What can get you kicked off a plane?
 

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/04/tr...imination.html

Brief interview with a guy from Airfarewatchdog-dot-com about the kinds of behaviors that can get you kicked off a plane by the crew (pretty obvious stuff, for the most part) and what you can do about it--which is not much, it turns out.

You can file a complaint with the Department of Transportation--good luck with that--or go on social media and make a stink; or you can meekly try to work with the airline to get yourself rebooked instead of stranded.

Of course if you were way out of line, you deserve to be stranded, I think we can all agree on that. But I'm a bit surprised that there aren't more options for disputing the crew's decision to kick you off, for those cases which are more grey.

Your thoughts?

Air law is derived from sea law. In both cases, the captain has absolute authority and he/she can delegate this to crew members.

The reason is, both ships and aircraft can get in dangerous situations which require 100% discipline. You must know that when you book a flight or a cruise.

BTW, I would not like a rampaging fellow passenger on a plane and appreciate crews which are strict with them.

People who get upset because of a double booking of a seat or so are risks for the whole plane and for themselves.

From my European point of view, it seems that the vast majority of persons who are ejected are drunk and aggressive. I have no sympathy with them if they are ejected, even on an unplanned landing. I wish that they fully pay for all extra costs including a compensation for the other passengers who will suffer from the delay.

However, I would not consider a squalling baby a hazard, so ejecting passengers for that sounds like an overreaction to me.

I agree with you, t1959, and of course you're quite right about the crew being judge and jury according to the law. And perhaps any sort of travelers' arbitration board would be swamped with complaints from passengers who richly deserved to be tossed out on their ear.

But I have seen crew members overreact myself (although not as often as I've seen passengers misbehave, that must be said)...

Action, reaction, overreaction - what we notice is a brutalization of culture on airplanes, BTW heavily stimulated by the airlines' business models (see the other thread on this topic).

Do you remember the good ol' times when flying had this special, sophisticated atmosphere with good-looking, elegant flight attendants and passengers behaving like sitting in a gentlemen's club?

Yes, I am old enough to remember that! True, true.

I also remember that ... along with the incessant smoking on board, illogical routings, few jet aircraft, primitive airports, cigars and pipes, and sky-high fares. Yes, I remember it well.

Agree with all of the above.

Would hope you can make a case somewhere against decisions though.

Lawyers ?

I remember an aggressive steward from Ryanair who asked a passenger for her boarding card.
She was a little bit lost and the guy quite not nice. When she complained about it he told her we were on an Irish plane thus Irish law applied.

Not sure about this btw.

Of course with my big mouth I answered by asking if it was in the Irish law to be rude.
I guess one day I'll be ejected.

Usually I just play dumb. I am good at it, mustn't force myself ...
So I don't speak English I am slow have bad hearing. Etc. especially with Ryanair.
But I thank them when they are nice.
It has happened.

<i>So I don't speak English .... Etc. especially with Ryanair.</i>

Careful, you might be mistaken for a Ryanair flight attendant.

Because American Airlines was having a special and business seats weren't outrageous, we splurged and bought them.
On our last flight, even though we were in the airport several hours before the flight (mostly in AA's lounge, where we had signed in), they didn't notify us about a plane change.
We didn't find out until our boarding passes didn't work at the gate that our seats had been changed and we were now each sitting alone, several rows apart. The seats were at the window (which I prefer), but because there was only one seat, also at the aisle (which I hate).
We were not amused. I expressed my distress (no raised voice, no inappropriate language) and THOR, the flight attendant's immediate reaction was, "It's not my fault". Well, of course not--but you're now the face of AA to me.
When he passed drinks, my response to his offer was, "No". He took offense at that. There were several other unpleasantries.
I was sitting in my seat, silently writing notes about my experience so far in preparation for writing a complaint letter when I got home; THOR came by, saw what I was doing, and threatened to have me kicked off the plane.
REALLY.

<Would hope you can make a case somewhere against decisions though.>
Well, exactly. I mean, the Department of Transportation?? You'll grow a long grey beard waiting for them to jump on the kind of situation abram describes.

Twitter works wonders, btw. Don't knock it if you haven't tried it. Public shaming seems to be a passenger's only recourse these days.

I don't tweet. :(

Well, you could start, right? I mean, all you have to do is create and account and then tweet. You don't have to share any personal information. Well, beyond the details in your tweet...

Why it is so distressing to have a seat assignment changed and be seated separately & why an airline should announce a change of aircraft? They might not have known about it hours beforehand, esp if it was changed at the last minute for technical reasons. For an FA to threaten kicking someone off a flight, it would not be for something trivial.

<For an FA to threaten kicking someone off a flight, it would not be for something trivial.>
I admire your faith in FA's, but I have seen them overreact, they are only human. I saw a confrontation with a stubborn but not disrespectful passenger escalate because of the FA's threats, which culminated in her telling the passenger that she could have him removed. Then the pilot came out and calmed everyone down. The FA was either having a bad day or just not very good at de-escalation techniques--human, fallible.

My daughter and son-in-law were kicked off their flight. They had been to a restaurant at the airport (SFO) - he had a beer and a sandwich, she had nothing. When they boarded the flight about an hour later, he mentioned to her that the sandwich might have been "bad" - as he suddenly felt somewhat ill, and needed to find a bathroom. Once seated, he asked the FA if he could use the restroom prior to take-off. The FA immediately accused him of having had too much alcohol to drink and made them both get off the plane.

He was not drunk - one beer an hour earlier - and after he was able to use the bathroom at the airport, he was fine. They put them on a later flight, but they lost a day of their vacation.

"Why it is so distressing to have a seat assignment changed and be seated separately & why an airline should announce a change of aircraft?"

Having paid for business class seats (a splurge for us) and having chosen seats we liked months in advance, I wanted to enjoy DH's company and not sit in an aisle seat, which I hate because the FAs always seem to bump into the seat and other passengers grab onto it.

An airline should announce change of aircraft as good customer service (a shocking idea to most airlines these days) and to give customers a chance to select seats.

"For an FA to threaten kicking someone off a flight, it would not be for something trivial."

He threatened to have me kicked off the plane as I sat silently in my seat writing on a sheet of paper. I suspect he knew they were about him and in preparation for making a complaint.

"all you have to do is create and account and then tweet."

I had no idea how to start with twitter.

Oh dear, are you being sarcastic? I take it you don't want to use Twitter. I get it. I have a Facebook account but I hate Facebook and never use it for anything.

No, I wasn't being satcastic, and I don't know why you would chose to think that of me. My response was honest; I know nothing about Twitter.

Well, sorry again--tone can be hard to read online.

I use Twitter as a sort of news feed: I "follow" entities I;m interested in, such as newspapers, local restaurants, a comedian or two, and they send tweets that appear in my "feed" and inform and amuse me.

You can also send Tweets, to the Twitter-sphere at large or to a specific entity, such as an airline.

I have had shockingly fast and good results tweeting a complaint to my cable provider (got a personal response right away that solved my problem), and I have heard that airlines respond well, too.

The reason is that when you send them a tweet, it appears in their feed and so publicly shames them and there's nothing they can do to remove your missive.

The format is very short, but again, I think it might be worth your while to try it.

(I never tweet personal stuff, no one cares about that, right??)

I may try Twitter to complain.