Absurdly Driven looks at the world of business with a skeptical eye and a firmly rooted tongue in cheek.
When it comes to airlines, never say: “I think I’ve heard it all.”
There will always be something you didn’t anticipate to make your head spin at least a couple of times around.
Please decide, then, about the angst experienced by Clay Travis and his family.
The lawyer, writer and Fox Sports analyst said on Outkick The Coverage that he, his wife and three kids were flying on Delta from Paris to Nashville via Minneapolis.
Halfway through the first leg, his 6-year-old son began to experience an itchy head. Another dirty airline pillow, perhaps? No, lice.
Naturally, flight attendants got wind. So they told the family they couldn’t get off the plane in Minneapolis.
Did I mention Travis went to Vanderbilt Law School?
He says he could find no law that ordered the quarantining of the beliced. He even discovered that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say beliced children shouldn’t even be sent home from school.
And then the really bad news. Travis says he and his family were told to get off the plane and leave the airport. No, they couldn’t fly on to Nashville.
But before they were even offered that privilege, the beliced boy and his siblings were examined by two alleged medical professionals. They just wanted to take temperatures, says Travis.
Then, though, he says his six-year-old had to go through a more detailed medical inspection at the airport. Yes, right there in the part where you line up to go through customs.
The diagnosis was, stunningly, lice.
The order was, he says, that “we must leave the airport immediately, find somewhere in the city to be treated for lice, obtain a clearance form that proves we had all been treated, and until we do that we will not be allowed to fly home on Delta.”
Travis and his two-year-old flew home on Southwest, while mom and the two other kids stayed in Minneapolis and got treatment. Delta did extend them a hotel voucher.
I wasn’t aware that Delta actually has a lice policy.
I tried looking at its rules and couldn’t find one.
I asked Delta and was told this by a spokesman: “We will always prioritize the health of our customers and employees as safety is our top priority. We will work directly with the family to resolve the issue.”
Which leaves me scratching my head.
Is safety Delta’s top priority and its employees took that priority too far? Did the airline feel it was, perhaps, prioritizing the six-year-old’s health by ordering him to have immediately treatment and not get back on one of its planes until he did?
Or did a group of PR people work hard in order to create two sentences that were as vague, yet reassuring as possible?
I should point out — as Travis did himself — that he’s no anti-airline activist. Indeed, he was not a supporter of Dr. David Dao, the man dragged bloodied off a United flight to world disgust.
Some might even find Travis’s article about Dao contains a severe dose of the heartless twaddle that you’d expect from, well, a lawyer.
Sample: “[Dao] doesn’t own his seat, he doesn’t have a legal right to dispute his eviction, airlines have the right to kick people off their planes and refund their money when they decide to do so at their discretion. You agree to that when you buy the ticket. If you don’t want to give up that right you can drive or walk instead.”
In his own case, however, Travis believes he and his family were wronged.
“I understand the desire to protect passengers,” he says, “but virtually every large plane in America today has a passenger with lice. It’s just that common.”
Travis wants Delta to examine its rules, so that no more families are upset.
When it comes to airlines and rules, however, they are often enforced with such inconsistency that even an NBA referee might be surprised.
Delta is, after all, the airline that went back to the gate to throw a passenger off, just because he used the restroom in the minutes before takeoff.
So remember, then, parents. Before you get on a Delta flight, have your children’s heads thoroughly examined by a medical professional.
Yes, the seats on a plane might be filthy. But the passengers must be pristine.