weero

You do realise that anyone can call the police .. or maybe you don't.

Airlines called the police on me twice when I was to argumentative with them. The officers were always ways more reasonable than the airline staff, heard both sides of the story. They were very professional.

Sure both cases happened outside of the US but so did this story. Guy gets loud because he is on a powerful list one no one bothered to tell him, gets loud, agent calls for support. Nothing peculiar in my book.

Stranger

Did you read the article? He was on AC's blacklist because of a previous incident. It does make some sense that the airline as an employer protect their employee from abuse by irate customers.

The one issue worth discussing is whether he knew and/or when he was or should have been told he would not be able to fly.

drdrma

hm. the issue worth discussing is why they sold him the ticket if he was on a list.

Stranger

Takes more than a name to positively identify the person?

weero

Yes. Did you read what Often wrote???
I entirely agree. This is what it all comes down to.

For us ... there might be restrictions on whom carriers can bar, for what time, and what for. But given the amount of info we have this will be hard to come by.

WR Cage

In the CUN case the pax were informed at the airport they were banned from flying AC. They had to make their own way home and launched a CTA case when they got told the ban was for life.

In another case tried in the court of public opinion the pax was told at YYC to find another way home and they were banned from AC for a period.

In both cases the pax denied knowledge of the flight ban on AC. However in the CUN case the CTA got records from AC and the Mexican police indicating they were banned for life.

bhrubin

Agreed! Let's not forget that while some passengers can be abusive and deserve to be put on an airline's no-fly list, there are also incidents reported of FAs and groundstaff overreacting and calling police for insignificant reasons that would not justify such action.

The biggest issue here is that AC didn't properly notify the passenger of his status on their no-fly list--despite having plenty of time to notify him. THAT is actionable IMO.

weero

This is one of the areas where I find the tight European restrictions and limitations on airlines' and airports freedoms vastly superior to the dualism they enjoy in the Americas.

"Abusive" is definitely not a threshold that would fly in a European court ... especially given that so many airline and airport staff had it coming. Unless one implies that the staff had be beaten or something along that.

HerpaYvr

Wow, so I guess I cant fly off the handle anymore when my warm nuts are cold and when the chilled white wine is served at room temperature.

rehoult

This is a very difficult area for transportation providers. As carriers, they have obligations under the law to not discriminate in providing their service, and customer bans are subject to review by CTA. OTOH, they have an obligation under employment law to provide a safe working environment and can (and have been) sued for failure to provide it.

Here's a test: A customer keeps sending unsolicited porn pictures to one of your employees, what must you do? If you answered, "Nothing, she can press charges if she wants", I regret to inform you that you will soon be separated with your money if the employee sues you. You actually have a legal obligation to attempt to stop harassment from occurring, the same as you would if it was another employee doing the harassing.

bhrubin

Airlines in the USA are, as with all businesses as per various state and federal law, allowed to refuse service based on various contingent factors. I am uncertain of the standard in Canada, but we can probably assume it is somewhere between that of the USA and Europe. The fact is that standards matter, and the North American standard is different in this regard to that in Europe. Just ask Google.

SELurker

This guy shouldn't be surprised at all. Convicted or not, police where called to resolve a situation.

If I was in Walmart, Sobeys, Best Buy, Jack Astors, Canadian Tire, or any other establishment, and police had to be called to resolve a situation and remove me from the premises, I would have assumed I would have trouble going back there.

The fact that this person could end up trapped in a tin can for hours with employees and they can't escape him make it even worse and even more sensitive to employee safety!

weero

That is part of what I am saying - the pairing of overly respecting the feelings certain individuals (with an additional overvaluation of perceived safety and sexual things) is an American peculiarity. Add to this the other one that courts then assign these things substantial monetary value and you get this lawyer fodder.
No pun intended but I like things more tangible.
But it goes further in Europe - airlines/airports with their extensive pollution and noise affliction to the public, are not mere private service providers. If they enjoy slots and quasi-monopoly routes, banning individuals is made very difficult and IMHO rightfully so.

And while we are at it - I also applaud that Europe denies authorities establishimg no-fly-lists.
Yes that makes sense and I did not find much more detail.

And actually the legal difference makes sense as you have a choice of carrier in the US. In Europe you usually have not and Canada .... meh not so much.

rehoult

I'll note that my example was for Canadian law, and our damages rules are much more in line with Europe than the US (i.e. while the employee could sue you in Canada, you'd be paying out a few $10Ks, not a few $1Ms like in the US).

As for accommodating sensitive personalities, I don't think any country can complete with either the EU 'Right-to-be-forgotten' or the UK libel laws. And I say that as a proud Canada/UK duel citizen.

weero

Thanks for that insight! I know shamefully little about Canada's legal system despite having spend much time there.

As for the EU, I am not sure if these issues are harmonised but on the Continent liabilities are not applicable in the context of a crime. So in your example the customer who harasses the employee would see the focus of the enforcement not the company whose customer he is. Immediacy was at least in the past required.
I love "right to be forgotten" because it doesn't obsess about a particular fashionable pet peeve but grants everyone homogeneous rights. But enforcement is virtually nonexistent - Google et al pretty much ignore legislation and rulings.

As for the UK libel laws, yes they indeed an oddity, especially given that the entire yellow press seems to solely live of trampling them.