Couple kicked off Miami-New York flight because of T-shirt

 

MIAMI — A couple returning home from a Costa Rican vacation was ejected from an American Airlines flight because the man was wearing a T-shirt depicting a bare breast.

 

Oscar Arela and his girlfriend, Tala Tow, were removed from Flight 952 on Saturday after he refused to change the shirt or turn it inside out at Miami International Airport. The flight left 90 minutes late without them.

 

The couple, making a connecting flight from Costa Rica, said nobody on the earlier flight objected to the shirt and claimed the airline violated their constitutional right to free speech.

 

"It's a picture of a man and woman, and the woman's breast is showing," Tow said. "The flight attendant basically walked up to us and yelled, 'You have to take off that shirt right now.'"

 

American spokesman Tim Wagner said Sunday that crew members acted properly.

 

"The description I heard was a picture of a graphic of a naked man and woman performing a sexual act," he said. "We as an airline are in the service business, and we have the same latitude as a restaurant that says proper attire is required."

 

Tow said four Miami-Dade police officers and three federal security agents escorted her and Arela off the flight. She said the T-shirt image was reproduced from a Venezuelan record label.

 

Wagner said the couple could legally be barred from the flight even though they committed no crime. The airline gave them a refund. He did not know if they booked another flight.

 

"I'd like to figure out how a T-shirt that offends one member of the crew somehow impacts the safety of the flight or the ability of the flight to continue to New York," said Howard Simon, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida. "If they want to permit this kind of action by flight attendants, then they better have a clear policy that is announced in advance and made known to passengers in advance."

 

Wagner noted on American's Web site the policy clearly states that someone who is "clothed in a manner that would cause discomfort or offense to other passengers" can be removed from a flight.

Is there anything that the passengers can actually be liable for here, because it certainly doesn't seem to be the case.

Another Flight Story,

 

A UNITED Airlines jet aborted takeoff at Bangkok International Airport early today after a bird got caught in one of its engines, and four passengers suffered minor injuries as they evacuated the plane, the company said.

 

Flight UA838 headed for Tokyo also "experienced a tyre blow-out" during the aborted takeoff, United Airlines said in a statement. It wasn't clear what caused the tyre to burst.

 

"The takeoff was aborted due to a bird ingested into one of the engines," the company said. "For the safety of passengers and crew members, the pilot activated an immediate evacuation."

 

The Boeing 747's two pilots, 15 crew members and 346 passengers slid down evacuation chutes onto the tarmac, the statement said.

 

Four passengers who suffered minor injuries during the evacuation were treated by a medical team at the airport and two of them were later hospitalised, the statement said. A control tower official earlier said that 20 people had been injured.

 

The passengers will be put up at a local hotel and flown to Tokyo on another plane tomorrow morning, the company said.

A friend of mine got taken off a flight for wearing this t-shirt:

 

The airline gave him a free ticket for his troubles since his luggage was already checked and he had no carry on (and therefore couldn't change his shirt). So for a $17 t-shirt, he got a $200 plane ticket.