Originally Posted by Wally Bird
Such 'advice' is contained in the Contract of Carriage of every airline. The fact that not 1 in 100 passengers ever bothers to apprise themselves of the CofC is no excuse. Just watch any episode of
Airline 
There is a link to AA's CoC posted here and I looked at that one. Where does it say lighters and matches are prohibited? I just scrolled quickly through the baggage section and didn't see anything about it. There is a sentence that refers to an AA Ticket Office for more information, but I don't call that "contained in the CoC".