quote:

They not only have the right to do so, they can enlist the assistance of both federal officers and/or local police to assist with your compliance. The assbeating is solely your decision to make.

quote:

Why United is in Legal Trouble Over Removing a Passenger
April 12th, 2017 by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.

By now, most people have heard of the passenger on a United Express flight that was bloodied and forcibly removed from a flight in Chicago so that airline employees could make it to Louisville to support another flight there.

The event has caused a public relations nightmare for United, whose CEO initially defended his employees actions. But with the PR problems mounting due to several disturbing videos other passengers took with their cell phones, the CEO did a 180 and later apologized.

As someone who has flown hundreds of times over the last 40 years, I am particularly interested in this situation. Over that time I have witnessed the coarsening of our culture, and any misbehavior I have seen on flights has almost always been on the part of passengers. Flight attendants generally have to endure abuse with a smile on their face.

In this case, we have a medical doctor who refused to de-plane, and security was called. He acted immature, for sure, and in the process of forcibly removing him from his seat, his head was slammed against an armrest.

So why is this case different?

Because the man had a legal right to keep his seat.

Under United’s Contract Of Carriage (COC) rules (which follow federal rules), a passenger may only be bumped from a flight before they board (Rule 25). After they have taken their seat, Rule 21 is in effect, which would allow security to forcibly remove the passenger for many reasons — none of which includes accommodating last minute needs for a seat for other airline employees (or even overbooking).

The flyer is in a contractual relationship with the airline, and each has rights and responsibilities under that contract. United Express violated the terms of the contract, and injured the passenger in the process.

But doesn’t federal law require passengers to follow all crewmembers’ instructions?

One might argue, ok, so they shouldn’t have forced the passenger to de-plane… but by federal law he has to comply.

Well, what if a flight attendant approaches a young lady who has just taken her seat, and says, “I’m sorry, m’am, but I’m going to have to ask you to stand up and take your clothes off.”

“Excuse me?”

“Take your clothes off, m’am. Either obey our instructions, or you are in violation of federal law.”

Well, that’s just ridiculous, you might protest. It has nothing to do with the safety of the flight.

Exactly. And neither did the passenger who was forcibly removed from the United Express flight.

I know that the doctor has a shady history. He lost his license to practice medicine in Kentucky. He acted in an immature manner, and did not comply with even security personnel instructions.

But those issues are irrelevant. He was being told to do something in violation of the contract he had with the airline.

Now, the airline will pay.

I’m sure there will be an out-of-court settlement. The bigger hit on United will be its reputation, though, which will impact its business and its stock value.

I wouldn’t be surprised if we see more lawsuits. What about an executive who was told to vacate his seat, and as a result he didn’t make an important meeting and his company lost out on a multi-million dollar contract? I’m sure there will be all kinds of people who have suffered harm because airlines have not been following federal rules regarding removing passengers from a flight.

But if those airline employees didn’t make it to Louisville, a flight might have been cancelled!

The reason this whole thing went downhill is that the airlines have gotten used to intimidating passengers. They believe they have the right to remove someone from their seat for any reason they want, with minimum financial compensation, including needing the seat for employees or because of overbooking. Now we know that’s not true.

All United Express had to do was bump up the financial incentive to give up a seat. The offer was at $800, and going to the $1,350 “limit” would have fixed the problem. Julian Simon was the one who came up with the seat-auction system, and it should be used as intended… not circumvented by intimidating passengers with threats of violations of federal law.

The United employees would have made it to Louisville, without a major incident.

You can bet executives at every airline are in meetings this week, reviewing the Contract Of Carriage rules (with their lawyers), and passing the word down the management chain to never let this happen again.

Under the current rules, there was no reason for it to happen in the first place. It happened because of bad management.

quote:

United Passenger “Removal”: A Reporting and Management Fail
Posted on April 12, 2017 by Yves Smith

As disturbing as is the now widely-discussed incident of the brute force removal of a 69 year old doctor from a United flight last week, equally troubling is the poor job the press has done on such a high profile and relatively simple story. We’ll go over some of the glaring and regular errors as well as troubling oversights before turning to another puzzlingly under-examined issue: what this incident says about management at United. And we don’t mean arrogance and tone-deafness.

Reporting Failures

Widespread misreporting of the cause of the incident as “overbooking”. It would be difficult to figure out how to construct a reasonable sample, from reading a large number of accounts of the incident, a substantial majority, which I would guesstimate as being in the 75% range, refer to the cause of United’s perceived need to eject the elderly passenger, Dr. David Dao, as “overbooking”. Confirming this impression is that that four Senators and Governor Chris Christie, when weighing in on the incident, all referred to it as the result of overbooking or overselling.

Overbooking is a capacity management practice of selling more tickets for a particular flight than there are actual seats. Airlines do that because they have sufficient experience with the level of no-shows and late-in-the-game rebookings to not wind up with oversold flights all that often.

In fact, as careful readers know, United wanted to free up four seats so that crew members could fly to from O’Hare to Louisville. The excuse for United’s urgency was that if these crew members didn’t get to their flight, it would create cascading delays. Early accounts can be excused for this error, since the initial tweets with the appalling videos described the cause as overbooking. But any article published more than 24 hours after the story broke has no excuse for getting this basic and important detail wrong, particularly after United CEO Oscar Munoz said the flight was indeed not overbooked.

This widespread misreporting has the unfortunate effect of making United’s abuse seem like a disastrous handling of a routine problem when it was much worse than that. For instance, Amy Davidson of the New Yorker gets this wrong even with the knowledge that United decided to bump passengers to seat crew:

United overbooked it; that happens all the time. The airline let everybody board, and then decided that it needed four more seats to get some crew members to Louisville for work the next morning.

Let us underscore: even putting aside the violence, what happened in this case does NOT happen all the time, and that has legal implications.

Absence of reporting on airline regulations leads to widespread skewing of story in United’s favor. Even though most readers may think United is getting beaten up aplenty in the press, in fact it is getting a virtual free pass as far as its rights to remove a paying passenger with a confirmed seat who has been seated.1 This seems to reflect the deep internalization in America of deference to authority in the post 9/11 world, as well as reporters who appear to be insufficiently inquisitive. And there also seems to be a widespread perception that because it’s United’s plane, it can do what it sees fit. In fact, airlines are regulated and United is also bound to honor its own agreements.

It is telling, in not a good way, that Naked Capitalism reader Uahsenaa found a better discussion of the legal issues on Reddit than Lambert and I have yet to see in the media and the blogosphere (including from sites that profess to be knowledgeable about aviation):

Lawyer here. This myth that passengers don’t have rights needs to go away, ASAP. You are dead wrong when saying that United legally kicked him off the plane.

First of all, it’s airline spin to call this an overbooking. The statutory provision granting them the ability to deny boarding is about “OVERSALES”, specifically defines as booking more reserved confirmed seats than there are available. This is not what happened. They did not overbook the flight; they had a fully booked flight, and not only did everyone already have a reserved confirmed seat, they were all sitting in them. The law allowing them to denying boarding in the event of an oversale does not apply.

Even if it did apply, the law is unambiguously clear that airlines have to give preference to everyone with reserved confirmed seats when choosing to involuntarily deny boarding. They have to always choose the solution that will affect the least amount of reserved confirmed seats. This rule is straightforward, and United makes very clear in their own contract of carriage that employees of their own or of other carriers may be denied boarding without compensation because they do not have reserved confirmed seats. On its face, it’s clear that what they did was illegal– they gave preference to their employees over people who had reserved confirmed seats, in violation of 14 CFR 250.2a.

Furthermore, even if you try and twist this into a legal application of 250.2a and say that United had the right to deny him boarding in the event of an overbooking; they did NOT have the right to kick him off the plane. Their contract of carriage highlights there is a complete difference in rights after you’ve boarded and sat on the plane, and Rule 21 goes over the specific scenarios where you could get kicked off. NONE of them apply here. He did absolutely nothing wrong and shouldn’t have been targeted. He’s going to leave with a hefty settlement after this fiasco.

His analysis checks out. “14 CFR 250.2a” is an FAA regulation. Here is what is says per a Cornell law school site, which courteously supplies links to definitions of key terms:

§ 250.2a Policy regarding denied boarding.

In the event of an oversold flight, every carrier shall ensure that the smallest practicable number of persons holding confirmed reserved space on that flight are denied boarding involuntarily.

So the lawyer who popped up on Reddit looks to be on solid ground in saying it was an FAA violation to try to kick off a confirmed passenger in favor of crew.

Similarly, if you look at the relevant part of United’s Contract of Carriage, which indeed is Rule 21, “Refusal of Transport,” you will see a remarkably long list of situations and types of passengers, including “have or cause a malodorous condition (other than individuals qualifying as disabled), those who violate United’s policies regarding voice calls, and pregnant women in their ninth month, unless they have a recent doctor’s note (pray tell, since when are airline personnel expert in determining how far along a pregnant woman is?). And again you see nothing remotely like a “we need the seat for business reasons” or a catchall “because we feel like it”.

Astonishingly, a USA Today story, United Airlines can remove you from a flight for dozens of reasons you agree to, where the reporter was alert enough to consider United’s legal position and even mentioned the contract of carriage, spun the piece completely in United’s favor. Not only did the author apparently fail to read the relevant section, his sources gave the Big Corporate Lie that United must be right. From the article:

“Those contracts are well thought through. They are generally fair and balanced, and they reflect the market,” said Roy Goldberg, a partner at Steptoe & Johnson who practices aviation law in Washington, D.C. “As a general matter, passengers have rights, but airlines have rights, too.”

And the article like so many others, mischaracterize the issue as overselling, falsely telling millions of readers that United was on solid ground.

Similarly, Amy Davidson of the New Yorker distorted what happened to justify Dr. Dao’s removal:

The man, at any rate, refused—not on the principle of having bought a ticket and having some right to use it but because, he said, he was a doctor and had patients to see in the morning. That is a good reason, and one that was worth more than eight hundred dollars to the doctor as well as to, presumably, his patients. The airline seems to have disagreed; that’s when it called the cops for a forcible removal. Or, as the airline put it, in a tweeted statement that ignored the ordinary meaning of the words it used, “After our team looked for volunteers, one customer refused to leave the aircraft voluntarily and law enforcement was asked to come to the gate.”…

In Chicago, the doctor’s emphatic “no” appears to have moved him into a category of non-compliant, troublemaking passengers, whom the airlines have, with what appears to be increasing indifference, treated as they see fit.

No, no, no. The very act of asking Dr. Dao to get off was illegitimate, and calling the cops didn’t make it so. One of the more detailed accounts, at the New York Post, suggests that things got out of hand when a third officer arrived and escalated matters:

Officials said a pair of security guards with the Chicago Department of Aviation had tried talking the man into leaving, to no avail. A third later arrived and threw the passenger against the armrest before the guards dragged him out of the plane.

One skeptical account comes from CBS’s Philly affiliate, Aviation Attorney Believes United Airlines Violated Its Own Contract, and on the Federalist blog.

Understating the extent of Dr. Dao’s injuries. Most of the accounts focus on his bloody lip and bruises. Far more serious was that he was knocked out. That is an almost certain sign of a concussion, which is also suggested by the fact that when he reboarded the plane, passengers depicted him as dazed. Only recently has the medical community started studying the danger of concussions particularly multiple concussions. However, an expert I know who is working with sports teams to try to reduce the risk of injury says there is increasing concern that as few as three concussions can produce cognitive impairment 10 to 20 years later. Those findings are based on trauma to young athletes like football players and boxers. The damage might show up sooner in an older victim. Admittedly, we have no idea if Dr. Dao has ever suffered a previous head injury, but the point is a concussion is far more serious than most people probably realize.

Troubling inconsistencies across stories. Dr. Dao was removed from the plane, yet some stories depict him as reboarding, as one put it, in “about ten minutes”. Yet Dr. Dao’s attorney has issued a statement saying in part:

“The family of Dr. Dao wants the world to know that they are very appreciative of the outpouring of prayers, concern and support they have received. Currently, they are focused only on Dr. Dao’s medical care and treatment,” said [Stephen L.] Golan [of Golan Christie Taglia].

“Until Dr. Dao is released from the hospital, the family is asking for privacy and will not be making any statements to the media”

Similarly, some accounts say the plane was emptied to clean up the blood from the removal and then reboarded. How does that square with Dr. Dao supposedly getting back on the plane shortly after being dragged off?

Lack of discussion of the status of the airport security personnel. The Financial Times was one of the few publications to be early to describe the airport security staff correctly, as security officers of the Chicago Department of Aviation. The Department of Aviation is a self-funded governmental unit (virtually no municipal airports in the US have been privatized). Its security personnel are airport police. They are not part of the Chicago Police department but appear to have their own special purpose authority within the airport.

First, we have the wee question of why the police didn’t operate more independently of United. Their job is to enforce airport rules, not act as agents of airline overreach. Second, a red flag is that Richard Zuley, an interegator at Guantanamo Bay as well as a 30 year member of the Chicago Police Department, had been homicide officer involved with a series of wrongful convictions. A 2015 Guardian story not discussed at length his aggressive techniques, which included allegations of torture. He had then left the CPD and was working as a security officer at the Chicago Department of Aviation. Is this just an isolated example or have other Chicago cops with dodgy records find a second career at the Chicago airport?

Underplaying Magnitude of United’s Management Fail

The press hasn’t bothered to go beyond cheap outrage. Too much of what passes for reporting comes straight from Twitter: first the video clip from passengers, then the appalling half-hearted statement of CEO Oscar Munoz contradicted by his internal e-mail that depicted Dr. Dao as “disruptive and belligerent” and defended staff for complying with “established procedures for dealing with situations like this.” It’s an open question as to whether he would have switched gears to a way-too-late attempt at a faux sincere apology had the story not gone even more viral in China than in the US, which is a top priority market for United, and the stock losing over $1.6 billion the next day.

The missed significance of the four crew members showing up after the plane has boarded seeking seats. This is no way to run an airline. The FAA tracks flight status of planes by their tail numbers in real time. If the four crew members were in a fix due to a flight delay, United should have known well before they landed and alerted the gate personnel of whatever flight it wanted to put them on as soon as the gate opened. Even though it was illegal to dump confirmed passengers, United could have come up with a cock-and-bull story, like the had been forced to use a smaller plane and some passengers would have to travel late. They could have called out the names of the four unfortunates. In that scenario. Dr. Dao’s only recourse would have been to make a stink in the gate area, which would have gone nowhere. And if the crew had been in Chicago and got to their original flight to Louisville late and therefore had to be moved over to this flight, that is inexcusable.

This in turn reveals the lack of any slack whatsoever in United’s system. Clearly the urgency was due to the four crew members somehow being late; Plan A had failed and the last minute boarding effort was Plan B or maybe even Plan C. As one experienced passenger said, “They can’t come up with four crew members in one of their biggest hubs?”

It also is a symptom of a badly fragmented business system heavily dependent on contractors. As reader Jerry Denim said:

United’s real problem isn’t PR though, it’s outsourcing. An astonishing amount of United Airlines flying is conducted by outsourced employees who work for contractor shell companies. The whole idea is cost savings/profits through labor arbitrage and the typical race to the bottom dynamic. Regional airline employees have coined their own term for it- “The Whipsaw”.

Even worse than the shell-company Regional airlines whose employees are second class citizens are the shape-shifting contractor companies that provide gate agents, bag handlers and other random airport services for United. These people are really paid peanuts and mistreated, they are something akin to third or fourth class employees and usually not what I would call the cream of the labor pool. The United flight with the passenger that was brutally manhandled was UA 3411, it was technically operated by Republic Airlines, one of United’s many “regional partners”. As this event took place in Chicago O’Hare the person who made the decision to cap the offer for volunteers willing to give up their seats at $800, then call in a goon squad to get rough was likely a full-fledge United employee, but then maybe not.

When I was a outsourced regional jet captain operating United Express flights between 2010 and 2014 the gate agents in charge of the regional (out-sourced) flights at United hub, Washington-Dulles, were third-party contractors. They were horribly trained and frequently surly. The gates were always crowded, everyone there was angry, nothing worked, it was utter chaos and misery. I absolutely dreaded flying there and did my best to avoid it, Chicago was only a little better.

Sadly the horrible, unnecessary violence that played out on United Express flight 3411 doesn’t surprise me a bit and is par for the course with a company as disgruntled, disorganized and dysfunctional as United. I really don’t think the upper management at United has any clue about the nuts and bolts, day to day, inner workings of the company. Post-merger United is too big to fail, too big to manage and far too Balkanized to govern. I fully expect the ugliness to continue at United.

It’s bad enough when travelers suffer the indignity of disrupted plans, crowded planes, security theater and too often cranky airport staff. Now we’ve seen United execute a private sector extraordinary rendition. Perhaps this fiasco will lead to some improvements, but the lousy economics of airlines combined with their oligopoly status in the US says they will be extremely reluctant to make anything beyond bare minimum changes.

Update 4/13/17: Confirming our section Understating the extent of Dr. Dao’s injuries, and in particular our observation that Dr. Dao has almost certainly suffered a concussion, this morning the Wall Street Journal reported Doctor Dragged From United Flight Suffered Multiple Injuries, Will ‘Probably’ Sue. From the story:

An attorney for David Dao, the passenger dragged off a United Airlines flight after refusing to be bumped, said at a news conference that Dr. Dao suffered a concussion, a broken nose and two lost teeth.

quote:

Originally posted by Gatogordo:
I find it very interesting to observe that an immigrant stood up for his rights, while some in here seem to think that one gives up his rights when he buys an airline ticket and will meekly surrender them to a show of authority. Where did we go wrong?

quote:

But even though it is a service industry it is hated by its consumers.

quote:

Originally posted by custombolt:
Sadly, I predict the party with the deepest pockets will win or get a smack on the wrist.

quote:

These passengers repeatedly attempted to sit in upgraded seating which they did not purchase and they would not follow crew instructions to return to their assigned seats.

quote:

Originally posted by Gatogordo:
That's United's PR story. If you believe it, hurry go outside and catch the Easter Bunny.

quote:

Originally posted by Gatogordo:
At least I know that passengers have rights once they are seated, which is a helluva more than you seem to know.

In addition, read the story and you'll see what I believe. I believe the United crew overreacted, as they have a wont to do these days, and the truth is probably somewhere in the middle. If they were so wrong and disruptive, why did United fly them the next day?

Finally, since you seem to know it all about the powers of the airlines, how much do you want to bet on the outcome of the Dao/United event?

PS: I can also spell. "Vertiable"

I've come to one conclusion, I won't be flying United if there is any alternative, even a bus.

quote:

I can absolutely promise you that if you were to act like Doa did after being IDB on SWA you would also get to meet some cops and maybe even get a free drag down the aisle if you were to act the fool with them.

quote:

Overbookings (Involuntarily Denied Boarding)

Customer-service agents will ask those who have checked in and received a boarding pass if they are willing to volunteer to take a later flight.

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United Airlines Cites Wrong Rule For Illegally De-Boarding Passenger
by John Banzhaf | 7:55 am, April 11th, 2017


In my belief, United Airlines is citing the wrong federal rule to justify its illegal request to force a passenger already boarded and seated to disembark so they could make room for crew members being flown to a new assignment.

Under a federal rule [14 CFR 253], commercial airlines are governed by a document known as a “Contract of Carriage” [COC], a legally binding contract which, among other things, protects the legal rights of passengers, and imposes legal duties upon carriers. United’s COC contains two distinct sections: Rule 21 entitled “Refusal of Transport,” and Rule 25 entitled “Denied Boarding Compensation.”

United is incorrectly citing the denied boarding compensation rule in its COC, and the federal rule upon which it is based [14 CFR 250.5], to justify requiring a passenger who has already been permitted to board and taken a seat to involuntarily disembark.

But that rule, as its title and history clearly establish, applies only if an airline wishes to deny boarding to a passenger, not to remove a passenger who has already boarded an airplane.

The current federal rule grew out of a situation in which Ralph Nader was denied the opportunity to board a flight, even though he had a valid ticket. He sued, in a case which went to the U.S. Supreme Court, and it was eventually held that he was entitled to compensation if he was denied boarding.

As a direct result, the government adopted a rule which permits a carrier to deny boarding to a ticketed passenger, but only after going through a process of seeking other passengers to give up their seats.

United’s Rule 25, as its title clearly implies, applies only to denied boarding. Thus, it uses the word “denied boarding,” and variants such as “deny boarding,” but says nothing about requiring passengers who have already boarded to give up their seats.

Indeed, it states in part, using the word “boarding” twice, that: “other passengers may be denied boarding involuntarily in accordance with UA’s boarding priority.

Clearly, a “boarding priority” does not include or imply an involuntary removal or refusal of transport. Moreover, under well accepted contract law, any ambiguous term in a contract must be construed against – and in the way least favorable to – the party which drafted it.

So, even if United argued that there was some ambiguity in “denied boarding” based upon “boarding priority” – and that it could possibly mean removal based upon a removal priority – a court would be forced to rule against this interpretation because United drafted the contract.

This denied boarding rule, and similar rules applying to Great Britain and the European Union, only permit denying boarding, not removing a passenger who has already boarded. The situations under which airlines are permitted to have a passenger who has already been boarded disembark are contained in a completely separate section the United’s COC entitled “Refusal of Transport.”

Rule 21, entitled “Refusal of Transport,” is very different because it clearly and expressly covers situations in which a passenger who has already boarded the plane can be removed. It states clearly: “Rule 21, Refusal of Transport, UA shall have the right to refuse to transport or shall have the RIGHT TO REMOVE FROM THE AIRCRAFT AT ANY POINT, any passenger for the following reasons.” [emphasis added]

The rule, which unlike the denied boarding rule does provide for removal “from the aircraft at any point,” lists some two dozen justifications including: unruly behavior, intoxication, inability to fit into one seat, medical problems or concerns, etc. But nowhere in the list of some two dozen reasons is there anything about over booking, the need to free up seats, the need for seats to accommodate crew members to be used on a different flight etc.

This is very important because, under accepted legal principles, a law or rule which lists in detail several different factors must be read not to include other factors which were deliberately not included or listed. So, for example, if a rule provides that a license to drive a car may be forfeited by violations of laws governing speeding, intoxication, reckless driving, or driving without a license, it cannot be read to also permit license revocation for parking violations, or for having a burned out license plate illumination light.

In this case, the failure to include over booking, or the need for additional seats, in a long list of justifications for removing a passenger “from the aircraft at any point” means that passengers may not be removed for these non-listed reasons.

The conclusion is further reinforced by the fact that there is a completely separate section of United’s COC which does deal expressly with the need for additional seats, but it provides that the concern must be dealt with by preventing passengers from boarding, not ejecting them once they have boarded.

United also seems to suggest not only that the denied boarding justification applies to ordering an already boarded passenger to give up its seat, but that the carrier did all that it could under the rule to deal with its need to accommodate additional crew members as passengers.

But in asking other passengers, as required by law, to give up their seats for monetary compensation, United offered far less than the minimum specified by the federal rule. It also, although it clearly and legally could have done so, refused to offer more – although the Washington Post recently explained how airlines will sometimes offer passengers thousands of dollars to give up their seats.

Finally, it appears that United is seeking to blame the passenger, claiming that when asked to give up his seat, he acted belligerently – and citing a rule which requires that passengers obey the orders of the flight crew. But, such a requirement applies only to orders which are lawful.

If, for example, the flight crew had ordered two passengers to fight each other for the amusement of the other passengers, or to take off all their clothing, the passengers would not be required to comply, and their forceful removal could not be based upon refusing to follow unlawful orders.

Once someone in possession of a valid ticket has been seated – whether on an airplane, a train or bus, or at the symphony – he cannot be ordered to give up that which he has a valid contractual right to enjoy, simply because his seat is needed for someone else.

While it is of course permissible to remove a seated person is such a situation for unruly behavior, drunkenness, to deal with a medical emergency, etc. – as spelled out here in United’s Rule 21 – simple over booking can only be dealt with by denying boarding originally, pursuant to United’s Rule 25.

John F. Banzhaf III is a professor of public interest law at the George Washington University Law School.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.

quote:

6. Acceptance of Passengers

a. Refusal to Transport
General. Carrier may, in its sole discretion, refuse to transport, or may remove from an
aircraft at any point, any Passenger in any of the circumstances listed below. The fare of
any Passenger denied transportation or removed from Carrier’s aircraft en route under the
provisions of this Section will be refunded in accordance with Section 9. The sole recourse
of any Passenger refused transportation or removed en route will be the recovery of the
refund value of the unused portion of his Ticket. Under no circumstances shall Carrier be
liable to any Passenger for any type of special, incidental, or consequential damages.
(1) Safety. Whenever such action is necessary, with or without notice, for reasons of
aviation safety.
(2) Force Majeure Event: Whenever advisable due to Force Majeure Events outside of
Carrier’s control, including, without limitation acts of God, meteorological events, such
as storms, rain, wind, fire, fog, flooding, earthquakes, haze, or volcanic eruption. It
also includes, without limitation, government action, disturbances or potentially
volatile international conditions, civil commotions, riots, embargoes, wars, or
hostilities, whether actual, threatened, or reported, strikes, work stoppage, slowdown,
lockout or any other labor related dispute involving or affecting Carrier’s service,
mechanical difficulties by entities other than Carrier, Air Traffic Control, the inability to
obtain fuel, airport gates, labor, or landing facilities for the flight in question or any fact
not reasonably foreseen, anticipated or predicted by Carrier.
(3) Government Request or Regulation. Whenever such action is necessary to comply
with any Federal Aviation Regulation or other applicable government regulation, or to
comply with any governmental request for emergency transportation in connection
with the national defense.
(4) Interference with Flight Crew. Passengers who interfere or attempt to interfere with
any member of the flight crew in carrying out its duties.
(5) Search of Passenger or Property. Any Passenger who refuses to permit the search of
his person or property by Carrier or an authorized government agency for explosives,
hazardous materials, contraband, or concealed, deadly, or dangerous weapons or
articles.
(6) Proof of Identity. Any Passenger who refuses upon request to produce positive
identification acceptable to the Carrier. For international travel, any Passenger that
has not obtained and completed all documentation required for entry into and exit
from each country, as well as compliance with the laws, requirements or procedures
of each country listed on such itinerary.
(7) Incompatible Medical Requirements. Carrier will refuse to transport persons requiring
the following medical equipment or services, which either are not authorized or
cannot be accommodated on Carrier’s aircraft: medical oxygen for use onboard the
aircraft except FAA-approved and Carrier accepted Portable Oxygen Concentrators
(POCs), incubators, medical devices requiring electrical power from the aircraft, or
travel on a stretcher.
(8) Comfort and Safety. Carrier may refuse to transport, or remove from the aircraft at
any point, any Passenger in any of the circumstances listed below as may be
necessary for the comfort or safety of such Passenger or other Passengers and crew
members:
(i) Persons whose conduct is or has been known to be disorderly, abusive, offensive,
threatening, intimidating, violent, or whose clothing is lewd, obscene, or patently
offensive.
(ii) Persons who are barefoot and older than five years of age, unless required due to
a disability.
(iii) Persons who are unable to occupy a seat with the seatbelt fastened.
(iv) Persons who appear to the Carrier to be intoxicated or under the influence of
drugs.
(v) Persons who are known by the Carrier to have a communicable disease or
infection and whose condition poses a direct threat as defined in 14 CFR § 382.3 to
the health or safety of others.
(vi) Persons who have an offensive odor, unless caused by a disability.
(vii) Any person who cannot be transported safely for any reason.
(9) Weapons. Persons who wear or have on or about their person concealed or
unconcealed deadly or dangerous weapons; provided, however, that Carrier will carry
Passengers who meet the qualifications and conditions established in 49 CFR §
1544.219.
(10) Prisoners. Prisoners (persons charged with or convicted of a crime) under escort of
law enforcement personnel; other persons in the custody of law enforcement
personnel who are being transported while wearing manacles or other forms of
restraint; persons brought into the airport in manacles or other forms of restraint;
persons who have resisted escorts; or escorted persons who express to Carrier an
objection to being transported on the flight.
(11) Non-Smoking Policy. Persons who are unwilling or unable to abide by Carrier's nonsmoking
rules and federal laws prohibiting smoking onboard the aircraft as
established in 49 USC § 41706.
(12) Misrepresentation. Persons who have made a misrepresentation which becomes
evident upon arrival at the airport, and the misrepresentation renders the Person
unacceptable for Carriage.
(13) Prohibition on Solicitation. Persons who refuse to comply with instructions given by
Carrier prohibiting the solicitation of items for sale or purchase, including airline
Tickets, reduced-rate travel passes, or travel award certificates.