I had a puzzling experience on my flight today.

My carry-on luggage did not fit in the overhead bin of my express jet, and I was not given a tag at the gate (annoying, but it happens!) so I got off the plane, went back to the gate, got a tag, left it on the jetbridge, and came back to my flight. Standard story that I have gone through many, many times.

But this time, the flight attendant stopped me from getting on the flight, and told me that the protocol dictates that once a passenger is out of eyesight from the flight attendants outside the plane, they are not allowed back on.

I had never heard of this before (I don't fly nearly as much as most of y'all here, but I came close to making the Star Alliance gold status last year, and I think that I'm in good shape to getting there this year, so I'm not a complete novice in traveling).

So, the flight attendant told me that there was "physically[sic] no way for him to get me back on board", yet did not suggest anything for me to do. Then we just stared at each other. For around 5-10 minutes. Then the gate manager came, I don't know what they did, but they eventually let me on board.

As I was getting off, I told him that I thought the least he could have done was to suggest something for me to do, and that I respect the safety protocol and have every intention of following it, but that it was frustrating to feel so helpless in that situation. He started yelling at me, the pilot joined in, and they said that I could get arrested for international terrorism.

Were they threatening me, or is this actually valid?

I am not sure if this is a valid piece of information, but I think that I was the only non-white passenger on that plane, which was traveling from a southern US city to another southern US city. I am a petite Asian woman in her 20s (around 110lbs), and both the flight attendant and the pilot (white males) physically towered over me, and they were both yelling at me for politely making a complaint.

A quick Google search brought me to this thread:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/archive/t-1066102.html
which suggests that most airlines/flight attendants have no problem letting people de-board, then re-board.

Thanks for your help. While this is my first post on here, I read a lot of threads from here

ACtraveler1357, welcome to FlyerTalk!
For further discussion, I'll move this to the appropriate travel security forum. Ocn Vw 1K, Moderator, TravelBuzz.

The threats of arrest are real, the charges are wrong.

They have the authority to say that you're not flying, but the charges you would be looking at would be disobeying a crewmember's instructions, not terrorism.

It does sound insane, though.

It may or may not be this airline's policy or it could be an FAA reg that a pax cannot de-board with out some sort of permission (direct as told you can do it or implied as when arriving at the gate after the flight) and I simply do not know but being arrested for international terrorism is a load of crap. Arrested for interfering with a flight crew, yes but international terrorism, n-f-w

Thanks for your replies. I appreciate the feedback. I have a few follow-up questions.

1. Does talking to a flight attendant after de-boarding count as disobeying a crewmember's instructions? I politely raised my concerns after everyone has de-boarded, and the two people (the pilot and the flight attendant) made me feel very threatened. Can I sue for threatening me?

2. Does the protocol for not letting someone back in if they were out of eyesight of the crewmember actually exist? A long and frustrating Google search does not seem to yield anything, and I would like to see the full protocol, if possible. I just don't think that the actual protocol says that you are supposed to stare down at the person, refuse to let them enter the plane, but at the same time keep their belongings in the plane.

3. I'm also trying to assess how outrageous (or how typical) this situation was, and what course of action I should take next. I guess I just felt that no one was interested in helping me. For example, when I went back to the gate agent asking her to verify that I was just getting a tag from her, she said that she was "busy with closing the flight", which set me in further panic mode, as all of my stuff (except for my cell phone, which had my boarding pass in it) was still on board. Should I just file a complaint and let it rest? A complete account of what happened on this forum? Should I be seeking a lawyer?

The threat is real. After all, they made it. The reality is laughable.


Nope. We've covered this one (most recently, IIRC, when MatthewLAX made the terrorism comment on a UA flight & got kicked off for his troubles) before - with quotes from the statutes even.

FA's have zero authority to do anything except (IIRC) require you to sit down and put a seatbelt on. Now, they may think they have all sorts of authority ala the "terrorism" accusation, but it won't go anywhere. Pilots have the authority to kick you off the plane if and only if they can articulate a reason why you shouldn't fly, and that's it.


What, jumped up power tripping paranoid morons yelling at customers in the US and making up "rules" as they go along? Say it ain't so!

It's America: you can always sue. That says nothing about why would you bother or whether you'd get anywhere with it. A very public complaint about the staff via the airline's twitter account will probably get you a better response and some compensation. And realistically, from what you've described, that's all it warrants.


If it exists then it'll be an internal policy. The correct response when they say you're not getting back on is to summon the gate agent and ask for them to off load your luggage right then and there for you.


It's the US. That's how customer "service" works in the US, especially in the "frontline" (read: paranoid) industries.


File a short, concise complaint to the airline. Follow up on twitter to prompt them to actually do something about it. Get X-thousand miles compensation and leave it at that. It's not worth the blood pressure rise to engage with the morons. There are too many of them.

The gate agent was indeed summoned; she was too busy to come by herself because she was closing the flight (ARGH), but she called the gate manager. Everyone (the gate agent, the gate manager, the people who load luggages -- gate workers? -- onto the plane) was confused; the gate workers even asked the flight attendant whether there was anything they can do to let me back on the flight, and he simply said no. He refused to give me any suggestions on what I could do to either get myself back on that flight, or retrieve my belongings (including my wallet and my laptop) on the flight.

I did call the airline, and the person answering the phone, as well as her supervisor, seemed confused about what the correct protocol was supposed to be.

Thank you for your help everyone. I'm going to poke around some possibilities this weekend, talking to other frequent travelers and maybe trying to find some legal personnel or two to get some advice. Maybe it's not worth anything, but at the same time, does the law really not protect you when you were scared for your personal safety? I suppose that I'm quite upset at the moment, but I'm hoping that a weekend of mulling this over will come to some conclusion.

OP- take a deep breath and forget about it.

Really? The pilot and the flight attendant threatening to arrest me on international terrorism charges?

Yes, really. Let it go.

You could complain to the airline because they made nonsensical threats. Since you think this may have happened because you were the only non-white on the plane, you should contact the airline or travel agent and ask them to update your profile so that you are only booked on flights with other minorities. That will help ensure this doesn't happen in the future.

There's no way a federal prosecutor would spend any time on this matter, even if they were to convince someone to have you arrested. Even then they'd have a difficult time, as nothing you did meets the criteria for "international terrorism".


http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2331

Haha. If something that I did met the grounds for international terrorism, it would be a more serious issue! Also, I don't necessarily know whether it was racism or not, and I do believe that most people are not blatantly racists. I would give them the benefit of doubt. I just thought I felt the standard bully attitude there, where I was singled out as the weakest of the bunch, and they ganged up on me for no good reason.

I am not going to let it go -- I admire the people who can do that, but I was never that kind of a person. The bare minimum that I would do is to file a complaint with the airlines. But I think that I'll get my thoughts together this weekend and write an account of it first. Then file a complaint. And then see where things go.

The threat of terrorism charges is completely ridiculous. There is no such thing as a charge of "international terrorism".

I guess they could have tried to get you arrested on charges of "interfering" with flight crew. From your description, it doesn't sound like they would win, but it would depend on the judge/jury.

I would just forget it and move on with my life. No point wasting your time with fools. Given that they made no attempt to actually arrest you, there is no real issue anyway.

And next time you don't find space for your carryon give it to the flight attendant so they can find space or gate-check it. It's their job.