Flying Commercial: The WNBA's Charter Flight Ban and Its Reversal

Timeline

1. Aug 3, 2018The Las Vegas Aces decline to play in Washington after more than 25 hours of travel.
2. Aug 7, 2018The WNBA rules the game a forfeit, the first in league history.
3. 2021The New York Liberty's owners pay for charter flights for road games in the second half of the season.
4. Mar 2022The Liberty are fined a league-record $500,000 for charters and other violations.
5. Jun 10, 2023Brittney Griner and Mercury teammates are confronted at Dallas airport; the league says Griner already had charter approval.
6. Apr 2024The league says it will pay for charters for all playoff games and back-to-back travel.
7. May 9, 2024The WNBA announces a full charter program for the 2024 and 2025 seasons, operated mainly by Delta.

The ethical issues

• Whether equal treatment of teams justifies worse conditions for all players.
• How much a league should spend on player welfare before it is financially secure.
• Whether owners who can afford better conditions should be allowed to provide them.
• How safety risks for high-profile players should be handled.
• Whether women's leagues are held to different standards than men's leagues.

Stakeholders

Stakeholder	Interests & obligations
WNBA players	Rest, recovery, safety and professional working conditions.
Team owners	Controlling costs; for some, investing more to win.
League office	Competitive balance and a sustainable business model.
WNBPA (players' union)	Better conditions through bargaining.
Fans and broadcasters	Healthy stars and games played as scheduled.
Airlines and other travelers	Safe, orderly travel for all passengers.

The case

For most of its history, the WNBA required its teams to take commercial flights to regular-season games. Players waited at gates and connected through hub airports like any other passenger. The rule was not an oversight. It was a deliberate choice to keep the playing field level: if any owner could charter planes, the richest owners would buy their players better rest and a better chance to win. Over six years, a forfeit, a record fine and a confrontation in an airport turned that rule into one of the league’s most debated policies.

Background

On August 3, 2018, the Las Vegas Aces were due to play the Washington Mystics. A trip that is normally a four-and-a-half-hour nonstop flight became, through delays and cancellations, a journey of more than 25 hours. The team arrived a few hours before tip-off, and the players decided they were in no condition to play, citing safety concerns.^[1] At the time, CNN noted, WNBA teams were required by the league to fly commercial “to create an equal playing field,” unlike NBA teams, which used private charters.^[1]

On August 7, the league announced that the Aces had forfeited the game “because the Aces failed to appear.”^[2] It was the first forfeit in the WNBA’s history. Aces coach Bill Laimbeer said the organization had “the utmost respect for the very difficult decision our players made,” and was “disappointed with the league’s decision.”^[1] The Aces were then fighting for a playoff place.^[1]

The rules and governance

Travel was governed by the collective bargaining agreement between the league and the players’ union, the WNBPA. Under it, teams had to fly commercial during the regular season, and owners could not give players benefits beyond what the agreement allowed. The concern, as AP reported, was that owner-paid charters could give wealthier teams an unfair competitive advantage.^[4] The league office, rather than individual teams, decided when and how exceptions applied.

The Liberty’s charters

In the second half of the 2021 season, the New York Liberty’s owners, Joe and Clara Wu Tsai, paid for charter flights for their team repeatedly. They also took the team on a Labor Day trip to Napa. Sports Illustrated reported that both violated the CBA, as benefits beyond allowable compensation and, in the case of the flights, a competitive advantage.^[3] In March 2022 the Liberty were fined a league-record $500,000. According to SI, the league had originally floated $1 million before an appeal reduced it, and its general counsel had at one point listed possible remedies including the loss of draft picks and even “grounds for termination of the franchise.”^[3][4] Liberty players had spoken warmly of the trip; guard Jazmine Jones said the owners “treat us just like they treat the NBA team.”^[3]

The same year, Commissioner Cathy Engelbert said that paying for charters across the league would jeopardize its finances.^[5] In February 2022 the league had raised $75 million in new capital to invest in its growth.^[8]

Safety becomes the issue

On June 10, 2023, Brittney Griner and her Phoenix Mercury teammates were confronted at the Dallas airport. The WNBA said the incident “was orchestrated by a social media figure and provocateur” and that Griner’s safety plan for the season already included “charter flights for WNBA games and assigned security personnel with her at all times.”^[6] Her teammates, however, generally flew commercial. The episode sharpened a question the league had framed as one of fairness: whether commercial travel was also a safety risk for players with high public profiles.

Aftermath

In April 2024 the league said it would pay for charters for all playoff games and for back-to-back games that required air travel; most flights were still to be commercial. “No one wants [charters] more than I do for these players. We need to be in the right financial position,” Engelbert said.^[7] Weeks later, as interest in the league surged with a rookie class including Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese, the policy changed again.^[7]

On May 9, 2024, the WNBA announced “a full league-wide charter program” to be phased in from the start of the 2024 season, operated primarily by Delta Air Lines.^[8] Engelbert said the league was confident “the time is now,” and credited a “strategic business transformation.”^[8] CBS Sports reported the program would cost about $25 million a year over the 2024 and 2025 seasons.^[7] WNBPA president Nneka Ogwumike welcomed it, saying the move showed that the commissioner and team governors “value the health and safety of the players. It is time to be transformational. It’s time to bet on women.”^[8]

The core dilemma

The commercial-travel rule treated every team the same. But it did so by holding every player to conditions that the league’s own leaders came to describe as falling short, and the league punished an owner who chose to provide more. The league’s financial caution was real: in 2022 its commissioner said charters would put its finances at risk. When is equal treatment a fair rule, and when does it become a reason to keep everyone at a lower standard?

Competing values

• Competitive balance vs. player welfare: a level field against rest, recovery and safety.
• Financial prudence vs. duty of care: spending only when sustainable against protecting players now.
• Rule enforcement vs. owner generosity: upholding the CBA against letting owners invest in players.
• Equal treatment vs. equitable treatment: the same conditions for all against conditions that meet each player’s needs.

Strongest arguments

For the old rule. Without it, a few wealthy owners would gain a lasting edge, which harms the competitive balance that makes a league worth watching. A young league with modest revenue could not afford $20–25 million a year for all teams, and pushing it would endanger the jobs the league provides. The rule was bargained with the players’ union, not imposed unilaterally.

For change sooner. The Aces forfeit showed that commercial travel could make games unplayable, and the Griner incident showed real safety risks. Professional athletes need rest and recovery to do their jobs. A league that wants to be treated as a top professional league should provide professional conditions, and owners willing to pay could have been allowed to share costs league-wide.

For the league’s timing. One can argue the league acted when its finances and demand made the program sustainable, which protected the change from being reversed.

Applying the frameworks

Justice and fairness

A justice lens asks what fairness requires. The old rule applied equality: every team flew the same way. But “fairness isn’t sameness.” Distributive justice asks whether the burden of saving money was fairly placed on players. Behind a veil of ignorance, a person who did not know whether they would be an owner, a player or the commissioner might accept a temporary rule while finances were weak, but would want a clear plan to end it.

Care ethics

Care ethics directs attention to the people with the least power in the arrangement: players, who could not choose how they traveled. It would weigh the physical toll of travel, the risk to players facing harassment and the responsibility of those in power to protect them. A care lens might lean toward acting earlier, while also recognizing the care involved in keeping the league alive.

Utilitarian

A utilitarian would weigh costs and benefits: about $25 million a year against better performance, fewer injuries, safer travel, a better product for fans and broadcasters, and the reputational gains from treating players well. In 2022 the balance might have looked different, because the league’s survival was a larger good. By 2024, with surging interest, the calculation shifted.

Walk it through: the Simple Decision Model

1. Spot the issue. You are the WNBA commissioner in 2022, after fining the Liberty. Stakeholders include players, owners of richer and poorer teams, the WNBPA, sponsors, broadcasters and fans. The codes in play are the CBA’s travel and benefit rules.
2. Gather facts. What does full charter travel cost, and what are the risks of commercial travel for players? What did the Aces forfeit and player feedback show? Watch for status-quo bias: “we have always flown commercial.”
3. Test options. Keep the ban; allow owner-paid charters for any team; phase in league-funded charters starting with playoffs and back-to-backs; or set a financial trigger for a full program. Run each through fairness, care and consequences.
4. Check codes and law. Any change requires CBA terms or an agreement with the WNBPA. What does the spirit of the competitive-balance rule require when all teams can be covered?
5. Decide and document. Explain the financial basis for the decision and the conditions for change. Consult players, owners and the union.
6. Communicate and follow up. Publish a timeline, measure injuries and recovery, and report whether the program is sustainable.

What’s settled and what’s contested

Settled

• The Aces forfeited a game in 2018 after more than 25 hours of travel.
• The Liberty were fined a record $500,000 for unauthorized charters in 2021.
• The league announced a full charter program in May 2024.

Contested

• Whether the commercial-travel rule was ever fair to players.
• Whether the league could have acted sooner.
• Whether the Liberty’s punishment was proportionate.

Why this case matters

This case shows how a rule meant to protect fairness can hold back welfare, and how women’s leagues are often asked to wait for better conditions until the market “proves” they are deserved. It also shows the role of public pressure and growing revenue in changing policy. For students, it raises a recurring question: when should a league invest ahead of demand, and who carries the cost while it waits?

Key terms

Duty of care

The responsibility of coaches, organizations and institutions to protect the health, safety and well-being of those in their charge. It is not a license for total control.

Distributive justice

Fairness in how scarce opportunities, resources, benefits and burdens are shared.

Fair play

Integrity put into practice: respecting both the written rules and the spirit of competition.

Stakeholders

Everyone with something at stake in a decision: athletes, coaches, parents, officials, fans, employees, sponsors, media, communities and regulators, including the less visible ones.

Glass ceiling

Invisible, systemic barriers in hiring and promotion that keep women and minorities out of leadership roles.

Commercialization

The process of turning sport into a product and a business enterprise, with profit pressures that can compete with principle.

Definitions from the Ethics Cases glossary.

Discussion questions

1. Was the charter ban a fair way to protect competitive balance?
2. Should the Liberty have been punished for paying for better travel for its players?
3. Did the league wait too long to act on safety concerns?
4. How should a league decide when it can afford a player-welfare improvement?
5. Would an NBA team have been asked to fly commercial in the same circumstances?

Sources

1. Las Vegas Aces: WNBA team forfeits game because of travel nightmare — CNN
2. Las Vegas Aces Forfeit Game vs. Washington Mystics — WNBA
3. How Airplanes Became the WNBA's Biggest Scandal — Sports Illustrated
4. AP Source: Liberty fined $500,000 for chartering flights — AP News
5. WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert says paying for charter flights would jeopardize league's finances — ESPN
6. WNBA Statement (June 10, 2023) — WNBA
7. WNBA to begin using charter flights on full-time basis this season once they can get the planes — CBS Sports
8. WNBA set to institute full charter program for 2024 season — NBA.com