The State - News from Sept. 21, 1987

A gay rights law firm in San Francisco said Northwest Airlines has changed its policy about restricting AIDS patients who seek to board its jetliners. On Aug. 13, the airline refused to sell a ticket to Leonard Matlovich, 44, of San Francisco unless he could present a physician’s statement saying he was “non-infectious” and would not inconvenience other passengers. But Benjamin Schatz, a spokesman for the law firm, said Northwest’s new guidelines, based on a brief filed in a lawsuit on Matlovich’s behalf, indicate that it “will not deny passage to a person with AIDS” but may require acquired immune deficiency syndrome sufferers who have other conditions, such as tuberculosis, to submit doctors’ certificates. “That is acceptable, so far as we are concerned,” Schatz said. Matlovich said he is satisfied, too. “This should be a warning to all industry that if they’re going to discriminate against people with AIDS, they’re going to be taken to court,” he said.