American Airlines has made some changes to its rules governing when flight attendants can ask passengers to leave the aircraft. There has been a rise in complaints against airlines for discriminatory behavior, and customer-facing staff, such as cabin crew members, often find themselves in tricky situations with travelers. American Airlines has now specified clearly how to manage such incidents.
Scuffles between passengers and flight attendants have been occurring for years. However, they have been reported much more frequently in the last few years, particularly in the post-pandemic era.
In many instances, passengers are also asked to leave the aircraft, and while some of these requests are justified, many others are sometimes viewed with skepticism, with the belief that the situation could have been defused without the passenger having to leave the aircraft.
With the relevant authorities taking notice, American Airlines has now made changes to its policies that clearly describe how flight attendants should deal with customer-related concerns and that anyone should only be asked to leave the plane if it’s a safety issue.
View From The Wing got hold of the inflight manual, which details the steps cabin crew members are expected to follow when dealing with a tricky situation with a passenger onboard. Among the various points mentioned, there’s one that says that in a non-safety or non-security concern, the airline wants to deal with the situation in a way that avoids customer removal.
Flight attendants have also been asked to respond only to these non-safety and non-security issues when they are raised by customers.
Of course, what constitutes a non-safety and non-security issue still rests with the crew, with the plane's captain still authorized to take the final call should the issue escalate to that level.
American Airlines’ policy change isn’t the result of overnight decision-making. Earlier this year, the United States Department of Transportation (DOT) published data that, among other things, detailed customer submissions and complaints.
More than 220 discrimination-related complaints were filed in 2023, compared to 176 in 2022. This amounted to a 26% increase year on year.
In January, eight men were removed from an American Airlines plane scheduled to fly from Phoenix, Arizona, to New York City after complaints of body odor. The passengers were African American, were not seated together, and did not know each other.
Three of the passengers filed a lawsuit against the carrier for discrimination. In June, American Airlines CEO Robert Isom admitted that removing the men like that was unacceptable, adding that it “contradicts our values, what we stand for, who we are and our purpose of caring for people on life’s journey.”
Ison spoke with the President and CEO of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) to address the issue. Some of the immediate actions that were taken included a new "oversight and excellence advisory group" dedicated to improving the experience of black customers and reevaluating its practices and culture, with a special focus on situations involving the removal of passengers, among others.
