Alaska Airlines lawsuit continues

By Cy Ryan

Friday, July 30, 2010 | 5:05 p.m.

CARSON CITY – A federal appeals court has ruled a group of Egyptian businessmen and their wives could resume suing Alaska Airlines for being removed from a flight to Las Vegas to attend convention in September 2003.

The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed U.S. District Judge Robert Clive Jones who granted a pre-trial summary judgment in favor of the airlines. The appeals court said the case should go to a jury to determine if the pilot’s decision to bump the group was reasonable.

The appeals court said this is the first case in this country testing an international treaty called the Tokyo Convention that outlines behavior and actions to take during disruptions on flights.

The group was on a flight from Vancouver, British Columbia to Las Vegas to talk about becoming distributors for a Texas company that manufactured natural gas equipment.

The Egyptians were in first class and a ruckus developed with the flight attendants. One attendant made a second call about the troubles in the cabin to Captain Michael Swanigan that she could not handle the problem any further.

Swanigan decided to divert to Reno and called ahead for the police who were waiting at the gate when the plane landed. No criminal charges were filed and the Egyptians were cleared to return to the flight.

But Swanigan refused to allow them to board and the group was directed to another airline to get to Las Vegas.

The Egyptians didn’t get the distributors contract. And they filed suit in federal court in Las Vegas.

Chief Judge Alex Kozinski of the appeals court, who wrote the majority opinion, said a jury should have a chance to decide if Swanigan’s action was reasonable in diverting the plane initially and then refusing to allow the Egyptians back on the plane after being cleared by police in Reno.

Kozinski also said the claim by the Egyptians they were subject to defamatory statements after the incident should also go to the jury. Agreeing with him was Judge N. Randy Smith.

Federal District Judge S. James Otero of California dissented in part, saying the behavior of Captain Swanigan must be shown to be “arbitrary or capricious” at a jury trial — not the standard of reasonableness as adopted by the majority.

Otero said Swanigan was a dedicated experienced pilot who believed that an in-flight emergency required him to immediately land. He said Swanigan, vice president of flight operations for Alaska, was not “a simpleton in charge of a cockpit crew that failed to follow airline procedures and who was buffaloed by two vindictive flight attendants into needlessly diverting the flight and forcing passenger off the plane.”