Alaska Airlines Defends Decision To Remove Woman With Cancer, Family From Plane As Safety Precaution
(CBS SF) -- Alaska Airlines supports an employee's decision to boot a woman with cancer and her family off a flight from Hawaii to California for not having a note from her doctor clearing her to fly.
"These kinds of decisions are never easy," Alaska Airlines Director of Customer Advocacy Ray Prentice said in a statement Wednesday. "Our agent was acting in the best interest of the customer in hopes of preventing an inflight medical emergency during the five-hour flight back to California."
Elizabeth Sedway of Granite Bay, Calif. was removed from her flight from Lihue, Hawaii to San Jose, Calif., along with her two sons and husband, Monday shortly after airline employees noticed she had put on a surgical mask to avoid airport germs and told employees
Once Sedway, who suffers from multiple myeloma, said she might need a bit extra time to board the plane because she sometimes feels weak, employees called MedLink -- a service which provides on-call advice from trained medical professionals who specialize in air travel and make decisions about a customer's ability to fly safely. MedLink then advised that Sedway provide a doctor's note stating that she is clear to travel, according to Prentice.
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But Sedway, who said she would forgo several chemotherapy treatments due to her missed flight, was shocked. "I mean I've flown, we've flown for five years with this diagnosis," she said. "I felt humiliated."
Video Sedway posted on Facebook shows the family leaving the plane.
Alaska Airlines has since refunded her family's airfare and the cost of the extra night's accommodations in Lihue. The family was also booked on a return flight the next day.
"We could have done some things differently," Prentice said. "The things we have learned from this situation will influence how we approach similar situations in the future."
Airline policy says a doctor's note is only needed when a person's medical condition causes reasonable doubt that they can complete the flight safely without requiring medical attention.
"If a customer indicates that he or she may have difficulty flying, it is our policy to follow the advice of MedLink's trained medical professionals," Prentice said.
