Del Zoppo didn’t want that to stop the family from enjoying a vacation. As a registered nurse, she’s more than capable of caring for her mentally handicapped husband. So she recently booked a getaway for the couple and her brother and sister-in-law — a western Mediterranean cruise that left from Venice, Italy.
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This is one of the most bizarre cases I’ve ever come across. Gregory Machon says he was kicked off his flight because he was sleeping. With his eyes open.
His condition, called nocturnal lagophthalmos, may affect somewhere between 4 and 20 percent of the population, so you would imagine the US Airways flight attendants who made the call to remove him from the flight had seen something like this before. Apparently not.
Here’s what happened to Machon: As he explains it, he was on a flight from Baltimore to Frankfurt last May. After boarding, he pressed the flight attendant call button because he wanted to see if he could move to a different seat. No one came, and as the plane taxied down the runway, he dozed off.
Except, his eyes were open.
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Michael Winn is the president of a private university, a US Airways frequent flier, and according to at least one flight attendant, an imminent threat to security. Why else would he have kicked Winn off a recent flight from Charlotte to Phoenix?
As I read Winn’s complaint and the response from US Airways — I’ll get to those in a sec — I had two thoughts: This is either a case study in what not to do if you’re seated in an exit row. Or it’s yet another example of flight attendants abusing their post-9/11 powers. Or maybe both.
Either way, I’m not wearing my eyemask until after takeoff, and I’m going to be extra nice to my crewmember on my next flight — especially if it’s on US Airways.
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