A man who claims to have a disability was removed from a Southwest Airlines flight after he insisted he couldn’t store his personal item underneath his seat due to a medical need. While it’s of course important to adhere to ADA policies, I find some of the details here to be a bit confusing.
In this post:
Man kicked off Southwest flight over carry-on dispute
A musician named Cody Blackbird took to Instagram to share an incident that happened yesterday (Thursday, August 6, 2026) on a Southwest flight from Dallas (DAL) to Tulsa (TUL). To summarize this situation as simply as possible:
- The man was traveling with an instrument and a backpack, and he tried to place both items in the overhead bin
- When the crew noticed he placed both items in the overhead, they asked him to place one item underneath the seat in front, but he claimed he couldn’t do that, due to a disability-related medical need that he wasn’t comfortable talking about, and he kept claiming that ADA and FAA regulations were on his side
- Eventually the crew kicked him off the flight due to lack of compliance, and because they weren’t comfortable with him
- A supervisor ended up meeting him after the flight and rebooking him on the next flight, and the supervisor seemed to largely take his side
You can watch the video for yourself below.
Here’s the caption about the video, with everything in his own words:
Today I was removed from a Southwest Airlines flight after requesting a disability accommodation.
When I boarded, I placed both my carry-on and backpack in the overhead bin because I need the space under the seat in front of me due to a disability-related medical need. When a flight attendant asked me to move my backpack under the seat, I explained that I have a disability and need that space for proper blood flow. I also told the crew I wasn’t comfortable discussing my private medical information in front of a full plane.
Initially, they acknowledged my request.
Moments before takeoff, however, I was deplaned for allegedly “not following crew member instructions.”
Afterward, a Southwest supervisor spoke with the crew and returned to tell me that I should never have been deplaned and that I should never have been asked to place my backpack under the seat because ADA supersedes airline policy for able bodied customers
Despite that, I missed my original flight and was delayed by five hours.
I’m sharing this because no one should have to choose between protecting their health, their privacy, and being able to travel. Disability accommodations exist for a reason, and I hope sharing my experience helps bring awareness to how situations like this should be handled with dignity and respect.
Does a disability really cover something like this?
So of course it’s crucially important for airlines to follow ADA regulations, and make accommodations for disabled passengers. Passengers also generally aren’t required to reveal the details of their disability.
But to me it raises the question, do ADA regulations really cover something like this? I’m not here to speculate about what his condition is, but presumably it has something to do with needing a certain amount of space in front of him? If so, would a seat with limited pitch also violate ADA regulations, as he sees it? I guess I’m struggling to figure out what exactly the legally required accommodation here is.
The reason I’m not sure if this would be covered by ADA regulations is because it’s not clear (at least he didn’t share) why he needed to actually carry on that bag. It seems like if he has a situation where he can’t have anything by his feet, and if airline regulations require the second carry-on item to be stored underneath the seat, then maybe he needed to check a bag instead?
I get that maybe he didn’t want to check the items that were in the bag, but still, this doesn’t seem like a standard accommodation that you would expect on account of the ADA.
Obviously there are lots of people with “invisible” disabilities, and those shouldn’t be diminished. But at airports you also have all kinds of people who take advantage of any loophole that they can, as we often see with wheelchairs. I’m not saying that’s the case here, but I can understand the general skepticism with “I can’t follow your rules due to an undisclosed medical condition.”
At the same time, it also seems like the crew could’ve just deescalated this, because this all ended up being much more drama than it needed to be. And I bet on his next flight, he was allowed to store both items in the overhead bin.
Bottom line
A man was removed from a Southwest Airlines flight after he insisted that he could store both of his carry-on items in the overhead bin due to a medical condition. While the ADA does set the standard for the ways that airlines have to accommodate customers with disabilities, it’s not clear to me that this is actually explicitly covered.
What do you make of this Southwest ADA situation?
Here is the piece I always scratch my head on these case.
"Eventually the crew kicked him off the flight due to lack of compliance, and because they weren’t comfortable with him
A supervisor ended up meeting him after the flight and rebooking him on the next flight, and the supervisor seemed to largely take his side"
It seems that 100% of these passengers that are kicked off a flight because crew is...
Here is the piece I always scratch my head on these case.
"Eventually the crew kicked him off the flight due to lack of compliance, and because they weren’t comfortable with him
A supervisor ended up meeting him after the flight and rebooking him on the next flight, and the supervisor seemed to largely take his side"
It seems that 100% of these passengers that are kicked off a flight because crew is not comfortable flying with him/her are booked on the next flight almost always on the same carrier. So, what changes that all of the sudden the passenger is now allowed to fly on the same carrier under a different crew? Doesn't that say a lot about where the problem is here? It seems it is always the crew that causes the problem because if the passenger is really a treat it would never be allowed on the next flight.
@ Santastico -- I agree with you 100%. It's part of the issue with the US crew culture, where crews are allowed to kick people off because they aren't "vibing" with passengers. This doesn't happen with foreign carriers in the same way. If a situation is so dire that someone is kicked off a flight, they also shouldn't be allowed to take the next flight, in my opinion.
I've been on southwest flights that I've seen people place their backpacks in the overhead bin. Later when space is full these same people often act flustered when asked to move their backpacks under the seat in front of them. I also see the flip side of this though. If there was room for his backpack on this particular flight one would think the flight attendant might have just deescalate and not worried about it unless there was actually a space issue.
"I guess I’m struggling to figure out what exactly the legally required accommodation here is."
The Airline Passengers with Disabilities Bill of Rights, which falls under the Air Carriers Access Act, spells out the accommodations to which disabled passengers are entitled. This falls under "The right to receive seating accommodations."
Whether anyone here on OMAAT believes him or not is immaterial.
@ TravelinWilly -- I hear you, but if you look at the section about "The Right to Receive Seating Accommodations," it says the following:
"Airlines must provide specific seats to the following passengers who identify to airline personnel as needing the seat, if the seat exists on the same class of service on the aircraft."
The only potentially relevant detail here is "Greater Leg Room–When the passenger has a fused or immobilized leg." But...
@ TravelinWilly -- I hear you, but if you look at the section about "The Right to Receive Seating Accommodations," it says the following:
"Airlines must provide specific seats to the following passengers who identify to airline personnel as needing the seat, if the seat exists on the same class of service on the aircraft."
The only potentially relevant detail here is "Greater Leg Room–When the passenger has a fused or immobilized leg." But this just seems to cover seat assignments, and not the right to not follow a carrier's rules when it comes to where carry-on bags are placed.
I could be reading this wrong, though. :-)
It sounds like he didn’t preboard. In most instances to get accommodations under the ACAA, you have to preboard though an airline may give accommodations at its discretion if you don’t. Also, the ADA does not apply on airplanes, only the ACAA does.
Is OMAAT merging with View from the wing ?