The Italian economist Guido Menzio is a leading professor in the United States. But the combination of an illegible handwriting, his accent and his dark hair, he was mistaken for a terrorist.
Menzio was awaiting his flight from Philadelphia to Syracuse in place on the plane already started working on a presentation. The unreadable and perhaps Arab-like characters penned Menzio, however, alerted a fellow passenger.
The woman tried to strike up a conversation with Menzio but the Italian was too focused on his calculations and sliced it off. Even more reason for concern and his neighbor decided to write a note to the cabin in which she claimed to be ill.
U-turn
The plane, which was on its way to the runway, suddenly turned and the woman was taken to the gate of the board. Initially, the questions of passengers were answered with an excuse to the commander himself Guido Menzio picked it up.
He was briefly interrogated by security guard and then it became clear what the was. The woman was not sick but was frightened by the unreadable signs Menzio, his beard and his (for the woman) foreign accent. Even though he was neatly dressed in Diesel and Lacoste, yet "something knocked out of him," the woman had said.
"It's mathematics!"
Menzio, yet distinguished last year as one of the most promising Italian economists, could only laugh. "I was trying to work out a differential equation," he told the Washington Post .After he showed his calculations, he was back on board. His "alert" neighbor took another flight.
Amazement and frustration dominate in Menzio he says. "The system is broken, there is no information gathered efficiently. The protocol is so abrupt. Someone alarms and everything is shut down immediately without something is checked. Everything is at a time depending on what someone reports. Hopeless."
By Editorial RTL News: Photo: Penn Economics
Reactie plaatsen
Reacties