Smelly German loses case against British Airways

Story here

being smelly isn't pleasant but it seems pretty rotten to chuck him off a flight for it.

Man, makes me wonder how smelly he was?

And if he was so smelly, why didn't someone say something before he boarded the plane?

There is a smelly lady that visits my local Tengleman once in awhile and she can make the vegetables wilt and the milk curdle. Seriously, I cannot go into the store if she is in there. If the guy was like that, then I would have gotten off the plane.

and if you were sat next to him on a longhaul flight ?

you think you would still feel the same ?

I wouldn't enjoy it. Maybe I'd purse my lips and hold my nose. But demand he be turfed off the flight to his humiliation and inconvenience? Seems a little heartless to me. But then I suppose having worked with mentally ill people in the past I am maybe more tolerant of such eccentricities (* lack of personal hygeine is on of the more harmless symptoms of a major psychiatric disorder)

well, again it depends on how smelly he was... I have some patients that smell really bad, and I have to keep my door closed, so I am sort of locked in. It can get unbearable.

I worked voluntarily with mentally disabled people for several years and yes their personal hygiene habits were questionable but we are not talking about that here are we ?

If you are too loud and obnoxious - evicted

Drunk - evicted

Dodgy nationality - evicted ( Or have been )

Smelly sod - evicted ( Why not ? ) You are inflicting pain upon other passengers as above

hmm. . . wonder if this will be extended to the U-Bahn in the height of summer.

"eccentricities"? "harmless"? Right. Where do we draw the line between "harmless eccentricity" and "shit that I shouldn't have to put up with in a society where everyone has the base level of respect for other people's sensibilities"? I don't know what this dude smelled like, but there are some smells that- regardless of what prompts a person to produce them- I don't want to sit next to. AND. That's fair. Fair to the mentally ill (who- lord knows- have every right to travel wherever their mental illness takes them) and fair to the non-mentally ill.

They can't afford to run half-empty trains, can they?

Was in the supermarket the other day, and strolled past some woman in the aisle. She looked kinda normal, middle-aged, middle-class but boy did she stink of B.O. - it just kinda wafted around her in a purple haze.

What is with this people? No excuse in my book. Smelly buggers should be thrown off a cliff, not just the plane.

most of the time its not just them, but their clothes, they are not being washed properly to get the smell out. Some of my clothes that I wore on my trip thru China- really really stunk when I got home. But from years of travel experience, I know to take a set of clothes for the trip there and back- put that set in a ziplock bag and don't wear it til you go home.

God, if I was sensitive to certain smells... I do the same work and get paid for it!

Sitting next to someone who smells in an enclosed space for a longer period of time? To be honest I think I´d have my difficulties as well.

There's no way I would have wanted him to sit next to me either. But he was stuck in an airport with no air-conditioning for 2 hours. They asked him to change his shirt, but he had none, they were all in the hold. They then threw him off. I think that's harsh. They probably could have rustled up a fresh shirt for him from somewhere. Going back into the airport and buying a new shirt would take less time than removing his baggage from the hold, which they probably would have to have done as well.

When I worked back in the UK, the ladies complained that one of their number was hanging up her tights on the back of one of the toilet cubicle doors. When asked why she was doing this and told to desist, she became quite angry and said the reason she did it was for the tights to dry out as she "got hot and sweaty therefore hung up the tights so they could dry and aeriate"...Classy

I agree with Showem, they could have given him a bloomin' t-shirt, and made him have a wash in the iddy-biddy sink on the plane, then doused him in perfume.
On a long haul flight, it would be gross having a smelly bloke on the plane, but on a short hop to the UK, I'd be much more annoyed with the delay of getting his bags off the plane, missing your takeoff window, waiting for another, missing your landing window, circling london for 40 minutes etc etc etc.

They really should have some kind of "quick clean" process. The poor guy, who knows? Was he going to some family? A funeral?

How hard can it be to have some kind of "disposable shower swabs"? Airlines are one of the biggest garbage producers in the world. The odd "disposable shower kit" would be no investment.

"Sir, please put your things down and take this package to the restroom and follow the instructions. Our policy which you agreed to when purchasing our plane ticket dictates that you follow our guidelines. In the package you will also find nice vouchers which we hope will compensate you for your inconvenience. Thank you for flying with British Airways."

Easy to imagine, huh?

While we're at sweating on planes, Austrian Airlines seriously needs to rethink their policy of turning off the air conditioning during longer waits (in the summer at least). It really sucks to board the plane all fresh before the trans-atlantic flight, then sit there and get all sweaty at the start of the odyssey flight.

As far as not letting people on the plane, fat people and hugely muscular or oversized people should always be required to buy two seats, considering the standard seat is 17 to 18 inches, and them billowing over the armrest into your space, errr, pushing on ypu, and making you lean the whole time really sucks. To note: at the dawn of commercial air travel, everyone always got weighed. But that is a-whole-nother thread.

wow. I have never heard that. Do tell. Though I suppose it was more to do with total weight limits for the plane than personal obesity issues?

He was booted off the first leg of his journey, a flight from Honolulu to LA. Thats slightly over a 5 hours direct of air time. The other news reports dont mention the 2 hour wait in the non-airconditioned airport, nothing in Honolulu was airconditioned outside of my hotel room as far as I remember, but they did mention that he spent the day sightseeing in the hot sun.

Honolulu is a surprisingly small airport, not tiny but not as large or shoppable as I would have imagined. When I was there a few years ago the shops in the domestic terminal were limited and not very convenient to the gates but I was flying on United, perhaps American is better situated.

I *think* its against regulations to allow a passenger to deplane once he's been boarded so they would have had to send someone to get him a shirt. That kind of thought out service just doesn't happen. If he was on the long haul, they could have given him the pajama tops handed out in first class - well if AA still does that sort of thing.

I think it must've been really bad for him to get booted but who knows. So how long is too long to sit next to a guy who reeks? On a five hour trip, I probably would have complained as well but likely with the expectation of getting a seat change and not getting the man booted.

Fair enough, I wouldn't want to be sitting next to him, but it doesn't sound like it was his own fault, afer all:

"The man said he couldn't help sweating after carrying three suitcases in 29 degrees of heat and sitting in the airport for 2 hours with no air conditioning,"

it doesn't seem to be a case of him being a filthy dirty old sod who never saw a bath or a sink in his whole life...

I still don't understand why the people at the gate didn't say anything, and give him a chance to change before he boarded the plane. If the smell was that bad, they should have also noticed.

German Beamters aren't the only ones who sometimes have the attitude, "Not my problem".

What gets me is they told him to change his shirt, knowing full well this was completely impossible if all his shirts were in the luggage hold.

Giving him the 1st class pajamas sounds like the best idea yet.

Are there first class p.j's on a 5 hour flight? Sorry, as much as I feel badly for the guy, I would have been really pissed had I been subjected to him for 5 hours.

I assume that the flight was booked or they would have moved him to another seat.

Did the man not smell himself and change his shirt prior to checking in his luggage? Or notice in the 2 hour wait that maybe he needed to wash up and purchase a shirt?

Sorry, when I reek, I can smell myself. I really do not think it is the airlines responsibility to provide clothing nor the other passengers to be extremely tolerant of things that are avoidable (unlike crying babies).

Was the guy trying to save a few bucks rather than take care of the issue prior to boarding? With the long security check in there is more than enough time to pick up a "I heart Hawaii" T-shirt!

Was it the ground staff's fault that he was smelly? Should the station crew have said something about the pong? Was it the plane crew's fault that he niffed?
Hang on, let's look at the information that we have.

Only old sweat smells - fresh wet sweat is odourless, when sweat is broken down by bacteria on the skin, that's when it starts to smell.
Now if you are carrying three suitcases containing your other clothes and probably washbag around an airport, you might be inclined to use the washing facilities at the airport if you know that you sweat heavily or feel that may be the case.

Yes, station staff may have had an opportunity to say something but check-in desks put you at a far greater distance to the other person than an ajoining seat does. They may never have noticed.
Gate staff are there to ensure quick boarding - also with a physical distance.
The problem may only have become apparent close-up and in a tightly enclosed space.
Even if a pyjama top had been offered, the old sweat would have to have been washed off in any case.

So that leaves us with this: personal responsibility and respect.
It would be unlikely that someone suddenly by some Force majeur suddenly turns from tang-free to Münster cheese within seconds.
And should that indeed be the case, even simple steps available to you such as a regular use of airport or aircraft washrooms would help.
Respect for yourself and respect for others go hand in hand and that requires personal responsibility - it isn't always everyone else's fault.

AMEN !!!

Oh, I think this guy should have been a bit more aware of himself. Or at least his wife should have told him he reeked. I just think there were several steps that could have been iniated between making the other passengers suffer with his smell and getting him off the flight.

Every airline I've recently flown with has handed out those little hot clothes for refreshing yourself with. They could have given him some of those to wipe down with. As I mentioned before, they could have found him a fresh top of some description.

It could of course be that he refused, thinking he was being insulted and that he didn't smell that bad. In which case, if he was not being helpful, I'd have tossed him off the flight too. But unless that was the case, I think the airline was unreasonable not to find some sort of solution that didn't involve him missing the flight. Obviously the courts disagreed.

seriously, if its a hot day, and you know you are going to go on a five hour flight afterwards, then take some deo and a spare Tshirt in your cabin luggage...

not to mention, the guy was at the airport for two hours. Plenty of time for a pommy wash (from the bathroom sink) and put on a bit of new deo.

There is really not much to excuse this guy... whats more, what was his wife thinking? surely she could have mentioned that he may need a bit of a wash... but I suspect he is a regular stinker and she is probably used to it.

on the other hand... the airline could have sent him to the airplane toilet for a pommy wash, and a shirt or something similar would have to have been available somewhere

not defending him, but most people that have 'smell' issues, don't notice it on themselves.

He checked it, his bags are in the hold, then sat 2 hours in a hot airport. I have been there, my flight back from Goa to Bombay we sat in a hot sweaty airport, then I had to change airports in Bombay... I did go into the bathroom and 'birdbath' in the sink, I also changed my clothes, as after 2 weeks of India- everything stunk. Sat there on the first leg of the flight, thinking who stinks? Sniffing around, I notice it was me- actually my tshirt stunk bad - I had hand washed it, but it doesn't get the smell out.

Well they can chuck him off due to the conditions of carriage provided with his ticket. By buying and using the ticket, he consented to those contractual obligations.
Causing other passengers inconvience or disturbance is a regular clause and those which apply in this case are listed in the article posted.
Yes they could have brought him a new top. They could also have used the airport fire hoses to give him a shower. But, legally, they did not have to.

Vodka is apparently not bad at getting the smell of tobacco smoke out of your clothes, so maybe they could have just doused him in those tiddly little mini bar bottles of booze.

They could then have set light to him as well, don, burning being very effective at getting rid of smells.

Interesting that the gent involved is a corporate lawyer and was claiming 2200€ - it probably wasn't the money, he possibly wanted a court to say that he did not actually smell that bad.

Can you imagine the business/social fall-out from that?
Going to a business banquet "Oh hello, this is Mr X, he got bumped off a plane because he smells" - it is just plain old embarassing and humiliating.

Not Mr. X Katrina, Werner Brechtfeld, 46, Corporate Lawyer. Im sure you could google him.

PS: @gemini come to think of it, Honolulu - LAX is still domestic so there would probably no extra pajama tops. From my experience, airlines usually let all manners of stinky people on board so it must have been really noticeable. I mean LH allows reekers direct from Oktoberfest onto intercontinental flights. Also, passengers approached by flight attendants on anything unpleasant about their behaviour or person *from what I've seen* usually dont react very well - and definitely not to the point of inducing out of the box service as delaying the flight to have someone on the ground by him a shirt.

Probably not allowed to bring deo through security because of the stupid "liquid laws".

They could have put him in the hold in a cage and given him an ipod or something.

Ok seriously, this is the thin end of the wedge. Sure, some people smell badly, some people are overweight, some people are overweight and smell badly, but just because they have these problems doesn't mean you should discriminate against them. Next we'll all be complaining about people in wheelchairs getting the best seats at the front of the plane or snorers ruining the in flight movie.

This is all a symptom of the "me" culture we live in.

"Hello, sir, I'm sorry, but the hot weather seems to have taken it out of you and you have a bit of a pong, Here's some deodorant if you'd like to nip into the bathroom and freshen up."

A little embarrassing, but not as embarrassing as a fucking court case in the papers.

It is more a symptom of the "me" culture that he thought it was ok to inflict his impressive pong on other people and that they would just have to like it, no?

QUOTE(Tomasino @ Nov 17 2006, 8:53 am)
To note: at the dawn of commercial air travel, everyone always got weighed. But that is a-whole-nother thread

Well - we have to pay for excess baggage charges, so surely its just the extension of the principle that you pay for what you use / cost...

why on earth should the airline provide shower swabs, washing kits or fresh shirts? lets drive up the cost of air travel to subsidise the hygenically challenged!! the stinky git should be forced off the plane, don't care how long the flight was, or how many connections he had.
and he didn't learn his lesson - he went to court. how humiliating!!! wearing a deo & fresh clothes is a hell of a lot cheaper than missing plane connections & an international court case!!

oh BritMUC you are such an unfeeling and intolerant bastard (who makes total common sense).

what on earth? I would say it was a symptom of the 'me' society that smallminded tightarse passengers and flight crew ganged up against a man for being sweaty and threw him off a flight.

Just after 911 when the flights started again a friend of mine was flying from Denver to Newark and sitting on the runway, the captain came on the intercon and said that because of several customer complaints he was going to have to ask three passengers to disembark: A Somalian, a Mexican and a south asian. They were supposedly guilty of being too brown which scared people because of 911. While maybe the customer's fear could be understood, the net effect was that three completely innocent men were humiliated and greatly inconvenienced because some woosy wasp couldn't cope with anything different from him or herself.

Not a great analogy BtC. I think Katrina is correct. One person chooses to be less hygenic than the standard acceptable level. The passengers and flight crew think that he is a problem. One person's belief that he is in his right versus the group. Sounds to me fairly clear cut on the me perspective.

Your other example of being thrown off the plane after 911 is also not a case of the "me" perspective, but rather uneducated intolerance which was masked by fear. Horrible, but not a symptom of the me generation as it has been around for a much longer time.

Nor does it have anything to do with the case in hand.

I would say that objecting to someone for being sweaty in an unairconditioned airport IS an example of uneducated intolerance.

There are cultural standards, whether you like them or not, by choosing to live in a society, you by default have to confrom to some degree. What the majority of people find offensive in a public area should be prevented. When you are speaking of an individual who is not maintaining the basic minimum standard, I think it is acceptable to prevent them from using your services.

The point is his smell was impinging on the other passengers, his level of hygeine was markedly below the standard. He was not arrested, just told that if he wants to use the services of the airline, he must conform to their standards.

as I understand it, ONE female passenger complained to a stewardess who appears to have handled the issue extremely badly. That is a world away from implying the whole aircraft were backing off with handbags over their noses.

then the stewardess makes at least two and from the link SiM provided,
"...a cabin crew ordered him off a plane...

...had acted within its rights by removing the man from the aircraft after a female passenger sitting next to him complained about his smell...

...BA said other passengers were upset by the smell, he added..."

Quite right to, If some one cannot be bothered about their personal freshness in 2006 they do not deserve to fly. i am a big guy and I ensure that i take great care about these things.

well we'll have to agree to disagree then. I just think this is just another sign of how the smallminded intolerant arsewipes are taking over the world. ...

I think is the smelly guy who is totaly intollerant of other people.