Airlines

The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) fined Spirit Airlines USD 100,000 for failing to appropriately record and respond to complaints about the carrier’s treatment of passengers with disabilities, violating DOT’s rules implementing the Air Carrier Access Act which prohibits discrimination in air travel on the basis of disability.

Upon complaints by three passengers who all suffer from severe cat allergies, the Canadian Transportation Agency (CTA) has ruled that Air Canada, Jazz and WestJet need to amend their policies with respect to the carriage of cats as carry-on baggage in the aircraft cabin as to include either:

The plaintiff and her daughter boarded the aircraft for a Continental flight from Newark to Cancun, Mexico. After a dsipute with the flight attendants over her seating and and while waiting in the forward galley, the plaintiff began talking on her cell phone.  When a flight attendant told her to end the call, she replied that “the pilot didn’t announce not to be on your phone and I’m talking to my Mom” and continued her conversation. The flight attendant then told the plaintiff to stop talking on her phone or else exit the plane.

In a lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on Dec. 21, Theophilus Maranga says he "risked his life" by jumping on the would-be bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian man who attempted to blow up a Detroit-bound flight from Amsterdam with a bomb stashed in his underwear. The lawsuit says Maranga lost a tooth and suffered injuries to his ribs, permanent numbness in his hands and a pain in his neck that hampers his movements.