Too smelly to fly?

[Pax Vobiscum]

Travellers have previously been refused airline seats for being too fat or too drunk—and now we can add too smelly. An American flyer was ejected from a Jazz Air flight scheduled to leave Charlottetown, PEI, for Montreal on February 6th because his body odour was deemed too offensive. Passengers say the flight was delayed by about 15 or 20 minutes while airline employees first tried to isolate the man and then removed him when that did not clear the air. A spokesperson for Jazz, an Air Canada regional spin-off, confirmed that a man was “deplaned”, but would not divulge the reason because of privacy concerns. The man apparently caught a Jazz flight the next day. No word if he had cleaned up his act by then.

The Economist - Gulliver's Blog
For reference, that's a 500-mile flight.

[aviatordom]

Jazz Air does have a very good point, it's not really fair on the rest of the pax (and crew)

I don't fancy sitting in a metal tube with someone reeking of BO for very long, do you?

[strake]

This has rung a bell from nearly 30 years ago when I was learning to fly. My memory may well be playing tricks with me but I seem to recall, from an Air Law lecture, that an offensive body odour is a legitimate reason to refuse boarding.

[Flapping_Madly]

Brilliant, absolutely brilliant.

I heard recently of a distant friend and her husband who flew Dubieh to Peking (I think it was) and they were surrounded by construction workers in filthy clothes who stank to hell. She was so revolted she actually threw up her dinner.

Not funny when you've paid good money for a ticket.

[ExXB]

I had a look at BA's condition of carriage (most network carriers have the same/similar rules) and out of the 38 reasons why they reserve the right to refuse to transport is:

7a) Our right to refuse to carry you

We may decide to refuse to carry you or your baggage if one or more of the following has happened or we reasonably believe may happen.
[...]
7a2) If carrying you or your baggage may affect the comfort of any person in the aircraft.

I think being a stinko would meet this exception ...