The woman was permanently denied boarding by the airline due to check-in conflicts: refusal to serve the "plane trouble" is legal and reasonable Quick review

Recently, there has been a new development in the case of "the woman was denied boarding by the airline due to a check-in conflict, so she sued the airline to the court". According to the "Paper" report, the Shanghai No. 1 Intermediate People's Court recently concluded the "personality rights dispute appeal case", and the final judgment of the second instance rejected the woman's appeal for the airline to stop the infringement and apologize, and upheld the original judgment.

The timeline of this incident is roughly as follows: On a certain day in July 2022, the woman in question, Xia, rushed to Shanghai Pudong Airport with her daughter to prepare to fly to Hong Kong to take the entrance exam. However, when going through immigration procedures, Xia did not find the entry materials, resulting in the inability to check in. Xia asked the airline staff for help and successfully downloaded his entry materials through the Internet, but his daughter's materials could not be downloaded successfully.

At this time, Xia asked to check in for her immediately, but the staff said that her daughter's materials could not be downloaded and could not be handled, and helped Xia contact the Hong Kong side, but in the process of waiting, Xia had a verbal altercation and even a physical conflict with the staff, and the staff called the police.

After the public security organ dispatched the police, Xia and the staff verbally reconciled. The staff reported the matter to the company's security department. Later, Xia found her and her daughter's entry materials in her suitcase, but at this time it was beyond the check-in time, so she changed the flight.

While waiting for the check-in of the changed flight, the airline staff handed over a "Notice of Refusal of Transportation" to Xia, stating that the company refused to allow Xia to board the plane and carry her luggage, and would also refuse her to take all flights operated by the airline in the future. Xia said that he could not accept it, and frequently posted on Weibo, expressing his dissatisfaction with the airline and its staff in fierce words, and sued the court, believing that the airline had violated his personality rights and interests, and demanding that the airline stop the infringement and publicly apologize and compensate for losses.

During the lawsuit, in addition to resorting to online public opinion for "sending a small composition", Xia also made the act of besieging the airline's lawyer. The first-instance judgment rejected all of Xia's claims, and the second-instance judgment also reaffirmed the result of the first-instance judgment: Xia was responsible for the consequences of delaying the flight, and the airline's decision to refuse boarding was also in line with the basic process of air transport safety.

It is not difficult to determine the merits of the case itself, but there are still many points worth discerning behind it. At the time of the outbreak of the incident, netizens mostly believed that Xia was not ready to travel, and was at fault and should bear the main responsibility. However, some netizens believe that the airline's decision to refuse boarding is too harsh, which is equivalent to depriving Xia of his right to travel in the future. But in fact, the airline's decision has its own basis.

According to the English refusal letter revealed by the media, the airline said in a serious manner that "we are very sorry to make this decision, but our first priority is to ensure the smooth comfort of our passengers and crew, as well as the safe flight of the aircraft." In other words, the airline believes that Xia's mood and personality are no longer suitable for taking their plane, otherwise it will affect flight safety and passenger experience.

There is another detail in this refusal letter: although the airline decided to "no longer provide any passenger and baggage transportation services for Xia", and also terminated Xia's "Marco Polo Club" membership, it still retained her "Asia Miles" membership of the partner airline, which is equivalent to saying, I would rather no longer earn your money than do business with you.

Airlines are the main players who need to make money, and all actions should be based on their own interests. The airline and Xia are equal civil subjects, and this decision is not an exercise of "law enforcement power" to deprive Xia of his right to travel, but nothing more than the meaning of "we no longer want to deal with you". As a comparison, similar "blacklist mechanisms" are common in other business sectors. For example, in August 2023, the Chengdu Giant Panda Breeding Base issued a notice prohibiting two tourists who illegally fed giant pandas from entering the park for life.

Whether it is the Chengdu Giant Panda Base or the airlines, their "lifetime ban" and "lifetime refusal to board" decisions themselves reflect the principle of free trade in the market economy, where merchants exercise their right to operate independently and refuse to serve consumers who violate the rules of the transaction.

In addition, the commercial operation of the Giant Panda Base and the airline also has its own particularity, that is, there are still public interests that need to be protected. As far as cross-border air transport services are concerned, it is the duty of the airline to require the presentation of entry materials, otherwise there is a suspicion of assisting in violating the law, and the airline naturally does not have this obligation to cooperate with Xia, who bought a ticket but did not have entry materials, to violate the entry and exit regulations. Xia's verbal and even physical confrontation at the airport counter inevitably made the airline feel that once he got on the plane, he would endanger flight safety and bring unnecessary flight risks.

Further, in the public interest, the public power can also formulate a "no fly list" to restrict or even deprive some people of the right to take civil aircraft. The Security Manual for the Prevention of Unlawful Interference with Civil Aviation (Annex 17 to the Convention on International Civil Aviation) provides that the operator "has the right to refuse to carry a person who is potentially threatening". China's Criminal Law and Public Security Punishment Law also contain provisions on the scope of application of the relevant civil aviation passenger blacklist. The Civil Aviation Administration of China has also published the "List of Seriously Untrustworthy Persons Restricted from Civil Aviation on Civil Aircraft".

To go deeper, Xia's behavior was not without the suspicion of slander and slander, which caused damage to the reputation of the airline. It is no wonder that some netizens believe that the plaintiff who resorts to law on the grounds of "personality rights infringement" may be more on the side of the airline. Following this logic, Xia's behavior is tantamount to a "long machine trouble" that lasted for a year and a half: first at the check-in time, then at the social media machine, and even at the lawsuit machine.

In July 2023, the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) deployed a special action to "rectify aircraft disturbances in accordance with the law and maintain aviation safety order", stating that it would resolutely curb the frequent occurrence of "aircraft disturbances". Although the woman in this case was not making trouble on the aircraft, her mentality and actions of "distributing according to the trouble" were no different from those "aircraft hegemony", "I am anxious, I am reasonable", "I am willful, what is wrong with me", and the airline's decision to refuse to carry the woman was not only to defend commercial interests, but also to eliminate possible negative incentives and prevent worse outcomes.

Wang Jing

Editor-in-charge: Chen Bin