More ways to be thrown off a plane than Carter has pills

In the ‘50s and ‘60s Carter Products sold millions and millions of their “Little Liver Pills.” The expression “… more than Carter has pills” was born.

Lately, the news is filled with so many stories of airplane passengers being tossed off their flights, the incidents seem to rival the number of pills Carter’s sold.In just the last year we’ve read news stories about air passengers denied flying to their destination because of:

• wearing “risqué” clothing,
• praying,
• wearing strange ethnic or religious clothing or paraphernalia,
• being a large person,
• uttering one or more ill chosen words,
• having an objectionable body or clothing odor,
• being obnoxiously drunk,
• breast feeding your baby.

I started to notice the trend of kicking passengers off planes when I first read about Kyla Ebbert. She’s the college student and Hooters waitress who Southwest Airlines characterized as wearing “lewd, obscene or patently offensive” clothing. When I saw Ms. Ebbert showing off what she wore for the flight, I was shocked. I’d seen far worse in some of the best hotels, restaurants and theaters in many major cities.

While I think Southwest is right in not wanting its passengers wearing “inappropriate” clothing, I think it should train its fashion police far better. They haven’t a clue about what’s inappropriate. I’d rather have them worry about the safety of passenger’s clothing. In case of evacuation from a plane, heels and synthetic fiber pants, skirts, or dresses aren’t a very good idea.

Last year there were many reports of passengers who were kicked off their plane, for praying. What could be wrong with praying?

At United Airlines, they had a flight on which a man got up and walked to the rear of the plane to pray as it taxied to the runway. There was the Hasidic Jew in his seat “shokeling” (rocking back and forth) praying on an Air Canada plane. Both were kicked off their flights. United asked their passenger to sit down during taxiing, for safety’s sake, and were right to toss the man when he refused to comply, but Air Canada kicked their guy off the plane, merely because passengers were uncomfortable. Air Canada agreed he wasn’t a terrorist or causing any safety problems. Humoring passengers who have unreasonable fears of another passenger is not a legitimate reason to deny anyone the right to fly.

Our own Charlie Leocha wrote about a 17-year-old young man and his 13-year-old sister who were taken off their plane in handcuffs because he put on “tefillin” (leather boxes and straps worn by Orthodox Jewish men for prayer) and was praying. The flight attendant said the boxes had wires coming out of them and that the 17 year old was disruptive. Neither statement was true. What was true, was she was uncomfortable, so had them kicked off the plane.

Everyone’s read about Kevin Smith being booted from a Southwest flight for being too wide to fit into a single seat, on a flight which had no additional seats for him. I don’t know if you’ve ever experienced a flight where half your seat was taken up by a large passenger next to you. I have. The woman was so wide her shoulder was in my ear even though I scrunched to the side of my seat, with my head almost in the aisle. I applaud Southwest. I think they did the right thing. It’s not fair for someone to fill their seat, plus any significant part of their neighbor’s. By the way, despite some saying airline seats have gotten narrower, it isn’t true. Airline seats have remained between 17”-18.5” in economy for decades.

Last year, Atif Irfan and his family were booted off their flight when they were overheard discussing where the safest place on the plane might be. They were talking about crashes not terrorism, but in today’s atmosphere, they should have known better. People have been kicked off their flights for using such words as bomb, terrorist, explosive, jihad, etc. quite innocently, but frankly, you just can’t do that these days. It’s worthless to argue the point, but hopefully, some day things will be different.

Earlier this month, Jazz Air, a regional airline in Canada that also serves US cities, threw off one of their passengers who had very bad body odor. I completely support Jazz Air. I’ve been cooped up more than a few times on a long flight with people having that problem, and it’s absolutely nasty.

We’ve all heard about intoxicated passengers causing real problems on planes, getting kicked off their flights. Unfortunately, I’ve experienced them first hand. I think the airlines can’t tolerate passengers like that, but as I’ve written before, much of the drunkenness on airplanes is the responsibility of the airlines themselves. I’ve been on far too many flights where flight attendants continued to serve visibly drunk passengers, more alcoholic beverages. We need federal dram laws for the airlines.

Even breast feeding your baby may get you kicked off your flight. Just ask Emily Gillette about her experience on Delta Airlines. Apparently seeing Gillette breast feed her newborn was too much for the flight attendant. She wanted mother and child to be completely covered by one of those airline blankets. I wouldn’t touch one of those blankets myself, but regardless, what’s the big deal about breast feeding unless the mom has literally stripped off her top? Seriously, what’s worse, hearing a child scream or slurp? Other passengers said they had no problem with Gillette.

You better watch it when you fly. You don’t know what might get you thrown off your flight.