I agree with this 100%. We just finished with a family trip to Disney with our two kids (1 and 3). On the flight down they were perfect angels. The little one fell asleep, and the older one watched the portable DVD player we brought. On the way back they were a bit more of a hassle. They didn’t have a total meltdown until near the end when my daughter (3) kept wanting to go to the bathroom. She didn’t actually have to go, she just liked flushing the toilet. That was fine until we hit the “prepare for landing everyone sit down” stage of the flight. So she cried when I strapped her into her chair. But by god she was in her seat. I’m sorry for the people that had to listen to her cry, but rules is rules.
While I think the airline was right to hold them off of that flight, I agree that they should have worked with them to get them on a later flight. Of course thay may be because of the woman’s attitude as well.
Bolding mine. You know, first of all, when I was a kid we were very poor. I would wager that you would have considered us to be “exceptioanlly trashy-looking” but you may rest assured that we knew how to behave in public. Looks can be deceiving.
As to the second part – yeh, some people don’t even bother putting their kids in carseats at all. Just this weekend, we went to the movies. As we were leaving, a well-to-do looking couple in their mid-30’s with two kids (one young enough to need to be carried, maybe 2?, the other old enough to speak well, young enough to still have baby fat – maybe 4?) were getting into the car beside ours. Of course, the older kid was begging for this and that (can I have a cupcake when we get home? can I roll my window down? can I do this? etc) turns to his mother and says “do I have to wear my seatbelt this time?” Her reply? “no, not this time.” Neither kid was buckled into a carseat. Looks can be deceiving.
My experience has been, oh yes, they do. Every time the parents cannot be prevailed upon to get their kids in their seats and strapped in. I fly internationally with two kids every year at least once a year, and have done since they were babes in arms. (Well, twice a year, since we have to go home again) By now, my kids (who are 8 and 6) could give the safety spiel at the beginning of every flight. They are old hands and cause fewer problems than the adults around them. So my kids’ behavior is not a fair measure.
Kids have to be at a minimum in their seats and strapped in at takeoff and landing. Every now and again a small child who is really hysterical will be allowed to be in a parent’s seat, strapped in – either in the parent’s belt or one of those harness thingies which attach to the parent’s belt.
Yesterday we flew in on the annual US trip, and a family near us had a young boy about 4 or 5 who was out of his belt for landing. He was on the floor in front of his seat. They went back up and circled around to let another plane(s) go down while the parents put him in his seat and strapped him in. Had the parents not done so, I have no doubt that they would have had the steward sit next to him to ensure he remained belted for landing. There was also, interestingly, an adult who had decided he had to be the first to get his carryon and got out of his seat.
Parents can get very upset when the meanies on the flight crew insist on this but I presume there is a good reason as they really mean business, at least in my experience.
Yes they can. It would appear in this instance however, that they were not.
Hey, they failed to keep control of their kids, and then had the nerve to bitch about SWA not allowing them to incovenience several hundred people with their failure to control their kids. That? Is trashy. Regardless of their appearance.
There was a similar incident several months ago with a decidedly middle-class family, whose reasoning was that the airplane should be held until they could make their out-of-control toddler *understaaaaaaaaaand * why she should sit still. Because *making * her sit still would be disrespectful to her tiny blossoming sense of individual identity, and everyone else on the plane should just be more *patient * with their very special little darling.
Regardless of their appearance, those people were trashy too.
Hampshire - Actually, I’ve sat near that same family several times, and the kids always seem to behave. I don’t know if that means they threaten them with beatings, and frankly I don’t care. The kids are smiling, and seem happy and they’re quiet. Whatever the parents are doing is working.
I would imagine to invoke the airline equivilant of the ADA, they’d have to inform the airlines ahead of times that the children have special needs, what those needs are and what accomodation they require. And they should still be kicked off the plane if they can’t stay in their seats.
Seems yet another example of “I can’t control my children and I won’t allow you to do it either”.
Does this mean that we as a society have finally turned the corner on the horrible idea that we all have to put up with bad behavior from people just because we don’t want to make them unhappy by, you know, actually doing anything about their bad behavior?
Hell, if you read that strictly, it would seem that the airline could get in trouble for not kicking off the family simply because the children where disabled. That woudl be treating them differently because they’re disabled. I’m sure it’s not meant to be interpreted that way, but it’s an interesting take on the situation.
The last lady who complained of similar treatment (on another airline, I believe) didn’t receive an apology either. In fact I believe she was thoroughly lambasted by the public.
Right. The airline put a gun to the mother’s head and forced her and her children onto the flight. The airline should be responsible for making the children behave. Maybe they should have just let the plane sit on the tarmac until the children could get rested, calmed down and fed and able to control themselves.
As the father of an unruly child, I do not accept the excuses. The family was not grounded due to noise, but actually running up and down the aisle.
The two adults needed to take the aisle seats and physically block the kids from doing this. If it was strictly noise I would sympathize with the adults and believe the airline was unfair. As described the adults failed to do their job and should be embarrassed.
I felt bad enough when my then young son kept kicking the seat in front of him and yelling. I had to put my leg over his legs and feed the kid gum to get him to settle down and I apologized to all that were near us profusely. It can be very hard to handle a young child on a long plane flight or even as short one. But that is no excuse for the behavior that was allowed in the articles.
The disabilities described in no way excuse the adults their lapse in control and responsibility.
I’ve recently decided that the airlines should have a sealed off section for the transport of crappy people. The person that can’t control their kids and has to be somewheres can book in these seats. Unruly panicky people have to book these seats. Booking the wrong section is the buyers problem and results in being kicked off. The section has a purge button that drops the section and activates a homing beacon.
In this specific case the parents got what they deserved.
Unless/until this gets moved to a more contentious forum, please refrain from twisting my words. That’s nowhere near what I said.
Legally, people with disabilities do have some rights with respect to public transport, even if it inconveniences the other passengers. Your “no one put a gun” argument really falls apart when you consider how much it limits people with disabilities. No one puts a gun to their heads and makes them use the internet, go to the theater, or ride the bus, either.
I think there’s a lot of piling on here with people venting their frustrations at the many parents failing to manage their normal-but-difficult children. I hate that as much as anyone. If SWA had picked one of the many, many such cases like that I’d be right there on the bandwagon.
I looked at the CNN video. One of the kids is old enough to damn well know better than to be out of control on an airplane. He was adult-sized, for pete’s sake. He was managing to sit quietly and play with a handheld game while CNN was there filming them. Two smaller kids, in the 4-7 year old range, and what appeared to be about a 3-year-old, possibly still in diapers or training pants, but walking on his own, little too big for a stroller. I didn’t see any obvious signs of cerebral palsy in any of these kids, but perhaps I’m used to seeing more severe cases.
My point being that all of these kids were well old enough to be securely strapped into a seat and kept there by the two adults travelling with them.
Also, if the mother in question wasn’t required to purchase two seats for herself under Southwest’s Customer of Size policy, she ought to count herself lucky.
Edit to add - the Southwest Big Fat Butt* policy states:
As for why the airline didn’t offer a courtesy rebooking, I think this depends on the behavior of the supervising adults (per article, there were two of them). Normally we do expect airlines to accommodate passengers when problems come up during travel – if you get sick and miss a connection you expect the airline to try to rebook you. But I think safety risks are in a different category. If an adult passenger traveling alone ignores the crew during the flight – say they actively refuse to put away their carry-on goodies for landing – then I’d say the airline is no longer obligated to extend that passenger the usual in-transit courtesies. If you’re a safety risk then all bets are off, you are no longer one of the customers who always gets to be right. And not putting away your 40lb child/human projectile is, I would guess, a safety risk.
Obviously there’s a fine line between wouldn’t and couldn’t. I have hard time imagining that keeping a kid in a seatbelt impossible but IANAP and I don’t have experience with kids with disabilities. And in the end none of us were on the flight to know exactly what happened anyhow.
I agree that the kids running amok in the aisles after warnings to stop them is sufficient for the family to receive bootage from the aircraft, with extreme prejudice. No question. However:
This is true, but incomplete. A parent can tell their kid to be quiet. The kid can then ignore them and scream their head off. What can the parent then do – gag the kid? Beat the crap out of them until they’re intimated and/or unconscious? Kids are going to scream, and sometimes there’s nothing anyone can (reasonably, see above) do about it, even the parents.
