Swine flu challenges airlines

With swine flu still running rampant across the country, students and adults who used to drag themselves to school or work while sick are suddenly being told they need to stay home. That push to prevent others from being infected, though, can have unintended consequences as a Hawaiian woman found out Monday at Tampa International Airport.

Mitra Mostoufi was supposed to return to her home in Hawaii but wound up spending the day in Tampa instead. The problem? The staff at United Airlines suspected Mostoufi had the flu and forced her to get off the plane as it was getting ready to take off.

The 50-year-old Hawaii resident said she was questioned and pulled from the flight in full view of other passengers. The incident, she said, left her humiliated.

"I don't need to be treated like a disease," she said. "And that is how I felt."

Her plight - Mostoufi said she doesn't have the flu - brought to light yet another new issue related to seasonal and swine flu: How do those in charge of public environments like airports protect the health of the masses while not violating the rights of the individual?

United Airlines said the airline's policy allows the crew to determine whether someone who is visibly ill is allowed to fly. United officials say the policy is for the safety and health of all passengers, including the person who is deemed sick.

"Our employees on the airplane have safety and health of all travelers onboard in mind," said Rahsaan Johnson, an airline spokesman.

Mostoufi said she was feeling sick before the plane took off but wasn't contagious. She said she threw up in the airplane's bathroom because medicine she had taken for restless leg syndrome upset her stomach.

After she asked for an air sickness bag in case she got sick again, a United Airlines staffer approached her while she was in her plane seat and ordered her to get her belongings and leave the plane, said Mostoufi, who was traveling with her 12-year-old daughter Paige.

She said she was told that she might have the flu and the crew had concerns with her flying because she might be sick.

"I didn't know they were all physicians or they knew my background," Mostoufi said.

She said the airline staff could have taken the time to confidentially ask her for more information. Instead, she said, the staff assumed she was contagious, even though she told them she had received a flu shot.

TIA spokeswoman Brenda Geoghagan said the airport does not enforce a standard policy for dealing with passengers who appear to be sick. Instead, each airline has its own guidelines.

Steve Huard, spokesman for the Hillsborough County Health Department, said there is no single rule airlines can follow that covers all situations involving ill passengers. He noted, though, that although passengers should realize when they are sick and not healthy to travel, it falls to the airlines to protect the rights of all of their customers.

"It is the airline's responsibility to protect the health and safety of passengers," Huard said.

Mostoufi and her daughter spent Monday night with relatives in Tampa. United Airlines had offered her a flight on American Airlines later on Monday, but she refused because it had two layovers and was a longer flight, she said.

She said she also refused on principle; she didn't understand why United thought it was fine for her to travel on another airline but not with them.

She was scheduled to fly United at 8:30 a.m. this morning.

"The only problem I have is the way they handled the situation," Mostoufi said. "Embarrassing me in front of all those people."