A Stitch in Haste

Are we on the verge of a new air travel hysteria?

ITEM: Don't get sick on a plane —

Authorities at Miami International Airport detained a sick passenger Monday who had been on a British Airways flight from London, but health experts determined that she was not contagious and did not have an infectious disease.

The 45-year-old woman was believed to have a gastrointestinal illness and was being taken to a hospital, said Von Roebuck, a spokesman the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. The woman had diarrhea and was vomiting, he said.

MY TAKE: I never went to medical school, but I'm pretty sure that diarrhea and vomiting are not indicative of contagious respiratory diseases such as tuberculosis — which are the only diseases truly at issue in commercial air travel.

ITEM: Seriously, don't get sick on a plane —

Health authorities released nine passengers who were ill on a flight from Mexico to Miami International Airport on Tuesday.

Authorities had initially reported 11 sick passengers on the Aeromexico flight from Merida, Mexico, but a spokesman for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said nine people were complaining of gastrointestinal-type symptoms.

MY TAKE: Both incidents — involuntary detention by government agents — occurred at Miami International Airport. Coincidence? Who knows? But again, "sick" has very little correlation with "contagious" and even less with "dangerous."

Given the intrusion upon personal freedom of movement in these incidents — upon people accused of no crime — it is obvious that, at the very least, government officials must act reasonably when contemplating detaining commercial air travelers. Summarily seizing, however briefly, anyone who reaches for a barf bag or visits the lavatory more than twice during a flight does not qualify as "reasonable."

Of course, it's time to rethink not just "sick passenger" rules, but also all the nonsensical, knee-jerk panic policies that make air travel insufferable. The laptop rule would be a good start. The shoe rule would be another. Relenting a bit on the liquids ban would be a third.

But in the meantime, can we at least settle on there being a "right to puke on a plane without being arrested"?