Redditors discover our Pinkerton Syndrome when someone asks "anyone else experienced weird racism with Singapore airlines?" on r/travel

I generally love SQ so I normally ignore the subtle micro aggressions but my flight yesterday felt like I was being pranked.

Flew from Sydney to Singapore and despite the extremely busy airport, the ground crew was amazing. I chose the aisle seat next and had a lovely Caucasian lady and her pre-teen daughter next to me. I started noticing immediately that the crew would initially ask questions only to the lady and move on (“Any drinks for you Ma'am?”) and I had to call them back for water.

The strange thing happened during the first meal time. They bought out the daughter's meal first and then the lady's standard chicken meal. I thought it makes sense because of special dietary requirements and family and all. Two hours passes and they're cleaning up and I politely remind the crew lady in my area that I never received a meal. She looked surprise and provides a hasty apology and says she'll look into it after clean up. Nothing happens. I'm starving and realised they forgot about me again when they start serving the refreshments (more than 6 hours into the flight). The lady notices and complains on my behalf as my stomach is actually growling now. A senior male crew member joins then and apologises profusely, mostly to her but also somewhat to me? Turned out that they ran out of most of the food option and asked if I was ok with a vegetarian meal. I said yes as I'm that hungry then. I never got the refreshment meal or an offer of that in the end.

While the missed meal part was the worst, throughout the whole flight, I think I never had more of a challenge to get service. I used the call button 4 times for water and got ignored. The lady had to order 3 water every time to make sure I actually stayed hydrated.

I fly with SQ about thrice a year and this was the first time the service was ever this bad. The funny thing is, all the crew members on this flight looked South Asian and I am of Indian descent so I'm not even sure if this is a whole “we can ignore her, she's one of us” thing. Either way, very unpleasant experience and not sure what to do with it.

internalised racism

Pinkerton Syndrome is a term for the perceived tendency of some Asians to regard Whites as superior or more desirable, especially for marriage or relationships.