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I am 100% a rule follower and someone who respects authority. But even I’m scratching my head to see how little it seemed to take for American Airlines to put a guy on their no-fly list.

Back in March of 2019, David Klein and his wife, both from San Diego, had boarded an AA flight from Tokyo to Los Angeles. They were sitting in Business Class. Not long after they were seated, a flight attendant approached Klein and told him to put his seat in an upright position (here’s why seats have to be that way upon take off).

Just a few seconds later, as Klein was preparing to adjust his seat, the same flight attendant passed by him again, leaned over him and began to press the seat adjustment buttons under his arm rest.

Klein said he was surprised at having a stranger make physical contact with him, and instinctively moved the flight attendant’s arm away, telling her he would adjust his seat himself. He immediately did so.

The flight attendant left and there were no further interactions between her and Klein for the rest of the flight.

However another flight attendant apparently had witnessed the incident. He apologized to Klein for his colleague’s behavior and he said that she was “having a bad day.”

Klein considered the matter closed and promptly forgot about the incident.

Fast forward about three years. In February of 2022, Klein had made reservations on American for him and his wife to fly from Los Angeles to St. Maarten for a friend’s 60th birthday celebration. They Ubered to LAX from their home in San Diego and began the process of checking their bags. That’s when, “to their surprise and horror” they discovered that Klein wasn’t allowed to fly on American Airlines.

American representatives allegedly refused to explain why he was now banned from flying with them. Klein also reached out to American Airlines’ corporate arm to get more information, but the airline didn’t respond.

Klein strongly believed the flight attendant involved in the seat adjustment incident in 2019 “solely out of spite filed a report with the airline that falsely accused the plaintiff of refusing to follow safety instructions.”

The ban has prevented him from flying to some places with his family members, forcing him to incur higher costs and a loss of time by having to take flights on other airlines. Klein said he wrote to American and asked them to please reinstate his right to travel, but he never received any reply to that, either.

So in November, 2022, he sued the airline in Los Angeles Superior Court, alleging he was wrongfully barred from future flights with the company. His negligence suit requested compensatory damages as well as a court order allowing him to fly on AA again.

Fast forward to October 2023, and Klein suddenly just dropped his lawsuit. His lawyer filed court papers last Tuesday with Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Jill Feeney, asking that Klein’s negligence suit be dismissed “with prejudice” (lawyerspeak for “it can’t be refiled”). The court papers don’t state if a settlement was reached or if Klein was not pursuing the case for other reasons.

The different kinds of no fly lists

In the U.S., there are two different types of No Fly lists.

Federal

Before someone is placed on the list, the FBI says, there “must be credible information demonstrating that the individual presents a threat of committing an act of terrorism with respect to an aircraft, the homeland, U.S. facilities or interests abroad, or is a threat of engaging in or conducting a violent act of terrorism and is operationally capable of doing so.”

Airline

Each airline also has its own, respective No Fly list. Many people who refused to comply with the mask rules of the times were on one or more airlines’ no fly lists (by early 2022, Delta alone has somewhere around 2,000 people on their no fly list). But disruptive people of various “flavors” have made it onto airlines’ no fly lists, as well. Some are banned for life, some for shorter periods of time.

Most airlines are vague about their no fly lists, and usually defer to Airlines for America, who are just as vague:

Restricted travel is at the discretion of each individual airline if it is in the best interest of their customers and crew members in terms of safety and security. Because safety and security are always our highest priority, carriers can and will enforce measures to keep our customers and employees protected.

Clear as mud.

What can usually get you onto an airline’s no fly list? Anything an airline (or its employee) considers threatening, dangerous or inappropriate behavior, or against their terms & conditions. Things like:

• Skiplagging
• Inappropriate social behavior
• In-flight violence
• Smoking
• Not following FA’s instructions

What about Klein?

Of course, there are several big holes in the story that we don’t know about:

Why did Klein drop the case? Did he settle? Had American Airlines put a different Daniel Klein on its No Fly list and mixed them up with this Daniel Klein? Did Klein not include some sort of information in his suit that he should have and perhaps he was guilty after all? Is he still banned? We just don’t know.

What we DO know is that a flight attendant had a “bad day” and the next time the guy tried to fly on that airline, he found out he was on their No Fly list.

Be careful out there, travel friends!

H/T: Times of SD

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