AIDS Case Barred, Airline Faces Nationwide Boycott

Delta Airlines has angered representatives of the national Mobilization Against AIDS by refusing to allow an AIDS victim to fly unattended from Atlanta to San Francisco.

The San Francisco-based group said it will call for a nationwide boycott of the airline if Delta does not publicly apologize to Mark Sigers of San Francisco and allow him to make the flight unattended by Friday.

Ken McPherson, co-chairman of Mobilization Against AIDS, said his organization is also demanding that Delta make a public statement that AIDS patients are welcome on Delta flights.

Sigers was diagnosed with AIDS, acquired immune deficiency syndrome, about 1 1/2 years ago, according to his brother, Mike Sigers of Atlanta. His face and body are covered with lesions from Kaposi’s sarcoma, an AIDS symptom.

Bill Berry, Delta’s manager of public relations in Atlanta, said Mark Sigers was asked to leave the plane Tuesday morning because he was without a needed attendant to care for him, not because he has AIDS.

Sigers flew to Atlanta recently for a family reunion, accompanied by Mike and Mike’s wife, Rita Sigers. Berry said a stewardess who was on that flight was also on the plane Tuesday and told Delta officials that Mark Sigers’ companions had assisted him on the original flight.

Berry said that Sigers needed oxygen on the first flight and that a letter from medical authorities indicated that he might need oxygen again.

Mike Sigers said his brother did not require oxygen on the trip to Atlanta, and did not need an attendant on the return flight.

“They just told a lie,” he said. “We told them he wasn’t too sick.”

Berry said Delta has no intention of changing its position, and called Tuesday’s action “a routine thing with passengers.”

But McPherson said the airline wanted to deny service to someone with Sigers’ condition. “The public is not used to seeing people who have AIDS,” he said. “It’s not a pretty sight.”