Frontier pilot booting quadriplegic John Morris (& choice colleagues) earn Shmuck dishonors

Its local ties, funny animals and scrappy attitude gave people the alternative they needed a decade ago to United Airlines, which dominated the gates at Denver International Airport for a long time and pissed off just about everyone at one time or another with their notoriously bad service.

But Frontier, which is now owned by Indiana-based Republic Airways and is having trouble staying in business, has hit some turbulent times, and it reached a new low with this week's story about a pilot booting a Denver quadriplegic man off a Dallas-to-Denver flight.

According to a Reuters story:

A pilot with Frontier Airlines, denied a quadriplegic passenger from taking his flight stating there were safety concerns. John Morris, 24, had recently flown from Denver to Dallas for a family wedding with no issues. It was when he was trying to make his way home that the disabled passenger and his family were told the captain would not allow him to take his flight.

His mother states that when a flight attendant saw John strapped in, using a seatbelt extension to secure his legs and chest, she stated she would have to have the captain's approval. When the captain was informed of the situation, he explained that John would not be able to fly. Even after protests from John's family and other passengers seated around him, the airline called the police and three officers boarded the aircraft. The mother states the police were sympathetic, but did nothing because he was not posing a threat to the plane or passengers. John and his family were then removed by the airline.

Frontier has apologized and it allowed Morris to take the next flight out. It also said it is investigating the incident, but also said its pilot had good intentions.

Yes, and if his intention was to be a giant shmuck, he definitely succeeded.

Of course, he's not the airline pilot who's been an asshat recently. Check out these stories on a Southwest pilot who couldn't find any doable flight attendants and the United Express pilot who was just convicted of being drunk on a flight from Austin, Texas, to Denver.

More from our Shmuck archive: "Ernesto Castanuela & Kimberly Nunez learn it's shmucky to break into cars during funerals."