John Kozubik wrote:

On Mon, 21 Jul 2003, Major Variola (ret) wrote:

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Where do these ridiculous ideas come from ? If I own a piece of private property, like an airplane (or an entire airline) for instance, I can impose whatever senseless and arbitrary conditions on your use of it as I please.

Yes. Except that you entered into a contract to transport a human in exchange

for money. No where in the contract was "banned speech" mentioned.

If there are no provisions whatever for discretionary removal, then BA was wrong to remove Gilmore - they broke their agreement. However, I'll bet if you read _all_ the fine print, somewhere there exists in the contract/agreement a provision for just that. well, there are the following (from http://www.britishairways.com/travel/genconcarr/public/en_gb ):

Our right to refuse to carry you or to ban you from travel a) 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. 1) If carrying you or your baggage may put the safety of the aircraft or the safety or health of any person in the aircraft in danger. 2) If carrying you or your baggage may affect the comfort of any person in the aircraft. 3) If you are drunk or under the influence of drink or drugs. 4) If you are, or we reasonably believe you are, in unlawful possession of drugs. 5) If your mental or physical state is a danger or risk to you, the aircraft or any person in it. 6) If you have refused to allow a security check to be carried out on you or your baggage. 7) If you have not obeyed the instructions of our ground staff or a member of the crew of the aircraft relating to safety or security. 8) If you have used threatening, abusive or insulting words towards our ground staff or a member of the crew of the aircraft. 9) If you have behaved in a threatening, abusive, insulting or disorderly way towards a member of our ground staff or a member of the crew of the aircraft. 10) If you have deliberately interfered with a member of the crew of the aircraft carrying out their duties. 11) If you have put the safety of either the aircraft or any person in it in danger. 12) If you have made a hoax bomb threat. 13) If you have committed a criminal offence during the check-in or boarding processes or on board the aircraft. 14) If you have not, or do not appear to have, valid travel documents. 15) If you try to enter a country for which your travel documents are not valid. 16) If the immigration authority for the country you are travelling to, or for a country in which you have a stopover, has told us (either orally or in writing) that it has decided not to allow you to enter that country, even if you have, or appear to have, valid travel documents. 17) If you destroy your travel documents during the flight. 18) If you have refused to allow us to photocopy your travel documents. 19) If you have refused to give your travel documents to a member of the crew of the aircraft, when we have asked you to do so. 20) If you ask the relevant government authorities for permission to enter a country in which you have landed as a transit passenger. 21) If carrying you would break government laws, regulations, or orders. 22) If you have refused to give us information which a government authority has asked us to provide about you. 23) If you have not presented a valid ticket. 24) If you have not paid the fare (including any taxes, fees or charges) for your journey. 25) If you have presented a ticket acquired illegally. 26) bIf you have presented a ticket which you did not buy from us or our authorised agents. 27) If you have presented a ticket which was not issued by us or our authorised agents. 28) If you have presented a ticket which has been reported as being lost or stolen. 29) If you have presented a counterfeit ticket. 30) If you have presented a ticket with an alteration made neither by us nor our authorised agents. 31) If you have presented a spoiled, torn or damaged ticket or a ticket which has been tampered with. 32) If you cannot prove you are the person named in the ticket. 33) If you have changed your transportation without our agreement as set out in clause 3c. 34) If you have failed to present your ticket or your boarding pass or your travel documents to us when reasonably asked to do so. 35) If you have failed to complete the check-in process by the check-in deadline. 36) If you have failed to arrive at the boarding gate on time. 37) If you have behaved in a way mentioned above on or in connection with a previous flight and we believe you may repeat this behaviour. b) Our right to refuse to carry you when we have banned you from our route network 1) We will be entitled to refuse to carry you or your baggage if we have given you a banning notice and you have bought your ticket while the ban applies. 2) By a banning notice we mean a written notice we have given to you informing you that you are banned from being carried on our route network. (This means you are banned from travelling on all flights we operate.) This notice will give the date when the ban comes into force and the period for which it applies. A banning notice will also ask you not to buy a ticket or ask or allow anyone to do so for you. 3) If you try to travel while a banning notice is in force, we will refuse to carry you and you will be entitled to an involuntary fare refund. -------------------------------------------------------- There are no obvious grounds for discressionary removal based on wearing a badge (or being married to a habitual badge-wearer) but the "banning notice" thing looks to be a blanket refusal option written up to look like something else - I don't read this as saying you have to have met the section (a) criteria for them to issue a banning notice, in which case they can refuse you for no reason at all provided they put it in writing.

I felt sorry for the other 300 people on the plane who had their flight delayed for some guy with a small badge on his chest, and a big chip on his shoulder.

The other 300 people on the plane had their flight delayed by the actions of the carrier, not by the actions of Gilmore. You are falling for the usual mental trap here of viewing authority as some sort of inviolate physical law, and transferring responsibilty onto the victim for "making them do it." You should watch that in the future. I mean, a 1 inch button, for Christ's sake. They must have had to use a magnifying glass to read the slogan. -- Eric Michael Cordian 0+ O:.T:.O:. Mathematical Munitions Division "Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law"

On 2003-07-23, Kerry Thompson uttered:

I felt sorry for the other 300 people on the plane who had their flight delayed for some guy with a small badge on his chest, and a big chip on his shoulder.

Sure it's nasty that the flight was delayed. But was it John's fault? Likely not -- he seems to have behaved well within his rights, morally speaking. Quite unlike the flight crew. (IOW, BA seems like the least cost avoider in this particular dispute.) Naturally there should be refunds and amends, but those should probably come from the crew's pockets. Not John's. Furthermore, the terms of contract posted earlier seem far too vague and limiting to meet the usual standards of valid contract under a naove interpretation of Common Law. (IANAL, but both good will and meeting of minds appear to fail.) If so, BA ought to be in serious trouble. In the ideal world they would lose in court, and have to either reevaluate their guidelines or state them more explicitly. In the first case, everybody would be happy, with John off the hook. In the second, they should meet with widespread public outrage, a thorough-going boycott, huge financial losses and the unavoidable backdrop to simpler terms of contract. Otherwise: bankruptcy. -- Sampo Syreeni, aka decoy - mailto:decoy@iki.fi, tel:+358-50-5756111 student/math+cs/helsinki university, http://www.iki.fi/~decoy/front openpgp: 050985C2/025E D175 ABE5 027C 9494 EEB0 E090 8BA9 0509 85C2