What’s the most common reason travelers get kicked off airline flights? Most often it is because the passenger is visibly intoxicated or sick. Crew members may refuse to board the passenger.
“If you were to come on the plane drunk — if the agent missed it and we noticed it before we left — you’d be escorted off the plane,” flight attendant Annette Long told Business Insider. “Because we don’t need you to get up to 35,000 feet and get crazy on us.”
Crew members may restrain the passenger and divert the plane if the flight is underway. Passengers who insult, threaten or get physical with crew members and other passengers are inviting serious trouble, and that includes prosecution. Not surprisingly, such behavior often comes from passengers who are also intoxicated.
During the boarding process, flight attendants usually suggest that people who look physically ill take later flights. “In today’s day, there’s zero tolerance for an obviously sick person — for example, someone who is vomiting — boarding a plane,” a flight attendant said.
The most serious thing that could get a passenger kicked off the plan? Trying to open the doors midflight. Again, crew members say the problem often arises when a passenger has been drinking — but not always.