AS employee throws cancer patient and family off flight.

[WorldTraveler]

A California woman with cancer and her family were kicked off an Alaska Airlines flight from Hawaii to California after airline employees said she needed a note from her doctor before she could fly, CBS San Francisco reports.


http://www.cbsnews.com/news/woman-with-cancer-booted-off-flight/

from the passenger's FB page

"Today, we were at gate 8 ready to depart on Alaska Airlines for San Jose. An airline employee saw me seated in the handicap section of the boarding area. She asked me if I needed anything. The first time. I said no. The second time, O said, well I might need a bit of extra time to board, sometimes I feel weak. Because I said the word weak, the Alaska Airlines employee called a doctor, she claimed was associated with the airlines. After we board the plane. An Alaska representative boarded the plane, and told us I could not fly without a note from a doctor stating that I was cleared to fly. The video is of us being removed from the plane."

---

No frontline AS agents seemed to be whipping out a credit card to help this family.

AS HDQ refunded the ticket and paid for the hotel expenses but no word on how they could have possibly compensated the passenger for her missed chemotherapy treatments, her children's lost days from school, or her husband's meetings.

 

[700UW]

The family are Delta employees, DL planned this whole fiasco.

 

[eolesen]

Wasn't someone just accusing AS of always being on the lookout for bad news stories about DL?

Was it outsourced agents in Hawaii?

 

[WorldTraveler]

uh, DL didn't try to intervene in AS' screwup.

they did this to themselves without anyone's help.

Having an agent making a call like that without apparent supervisory support is beyond belief. Allowing a doctor thousands of miles away to make a call to throw a passenger off of a flight is inexcusable.

 

[FrugalFlyerv2.0]

uh, DL didn't try to intervene in AS' screwup.
 

It is obviously clear that this was a PR stunt by DL in order to smear AS.  The fact that DL didn't even bother to intervene / help out proves it (i.e. why would they since it was obviously all staged). 

 

[WorldTraveler]

contrary to your view of the world, each company is responsible for itself.

DL had nothing to do with the event.

AS screwed up all by themselves.

 

[FrugalFlyerv2.0]

contrary to your view of the world, each company is responsible for itself.

DL had nothing to do with the event.

AS screwed up all by themselves.

 
I don't know if you grasp how much AS is spanking DL in the SEA press and in order to survive it might not be surprising for DL to stoop so low as to make up anything to smear AS in the press. 
 
But being a bit more serious now, I find it very amusing how quick you are to circle the wagons around DL no matter what the topic/issue is. 
 
Gee, there is no way you could have a narrative is there?

 

[WorldTraveler]

I never brought DL into this discussion; others did.

I find it SAD how people like you are so quick to think that DL had anything to do with this.

quite frankly, the irony of this whole situation is how quickly AS and its employees were to stick their nose into a situation involving a DL customer and make a huge production about it in the press and now that a situation that is even worse - a critically ill patient who was more than capable of flying on her own - has surfaced involving AS and AS alone, you and others want to turn into a DL issue.

AS screwed up - plain and simple.

the lesson they should learn is to make sure they run an absolutely spotless operation before running around trying to blacken the eye of a competitor.

 

[700UW]

Hey you said AS set up what happened when the AS agent paid for DL passengers tickets to get home.
 
What is good for the goose, is good for the gander.

 

[WorldTraveler]

except that DL didn't do anything to intervene in AS' situation... you can't seem to grasp that.

AS stuck its nose into a DL customer situation and tried to get the glory and it all backfired in an event that AS did all by itself.

 

[700UW]

Stuck its nose?
 
You truly need to seek professional help.

 

[WorldTraveler]

yes, it was a DL passenger. Every other carrier would have sent the passenger back to the carrier on who the passenger bought a ticket.

codeshare or not, it was a DL passenger.

If it was an AS passenger, they would have had no need to whip out a credit card and make a big production in front of the press about how they had saved anyone.

and now they screwed their own passenger who wasn't a business person but in fact a cancer passenger AND her FAMILY without any other carrier being involved.

Karma is indeed a beoytch

 

[eolesen]

A decent read from the opposite perspective

http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2015/04/the-elizabeth-sedway-case-in-defense-of-alaska-airlines.html

 

[jimntx]

But E.   You and that Dr. Kevin just don't understand.  It is my Constitutional right to travel whenever I want to, say whatever I want to, and inconvenience and possibly endanger you as long as it's something I want to do.

 

[WorldTraveler]

A decent read from the opposite perspective

http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2015/04/the-elizabeth-sedway-case-in-defense-of-alaska-airlines.html

she should have spared us the whole diatribe about her experience on an Australia to US flight involving a stomach ulcer patient and gone right to the next to last paragraph where she says

1. She is a high-risk OB doctor, not a cancer doc.
2. She takes her knowledge about treatment of the disease from her husband who is a cancer doc but who, like her knows nothing about the woman's disease.

3. and anyone that understands the airline industry would have to question her credibility where she says at least two times that "her husband (the oncologist) talked to air traffic control? Really? I find it hard to believe = and so would a whole lot of other people - that a doctor traveling on a passenger flight is consulting with ATC. HE may have been talking to a ground doctor but I seriously doubt that he was talking to ATC and not leaving that conversation to the captain.

finally, her last few words are the most uncompassionate thing a doctor could say.

More likely than not that she will have the opportunity to travel overseas in the future. If on the contrary she is far-progressed in the disease, perhaps she really is too sick to travel, at least via commercial flight, where her needs must be balanced with those of the other passengers, and yes, the economic realities of a business.

so she doesn't know the details of a passenger that wasn't even on HER flight but she is willing to offer her assessments of what the patient/passenger can do with her life in the future.

You do realize that OB doctors have some of the highest malpractice among all doctors?

somehow it isn't a surprise that this one shells out plenty to insurance companies.

and, btw, the airline involved has nothing to do with it.

and the problem with her comment was the same as AS' contract doc on a telephone line that made a decision based on never interacting with the passenger even though the customer said that her own doctor had given permission to make the trip, even if she couldn't produce a document saying so.

The reason why AS refunded the tickets and paid for all of the inconvenienced passenger expenses is because they now know that their contract doc on a telephone line should have never put himself into the middle of a decision.

and of course it might not hurt if chronically ill passengers take a few minutes to get a note from a doctor saying they can travel and carry it with them.