An American Airlines passenger was supposed to fly from Albuquerque to New Orleans in June, but wasn’t permitted to travel. They say they’d been added to the airline’s banned customer list for past behavior.
According to the passenger,
- American Airlines told them they had had drunken sex with a man on a previous flight
- But that seems highly unlikely because she’s a lesbian
@erin_wright_ Thanks for being the worst @American Airlines #storytime #funnystory #funnyvideos #airlinetiktok #airplanestory #funny #fyp ♬ original sound – Erin Wright
She says that she couldn’t check in for her flight to join her sister’s bachelorette party. She was told she would have to take it up with customer relations by email – so the issue wouldn’t be resolved prior to check-in. She bought a walkup ticket on another airline for $1,000, and was out the original $400 from her American ticket.
Eventually, she says, American’s corporate security team revealed the reason for the ban. It was lifted after 12 days, and the $400 ticket refunded. She was out the $1,000 walkup ticket, but things worked out because her TikTok about the incident generated that much revenue after 2.5 million views.
@erin_wright_ Update!!! @American Airlines #storytime #airlinetiktok #airportlife #funnystory #funny ♬ original sound – Erin Wright
American isn’t likely to speak to their side of the story here. Perhaps the passenger was banned for other reasons, but they say the ban was lifted and since their travel was refused the ticket was refunded. What the issue illustrates for me is something broader. American has its standards for investigating passenger behavior and making decisions over inviting someone not to fly with them in the future. This should be clearly communicated to the customer when it happens, and the airline certainly isn’t infallible. I don’t have a problem with this.
During the pandemic, passenger incidents shot up dramatically even though fewer people were traveling. Masks were required, and some people rebelled against those. Airlines weren’t serving alcohol in coach, so passengers pre-gamed – or brought their own. Once those two conditions abated, things largely returned to normal, except that the passenger mix skewed more leisure and less business so there have still been more incidents per capita than there used to be.
Airlines were banning customers who behaved badly, but Delta’s CEO wanted to take things a step further. He wanted a ban on one airline to mean a ban from travel on any airline. No judicial review. Each airline had its own standards for adding someone to a ban list. Customers would have their right to travel limited even when an airline made a mistake.
That was clearly a bad idea, and a misdiagnosis of the problem of elevated passenger incidents as well as recent history has shown. Consider,
- Spirit Airlines banned the wrong passengers over a mask incident. These passengers were wearing their masks.
- JetBlue called the cops on a passenger who spoke up about a flight attendant who wore a Palestine flag pin on her uniform, and made sure it was visible during service and even while her Black Lives Matter pin was covered. He was banned, and the ten-year elite passenger had his future travel with the airline cancelled, after the crew reported that he made threatening comments which turned out to be false.
- An American Airlines passenger was banned over an agent’s rebooking mistake.
- United Airlines changed its rules so that customers who complain about delays too frequently (because the airline delays them too frequently!) can be banned.
In each case the damage was limited – and sometimes reversed. But what if the Delta plan had gone forward? That would have made things so much unfairly worse.
(HT: Paul H)
Yep, right up their with the no-fly list, which sounds good and is garbage. As is too often the case, people in institutions will do something to pretend that they are doing something.
“It couldn’t have been me! I’m a lesbian!”
That defense doesn’t work when a “straight family man” gets caught playing for the other team, and similarly shouldn’t be taken at face value here.
Reminds me of a time when we were at a beachfront wedding. Everyone was smashed. A good (straight) friend of mine successfully initiated an encounter with an avowed cis female lesbian. Sh!t happens…
Come on, it’s obvious what went on here. The sex partner of the lesbian was so butch that they AA employee thought the person was a male. Clear as day.
Banned from future AAL flights? That’s what we call a “silver lining.”
Seriously, I am skeptical about this story. I read of so many of my gay & lesbian brothers and sister claiming such a woe and then cashing in — like the lesbian waitress who wrote on her own table receipt something like, “I didn’t leave you a tip because you are gay and I do not approve of your ‘lifestyle.'”
Also, why if you’ve identified the subject as a lesbian do you not use the proper singular pronouns? “She” is the subject, “her” is the object — not “they” as you wrote. You’re supposed to be journalists so learn how to write at a level above the eighth grade — please!
Just say no to blacklists and fleecing. That requires more restrictions agains the airlines colluding with each other or with the government to prevent free persons from transport by common carrier means for which the free persons are willing and able to pay. Absent a court order, free persons should be entitled to buy and use tickets to fly the common carriers which are benefitting from the public’s airspace and taxpayer funds.
If airlines want to ban people for some reason, terrific, but how do you let them buy a ticket? Is the technology so poor you can’t connect the two databases?
Well if you were drunk you never know who you might hook up with. Male / female / or something else.
It sure sounds to me like the airline company departments were choosing to drag there feet on this situation due to them possibly not liking that someone has chosen to challenge the *No fly ban*
Airlines should be required to give an advance notice that they would not sell tickets to the person in future. If they have sold the ticket to a person, banning at the last minute should either not be permitted or require a refund of 200% of the last-minute replacement costs: the ticket on a competing carrier, plus any hotel expenses if required.
@Gary
Had to get this off my chest. The quality of your “readers” has so deteriorated that I feel I just stepped in shit reading some of them. There must be way to have a civil discussion. Several years ago this crap was an outlier.
It has gotten to the point when I wish that Tim Dunn would post more.
VFTW story template:
to person (according to supposed victim, with no other evidence or witnesses).
Dude please. If you’re writing about a woman and referring to her as such, there is no reason. Ever. To call her a “they ” Especially since you eventually refer to her as “her’ (what a concept). It makes the piece harder to understand. If someone asks you to refer to “them” as “they, ” fine. But that should be a small minority of content.
Maybe this is a bit funny and sendsationalism but the airlines can say anything they want about us. We are just ‘paying cattle’ as someone put it. We need options to travel like a high speed train system. Next century.