American Airlines Revises Rules For Kicking Passengers Off Planes After Recent Controversies Scuffles between passengers and flight attendants have been occurring for years. However, they have been reported much more frequently in the last few years, particularly in the post-pandemic era. In many instances, passengers are also asked to leave the aircraft, and while some of these requests are justified, many others are sometimes viewed with skepticism, with the belief that the situation could have been defused without the passenger having to leave the aircraft. More than 220 discrimination-related complaints were filed in 2023, compared to 176 in 2022. This amounted to a 26% increase year on year. In January, eight men were removed from an American Airlines plane scheduled to fly from Phoenix, Arizona, to New York City after complaints of body odor. The passengers were African American, were not seated together, and did not know each other. What do the new rules say? View From The Wing got hold of the inflight manual, which details the steps cabin crew members are expected to follow when dealing with a tricky situation with a passenger onboard. Among the various points mentioned, there’s one that says that in a non-safety or non-security concern, the airline wants to deal with the situation in a way that avoids customer removal. Flight attendants have also been asked to respond only to these non-safety and non-security issues when they are raised by customers. Of course, what constitutes a non-safety and non-security issue still rests with the crew, with the plane's captain still authorized to take the final call should the issue escalate to that level.