empty,” said Sarah.
The airline says it sends staff if a passenger requests them at the terminal. Staff also sign off from shifts based on operational requirements. A Qantas airport manager went to check on the family after they had left the terminal, the airline said.
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