Where’s the Line?

Since we’re picking on air travel and measuring slippery slopes lately, let’s consider an issue that comes up any time you fly anywhere: just how awful does someone have to be before the airline is justified in throwing them off the airplane? I’m not talking here about someone claiming to have a bomb, assaulting a Flight Attendant, or trying to rush the cockpit and break down the door; those things are all Federal crimes, and the means for dealing with them already exists – assuming that the individual’s fellow passengers don’t assume that he or she is a terrorist, decide that a possible chance of being killed stopping the offender is better than certain death in another 9/11 suicide scenario, and beat the unfortunate annoyance to death in the aisle. What about cases where things aren’t so clear?

There were two events in June that illustrate the point rather well. In the first, a woman on a flight from New York to San Francisco decided to light up a cigarette on a no-smoking airplane, and when prevented from doing so, became combative and belligerent, screamed racial epithets at the flight crew, and eventually punched a flight attendant in the face. Efforts to restrain the woman were ineffective, and the pilot elected to land in Denver and have law enforcement remove her from the airplane. It’s doubtful that anyone on board was actually endangered by this episode, and once the offender had been tethered to her seat, her continued screaming, stomping and kicking the bulkhead was probably not interfering with the safe operation of the aircraft. Still, I don’t suppose anyone on board would have objected to the unscheduled landing, except for the fact that it made the flight more than 3 hours late…

Then a few weeks later, a woman was on a short-haul flight to New Jersey with her autistic son when the toddler lost it completely and had a “total meltdown” on the aircraft. Airline personnel attempted to treat this like any other misbehaving child, but their training did not cover handling severe autistic episodes, and efforts to get the boy to stay in his seat, stop thrashing madly about, and stop screaming just made things worse. When the child’s mother was unable to stop the meltdown, or even keep her son from “rolling around on the floor” of the aircraft during the roll out and taxi, the pilot aborted the takeoff, returned to the gate, and had law enforcement escort mother and child off his plane. All parties involved acknowledged that the cheers of the remaining passengers when the police arrived, while understandable, did not help the situation…

So where do we draw the line in these situations? An agency offering public accommodation (like an airline) can not simply ask people with disabilities (like autism) not to come aboard; the law requires them to make “reasonable accommodation” for those people. But if an individual’s condition is so severe that they can’t maintain control during a short airplane ride, at least to the extent of not endangering other passengers during the takeoff, then they really should not be on an airplane. If they use the Americans With Disabilities Act to force the airline’s hand, then they are, at best, taking unfair advantage of a law meant to prevent actual discrimination of the disabled. And if a child without any disabilities is behaving like this, I’d have to say that his or her parents probably should be arrested for something, if only being a useless excuse for parents…

In the case of the out-of-control smoker, we actually have another slippery slope to consider. On being interviewed in the Denver jail, the offender in this case claimed not to remember anything about the episode because of the three vodka drinks she had obtained during the flight, and promptly blamed the airline for not cutting her off. She later admitted to having a few beers (4 or 5) on the ground before the flight, as well. Depending on the exact size and content of the drinks, that would mean a BAC of between .15 and .30, which would qualify as public intoxication almost anywhere in the U.S. But the problem is, there’s no FEDERAL law against public intoxication, and airlines are not equipped to detect/prevent this behavior anyway. I don’t think requiring the flight attendants to give people a breath test before selling them a drink is a good idea, but neither do I think prohibition in the air is a good idea. So when should airline personnel cut someone off, and who gets to decide?

I could go on, but you get the idea. Clearly, when a passenger’s conduct endangers the health and/or safety of his/her fellow passengers, the airline needs to pitch that individual off of their aircraft as quickly as possible. As always, the problem is finding that line, and choosing the person to decide when a customer has crossed it…