A Frontier Airlines passenger flying from Nashville to Denver refused to get off the aircraft after flight attendants determined she was too drunk to fly. She braced her feet against seats and resisted as an officer pulled her in a tug of war. That never ends well for the passenger. At most she can delay the inevitable but there’s no end game where she’s not taken off the aircraft and arrested.

But it gets worse for her, because during the altercation she yelled that she had a bomb and that “no one was going anywhere.” Of course no one was going anywhere because of her! She even says the bomb is “right there.” That compounds the charges, adding in the bomb hoax.

This all went down onboard the aircraft parked at gate 2 of the Nashville airport on Tuesday, September 23 shortly before 8 a.m. The plane didn’t wind up pushing back until 9:43 a.m. thanks to the melee.

Charges against 35-year old Kenneathya Lashay Dodson include felony false report, resisting arrest, public intoxication, and disorderly conduct.

@juliaadenise

Flight to Denver CO from Nashville this morning on Frontier

♬ original sound – Julia Henderson

An airline can refuse transportation to anyone they decide “is, or might be, inimical to safety” under 49 U.S.C. § 44902(b). While everyone on board, from crew to police, handled this well I find fault with Frontier Airlines and their ground services provider for letting the passenger onto the aircraft in the first place. Airlines spend as little as possible here and don’t handle their responsibilities at the gate anymore – hence onboard incidents like this one.

By the way, making this aircraft sit for the removal has knock-on effects – other flights can’t take the gate and get delayed, downline flights using the same aircraft and crew get delayed, and crew duty days potentially get extended to their legal and contractual limits and wind up cancelling flights at the end of the day.

There wasn’t a real bomb threat here, but crew don’t make that determination and act as though there might be. That delays things even more. Meanwhile, anyone connecting through Denver may have a problem because Frontier’s network offers fewer same-day options and they aren’t reaccommodating passengers directly onto other airlines.

Frontier sees an outsized number of incidents. They’re in the news often, especially considering they carry only about 20% of the passengers that American Airlines does. That says something about their pricing and business model and as a result that while air travel generally has been significantly democratized over the decades nowhere is that more true than at the ultra-low cost carriers like Spirit and Frontier.

(HT: Joe R)