I wasn't there..........!!! However it seems totally over the top...... You cannot "make" people do things. You can quest them to do things, often works better.

A classic example of people dying because they did not read/listen to the safety briefing was the ditching of the hijacked Ethiopian B767 when passengers inflated their life jackets BEFORE they exited the aircraft and then got trapped inside the inverted fuselage and could not escape and drowned!

It's neither a privilege nor a right. It is a contract between the passenger and the airline. Read the provisions of carriage from any airline. Most of them have them posted on their website. One of the many provisions is to cooperate with the flight crew and follow safety instructions.

You write like a lawyer..... I was just responding to AD's msg . Just seemed an over reaction i.e. off loading a legitimate passenger. There is no requirement to pay any attention to the safety briefing. Some people choose to, up to them of course.... How can the cabin crew decide if you are "paying attention"?? Just seems a very arbitrary decision. If the pax was using a cellphone that would be a little easier to define.

Not sure I've seen that rather broad clause on say, the BA CoC.

Well BA certainly do have the sort of clause aterpster has mentioned.

Take a look at ba.com, General Conditions of Carriage, it comes up in section 7 ( "Our right to refuse to carry you or ban you from travel")


and again in section 11 about behaviour onboard a BA flight:


There then follows several other "no no's," such as being drunk on board, then the list of sanctions, up to and including handing over to local authorities on arrival...

https://www.britishairways.com/en-gb...ns-of-carriage

I'll put money on many/most/all (?) other airlines having similar clauses ticked away in their Conditions of Carriage, I suspect some people who "know their rights" might be in for a rude awakening if they insist pushing the boundaries, especially if they decide to turn doing so into some form of performance....TBH I really really don't see the difficulty in quietly appearing to pay attention to a yet another safety briefing....
..

It may not be a requirement to listen to the safety briefing, BUT..if you are sitting in an EMERGENCY EXIT, then my take is that you have a DUTY to understand what you may be required to do. Alternatively, if you wish, get off the aeroplane.

Wiggy - refusing to read the safety card or look/listen to the briefing is not a breach of contract or a criminal offence. Refusing to follow the instructions contained in the briefing or on the card when being required to do so by a member of the crew, is a breach.

If the former were true, there would be lines of people being led of aircraft around the world everyday.

Our numpty couple were dealt with because they broke the law regarding use of mobile phones while being instructed not to.

If it is not a requirement to listen the safety briefing why make an issue out of it when a passenger chooses not to. All seems very heavy handed. It would appear the passenger was causing no problems to anyone. Just allow the flight to proceed normally. I am surprised at Air New Zealand.

Airlines seem to think it is acceptable to treat passengers in any way they deem fit. Brings back memories of an even more extreme situation in the US where police were brought in to drag a passenger off an aircraft. If the passenger is sat there minding their own business leave them alone. If the passenger is causing the problem, drunk etc then it is different matter.

clareprop, Planemike, ever heard of the Tokyo convention? You may want to read up on that. It governs the authority of the Captain. Although you can chose to NOT listen to the safety briefing, you have to follow the orders by the Captain of the aircraft when it is in flight.

The Captain may delegate this to other members of the crew (i.e. cabin crew). So if the Cabin crew give you an order to familiarise yourself with the safety requirements of an emergency exit and you chose to stick your fingers in your ears, the Captain has the power (among other things) to remove you from the flight.

I'd happily take that case to court if I were the Captain of said flight.

KingAir Again you write as lawyer but in fact you are an Air Captain. If the passenger is sitting there minding their own business and causing no trouble to either crew or fellow passenger let them be. Some here seem to feel you can brow beat passengers into paying attention to safety briefings or read safety cards. Best option is to try and engage their attention but in the end if you can't the passenger will go on reading the paper or looking out of the window.You seem to want to treat crew and passengers in the same way. Yes, you can give an order to a member of your crew and expect them to follow it. If you give an order to a passenger they can CHOOSE if they wish to comply with your order. You may not like the fact they have a choice but they have that choice and have the right to exercise it.

I would just caution that having been a witness in a court case, it is not much fun. You have to give a deposition (under the penalty of perjury of course), go to pre-trial conferences with the prosecutor, submit what seems like endless documentation which gets lost and has to be resubmitted, and finally go to trial on a date convenient for the judges and lawyers (which gets rescheduled on a whim it seems like, but if you don't show up you are the one going to jail!) Then you get to joust in front of a jury with a guy whose whole expertise is in making people look like a fool.

Kick them off, ban them, forget about it. Don't go the lawyer route.

Edit: it is amazing how frightening the experience is for someone like me who is not used to giving testimony. There is always that fear that you will make a mistake describing events that occurred years ago and will get indicted for perjury. Even if you tell yourself that it is not a rational fear, it is there. My wife pretty much had a breakdown after her testimony. She was convinced irrationally that some articles presented as evidence were not in fact the articles that we said they were and that the police had for some reason substituted them. Even showing her original pictures of the articles (which had not been substituted) did not help. We got over it but it took awhile.

Firstly if reports were correct and the pax was sat an an exit row then her not listening to the brief potentially could have caused major problems for quiet a few people...the offloaded passenger was not the only person on that aircraft that had rights.....

Secondly if individuals really feel they need to exercise " their right" to ignore safety briefings brief, in total, then just perhaps they should consider booking a window seat away from an exit row.

That way everybodies rights are respected.

wiggy........... I do understand the situation re. exit rows. Have sat in them in my time. My point is the crew/airline need to engage with the passenger not apply heavy handed remedies. Diplomacy wins (nearly!!) every time. .Off loading just seems over the top. Ask her to move ??!! As I said I was not there.

We weren't there.

That would of course have required that she take her fingers out of her ears first.