Booted Off the Flight

Bizarre reasons why people have been kicked off of their flight

It might seem like a good idea to kick off those boots during a flight, but be warned: it could get you booted off the plane. Perhaps because we’re increasingly safety-conscious, or simply because more of us are flying nowadays, the incidence of plane passengers being shown the door for frivolous reasons has been on the rise. Here are a few particularly odd examples…

A Pong on the Plane

A young woman taking a flight in the US was asked to leave the plane after fellow passengers complained that her pet pig was stinking up the cabin.

The woman claimed she’d brought the swine aboard as an ’emotional support’ animal. Other emotional support animals that are allowed by law onto internal US flights include monkeys, cats and even miniature horses!

Scantily Clad 

When a woman tried to board a Southwest Airlines flight from Las Vegas to New York in 2012, she was refused entry by the flight attendants who deemed her attire to be too revealing. They insisted that it crossed the line into “lewd, obscene or patently offensive”, as outlined in the company rules. The airline – which had in the past faced criticism for its treatment of female passengers – later extended their apologies for over-reacting and offered a full refund.

The Grinch

In the holiday spirit, a flight attendant at LaGuardia airport in New York wished a passenger a Merry Christmas. Little did she know, she was speaking to the real-life Scrooge. He proceeded to berate the attendant, and then went on to lambaste another member of staff upon boarding the plane when she too tried to spread the Christmas joy. The man’s rage reached fever pitch as he was dragged from the plane to a chorus of mocking Christmas carols from his fellow passengers.

Tweeting Trouble

After being refused priority boarding, a man took to Twitter and posted a message about his treatment by the ‘rudest agent in Denver’. Unbeknownst to him, Southwest Airlines’ are eagle-eyed media monitors and they quickly noticed the man’s Tweet. They subsequently instructed the Tweeter and his two children to “exit the flight immediately”, and they weren’t allowed back on board until the offensive comment had been deleted. Unsurprisingly, Southwest Airlines had shot themselves in the foot because, upon landing, the man posted an even more damning Tweet, which sent the story viral,

Too Tall for Takeoff

Life can be tough for the taller among us, especially in an increasingly commercialised, mass-market world of ‘one-size-fits-all’, and this certainly stands true for air travel. A 6’9″ passenger felt the embarrassing effects of one airlines’ efforts to economise on space when he was removed from a flight after failing to fit his legs into the space in front of him. In search of extra leg room, the man stretched his limbs out into the aisle, causing a steward to trip over. Horizon Air later apologised to the man and granted him the ticket price off of a future flight as a gesture of goodwill.