When a passenger sues an airline in state court, one of the first questions the airline’s lawyers ask is whether federal law makes the case disappear. A recent unpublished decision from a federal appeals court, reveals just how often the answer is yes — and it extends that logic to a modern feature of air travel: the airline “no-fly” list.
Airlines, by their nature, operate across many jurisdictions. By the late 1970s, it was apparent that airlines could not possibly comply with often-conflicting state laws and that airline regulation needed to be centralized at the federal level. When Congress deregulated the airline industry in 1978, it wrote the following preemption clause into the Airline Deregulation Act (ADA) to prevent states from re-regulating through the back door: a state “may not enact or enforce a law …related to a price, route, or service of an air carrier.” That simple sentence has enormous reach. A claim relates to a “service” if it has a connection with, or reference to, airline services — a standard the Eleventh Circuit reads broadly. State common law counts as a “law” for these purposes, so ordinary tort and contract claims are fair game for preemption — not just formal statutes and regulations. The practical effect is that a plaintiff cannot avoid federal preemption simply by pleading a garden-variety negligence claim under state law if that claim, in substance, targets an airline’s prices, routes, or services.
In Figueroa v. JetBlue Airways Corp. (11th Cir. (Fla.) July 2, 2026), Ramon Gonzalez Figueroa sued JetBlue for negligence under Florida law, alleging that JetBlue negligently placed him on its “uninvited-to-fly” list — the airline’s internal no-fly list that bars a passenger from booking future flights. The district court held that the ADA preempted the claim and dismissed it with prejudice, and he appealed the decision to the Eleventh Circuit. A three-judge panel affirmed in a short, unsigned opinion. The court concluded that the ADA preempted Figueroa’s claim and that the district court properly dismissed his claim for good.
The panel walked through the preemption clause in two steps.
First, was Figueroa suing under a “law”? Yes. Florida’s common law of negligence qualifies, because state common-law rules fall comfortably within the ADA’s preemption provision.
Second, was that law “related to … [the] service of an air carrier”? The Eleventh Circuit has defined an airline’s “services” to mean a bargained-for or anticipated provision of labor from the carrier to the passenger, including the transportation itself, and access to flights. When JetBlue put Figueroa on its no-fly list, it chose to deny him access to its transportation services. A claim built on that decision, the court held, plainly relates to those services and is therefore preempted by the ADA.
Figueroa tried to sidestep this conclusion by analogizing to earlier Eleventh Circuit language suggesting that a claim for “wrongful removal” of a passenger from a flight might not be about a “service,” but the panel rejected that argument. His claim was not about being pulled off a plane; it was about JetBlue’s decision not to sell him tickets going forward. That decision, the court explained, speaks directly to the “economic decisions and bargained-for contractual features” of JetBlue’s business — namely, to whom the airline chooses to sell tickets. Those are exactly the kinds of market choices the ADA leaves to competition rather than state tort law.
The court also affirmed the dismissal with prejudice. Figueroa argued he should be allowed to amend his complaint to add details about what happened when his flight landed, including an encounter with law enforcement. The panel determined that amendment would be futile: no additional facts would change the fundamental nature of the claim because Figueroa was placed on the list only after the flight he paid for had concluded. He was still, at bottom, complaining about JetBlue’s refusal to provide him future service — a preempted theory no matter how it was dressed up.
Figueroa’s significance lies in three practical points:
It confirms that “access to flights” is a preempted service. The panel treated an airline’s decision about whom it will sell tickets to as core to its “services.” That framing gives airlines a strong preemption defense whenever a plaintiff’s claim challenges a booking, boarding, or account decision — not just an in-flight event.
It narrows the space left by earlier “wrongful removal” language. The Eleventh Circuit had previously suggested, in passing, that a claim for being wrongfully removed from a flight might escape preemption. Figueroa distinguishes that scenario rather than embracing it, and the court was careful to note that it was not deciding whether an actual unlawful-removal claim would survive. The takeaway for litigants: the removal exception, if it exists at all, is narrow, and it does not help a passenger challenging the denial of future service.
It reinforces that recasting a claim in tort language will not defeat preemption. Figueroa pled ordinary negligence, and the court still found the claim preempted because of what it was really about. And because amendment could not cure that defect, the dismissal was with prejudice. Plaintiffs’ lawyers in the Eleventh Circuit should assume that a claim aimed at an airline’s ticketing or account decisions faces a high preemption hurdle, and that artful pleading is unlikely to clear it.
For passengers, the decision is a reminder that federal law forecloses many state-court claims against airlines, even when the conduct seems like a standard tort. For airlines and their counsel, it emphasizes the legal premise that decisions about who can fly — including no-fly-list placements — fall within the ADA’s protected zone of “services.” For litigators, Figueroa signals that the Eleventh Circuit continues to read the ADA’s preemption clause expansively, leaving little room to repackage service-related disputes as ordinary negligence.
Figueroa is a faithful application of binding Eleventh Circuit law and offers a clear, current window into how the court thinks about ADA preemption, which continues to shape where airline disputes can be fought and won nearly five decades after deregulation.
For any further questions, please contact James Shaw, Jr. or Ryan Hilton.