American Limits Ability For Employees To Kick People Off Flights

American Airlines has just updated its policy regarding the circumstances under which employees are allowed to kick passengers off aircraft, and I’d say these are some thoughtful and logical changes. Let’s look at the updates, and then we’ll talk about why they’re necessary.

American’s new policy limits employee power trips

Historically, airline employees in the United States have been given broad discretion to kick customers off aircraft, even in situations where it’s questionable. American has updated its policy in this regard, in a pretty logical way.

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American states that its guiding principles as it relates to customer removals from aircraft are straightforward:

• An an airline, the goal is to welcome all customers unless there is a risk to the safety or security of the flight
• Discrimination based on race, gender, religion, color, sexual orientation, or national origin, against any customer or employee is unacceptable, and will not be tolerated
• Any non-safety or non-security related concerns should originate from customers only, and not from employees
• Should non-safety or non-security concerns be raised by a customer, the company’s shared objective is to avoid customer removal; that means groups across the operation need to work together toward a resolution that both addresses the customer concern and keeps all customer travel intact
• The goal is for every team member — no matter the circumstance — to lead with respect, discretion, care, and empathy

What does this change mean, concretely? As you can see, any non-safety or non-security related concerns need to originate from customers, and not team members. Furthermore, two flight attendants must engage the customer who raised the non-safety or non-security concerns, to try and resolve the situation.

In the rare event that a resolution to a non-safety or non-security concern isn’t likely, and before any customer is asked to get off an aircraft, the captain should contact the company’s CRO.

As before, for any issue involving the safety or security of a flight, the captain of the aircraft has the authority to make decisions about passenger removal, and that should be done after a thorough assessment.

Why this policy change at American is necessary

While a vast majority of flight attendants at US airlines do their best to resolve situations in a reasonable manner, there’s a small minority of employees who are on a power trip, and who may not be great at deescalation.

For example, over the years we’ve seen many stories of people being removed from flights in the US over their attire, even though highly subjective standards were used to make that decision.

Furthermore, earlier this year I wrote about a horrifying story whereby American removed all Black men from a flight. There was an odor complaint against one Black man onboard the flight, and somehow the crew had a hard time figuring out who it was, so the decision was made to kick every Black man off the flight, even though they didn’t know one another.

This caused huge issues for the company, and American’s CEO issued an apology, and promised the company would update its policies. So I suspect that’s exactly what this update is.

I have to give American huge credit here, because this policy is crystal clear, and it’s logical. It creates a collaborative culture whereby employees have to work together to find a solution, rather than one flight attendant having the discretion to decide whether they want a particular passenger on their flight or not.

Just look at American’s dress code, for example:

Dress appropriately; bare feet or offensive clothing aren’t allowed

Under the old system, a single flight attendant could basically decide that they didn’t like what a passenger was wearing on account of being “offensive,” even if no other customers complained. That’s no longer the case, at least in an actionable way.

Bottom line

American has updated its policies regarding the circumstances under which passengers can be kicked off planes. For non-safety and non-security issues, complaints now need to originate from customers, multiple flight attendants need to engage with the situation, and everything possible needs to be done to find a solution and not have someone removed from an aircraft. Well done, American!

What do you make of American’s policy update for passenger removal?