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Comment by chrischen | Hacker News Reader

Honest question, but if Southwest felt it necessary to ban this customer then why not other airlines? Was this a Southwest targeted attack?

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Southwest doesn't have that option. They can only ban passengers from their own airline.

If the FBI is involved (interfering with a crew member's duties is a federal crime), they can add her to the no fly list via TSA if warranted. And I think all of these people that act up should be, or in the case of psychiatric reasons, should be required to fly with a caretaker.

I am not sure why my other comment was downvoted to oblivion. ONE airline banning a passenger is NOT the same as being added to the no fly list. Period.

I'm not talking about Southwest banning them from Delta, I'm talking about why say, Delta doesn't decide they do not want known violent passengers?

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

Because airlines don't share passenger information like this except through the TSA...

Because it was on a Southwest flight. I don't think media asked KLM or Indigo if they'd like to have an extremist on their flights.

Honestly, if your behavior was bad enough to get you banned from one airline for life, you are a menace and should be banned from all of them. I don’t want to sit down next to someone on a Delta flight who assaulted a flight attendant on Southwest.

Eh, some people are inherently violent. Many more people can be pushed to extremes given extreme circumstances. As long as you don't really know all the details, chances are good that people regret their actions and are going to learn from the event and change.

Barring them from all possible flights for the rest of their life, which may yet last many decades, is likely to do more harm than good because it will cause resentment that can block this improvement in a person. By contrast, barring them from just one airline allows them to continue to live their life while also acting as a permanent reminder to be better.

I would also argue that punishment by an organized monopoly situation (like airlines or tech giants) would create parallel structures to the law and order created by the nation states we created as the society. It would undermine the legal system.

Sorry, but when I’m in an aluminum can 35k feet in the air, I don’t want “inherently violent” people there with me or people with such poor impulse control that they might snap at anything they perceive as extreme.

In that case, you really shouldn't fly in commercial planes to begin with.

In case it isn't obvious: the number of people who can be triggered to be violent in the right circumstances is far higher than the number of people who have been so triggered. It's probably a significantly double-digit percentage of the population.

I'm not sure that's the rational Delta would have. "We'll give you leniency because you punched our competitor's flight attendant."

If we wanted such private bans to be rehabilitative then private companies should not be allowed to impose life-time bans.

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