BAD IDEA OF THE WEEK: Banishing the blind man

Usually airline passengers side with flight attendants when it comes to safety, but in the case of a US Airways flight last Wednesday, passengers rallied around a blind man and his guide dog and disembarked en masse. All 35 passengers on US Airways Flight 4384 walked off the plane after Albert Rizzi, a blind man from Long Island, and his dog, Doxy, were escorted off the flight after a heated exchange between Rizzi and a flight attendant about where his dog was placed, according to Rizzi. Although he was first to arrive on the tarmac for the flight from Philadelphia International Airport to MacArthur Airport on Long Island, Rizzi said he and his dog were the last to be seated on the small plane. He was seated in the middle of the back row looking onto the aisle with no seat in front of him for Doxy to lay under. Shortly after boarding, Rizzi said a flight attendant told him the dog would need to go under a seat for safety reasons. Several passengers in Rizzi's row offered to have the dog lay under their seats, and he was placed under the seat of the woman to his left, according to Rizzi. The plane was then delayed nearly two hours. While the plane was sitting on the runway, Doxy got up to reposition himself a few times, ending up under Rizzi's seat against the back of the plane, Rizzi said. The flight attendant asked Rizzi to control his dog and keep him underneath his neighbor's seat, according to Rizzi. After a heated exchange between Rizzi and the flight attendant, the pilot announced the plane would be returning to the gate. Rizzi and his dog were then escorted off the plane by airport security. That is not cool. Eyes or no eyes, you can't just kick somebody off the plane because of the behaviour of their little friend. And everybody on board saw it that way. After Rizzi and Doxy were removed from the plane, passengers demanded that the flight attendant be removed from the plane and Rizzi let back on, said fellow passenger Kurt Budke. He said that all 35 passengers banded together in support of Rizzi, and after realizing the passengers would not budge, the pilot announced the flight was canceled. I feel that if the flight attendant had tried to make alternate accommodations for Rizzi, the whole situation could have been avoided completely.