Southwest Kicks Cranky Kid and Mom off Plane

Tricia

Manager Websleuths.com
Staff member
Administrator
Moderator
Joined
Sep 13, 2003
Messages
28,620
Reaction score
42,204
The pilot even turned around on the runway to take the kid back.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33555007/ns/travel-news/

Two schools of thought on this;

1-When I didn't have kids I would have applauded this action.

2-Now that I do have a child I understand that it is impossible when they start to scream and throw a tantrum to calm them down quickly and I would not have been upset at this woman at all. In fact I would feel sorry for her. Never would I expect the pilot to return and kick them off.

If there is a thread on this somewhere let me know. I tried searching but my searching skills are like my figure . . . Wobbly, Bumbling, and not that great.
 
Wow, the kid was yelling "Go, plane, go!" and "I want Daddy!" I bet he would have calmed down after the plane was in the air and he realized he was on his way to see Daddy.

Some people may condemn me for this, but we always gave our babies benedryl before a flight. Our pediatrician suggested that we do so, and assured us it wouldn't hurt them. A sleepy baby is more likely to suck that pacifier and go to sleep. Sleep = no crying!

BTW, Tricia, I was WONDERING where my body had gotten off to! Sounds like YOU have it!
 
I have taken many a flight with and without kids. So I see both sides of it.

But, I was on a flight between Chicago and Orange County earlier this year and this little girl did not stop screaming....at all. I was sitting with the mom and the father was across the aisle with another daughter and they kept passing this little girl back and forth. They tried everything and i felt so sorry for them. People were clearly agitated but what could these poor people do? At one point I asked the lady to let me try. I said she is screaming anyway so what is the difference? I got her to quiet down for literally about 5 minutes. Then she started up again and I am not kidding she would not stop. I held onto her and let her scream and wiggle around just to give these poor parents a break. The flight crew was extraordinary and they all came by and tried to get her to calm down with each person being successful for just a few minutes.
It was horrible. The mother told me that the child had just been on another flight and was good as gold. but i could also tell that neither parent was particularly strong and that perhaps the girl typically got her way by crying, so i do not absolve them of all responsibility. :) but they stayed remarkably calm and were apologetic to everyone. It upset the entire plane not just the immediate seat neighbors.
Did I mention it was horrible?

but kids do what kids do and we all have to live together, so I give screaming babies on airplanes a pass. It is an annoyance but we never know how kids will react, so kicking them off the plane was not the right thing to do imo.


ETA: When the plane literally touched down, the little girl sat up straight, flashed a big smile put her hands out and said "that's all"
The whole plane started laughing and crying at the same time.
 
But I should add when parents let their kids kick my seat from behind over and over, it just makes me nuts.
 
I'll NEVER be able to have anything but sympathy for the parents of a cranky kid on an airplane.

And I am a fan of the occasional off-label use of Benadryl for children.

I'm sure the crew did what they thought was best, but it's hard to know.
 
THAT was an expensive solution to something merely "irritating".

Of course there could be more to the story than a child simply screaming for his/her daddy and for the plane to "go". My DD (now 26), when two years old, threw such a tantrum in a parking lot she knocked me off my feet. I was hugely pregnant with her brother so it wasn't a hard thing to do, and I went down on a knee without being hurt, but that kid was like a tazmanian devil when she was angry.

There could be more to the story with the pilot, willing to put ALL of the passengers behind schedule for one screaming kid. Lots of delicious holes in this story for imagination :D
 
I would think it would have to be pretty bad for the pilot to go through the hassle and criticism of turning around in order to deplane the kid.

Not a parent but I do understand that you can't always control what a small child is going to do. However, if you know you're going to be traveling and have a very young child who is liable to put up a fuss on the plane, come prepared so you at least have SOME chance of distracting or defusing. I read an article where the mother stated she was trying to wait to feed the kid until after the plane took off (for his ears). Maybe the constant yelling was an indication that she needed to ditch her original plan and just start feeding him.
 
Maybe they should have an enclosed cry room on planes for children like that. I sure wouldn't want to have to sit next to the child all the way to California. For an extra "fee" of course. LOL.......everything is extra on airplanes now.
 
When we flew back from Florida to Texas last Sept, the first portion from FL to Atlanta was smooth sailing. Second flight, AT to home, the baby screamed for about 20 min, until we were in the air for a few min. The steward had threatened to have us removed if he wasn't quiet, but the passengers (the plane was about 1/3 full said "no", thank God.

Turned out his ear drum had ruptured!! Poor baby, we knew something was wrong, but there wasn't much we could do at the moment. As soon as the cabin pressure stabilized he was fine, fell asleep. Woke up again as the pressure changed on landing and started crying again. It's not always a "bad" kid.:twocents:
 
Interesting....my twins are 11 now and so this isn't an issue but we never took them on a plane until they were 7. We were fortunate in that we didn't HAVE to fly-we choose to fly for vacations but all our family is on the east coast where we live. As people who were sensitive to, i.e. bothered by, kids when we were childless we had vowed to never subject a captive audience to our children until they were old enough for us to be confident about their behavior.

Everyone is not so lucky as to not have to fly and I am one who is now sympathetic to people with crying kids but I know I never wanted to be the person with them myself. I've never seen a crew remove a family like this so you do wonder if there was more that went on. Maybe just a sensitive crew!
 
This is the reason I haven't flown since I had kids...well, that and the fact that age the toddler age, you've got all that junk to cart along... :D
 
Maybe they should have an enclosed cry room on planes for children like that. I sure wouldn't want to have to sit next to the child all the way to California. For an extra "fee" of course. LOL.......everything is extra on airplanes now.

...or pass out those Bose noise reducing/eliminating headphones :D
 
Southwest apologizes, reimburses San Jose mom tossed from a flight with cranky 2-year-old

"We have to abide by FAA policies and be able to deliver safety announcements," she said, adding that the crew tried to soothe the child. "Our flight attendants gave the child juice and coloring books, and we're sorry she was inconvenienced."

Root will receive a refund for the flight and a $300 travel voucher to cover her expenses. She was stuck in Amarillo and forced to buy a portable crib and diapers and stay another night with her parents.
http://www.mercurynews.com/bay-area-news/ci_13680219?nclick_check=1

If she had just visited at her parent's house, I wonder why she needed to buy a porta-crib? Whatever.

My youngest was 3 when she took her first flight -- and on Southwest. On the first leg of the flight, they gave her a little packet of peanuts and she was so pleased. The second time they didn't give her anything and she was very disappointed, but neither of my kids ever screamed or threw fits. They were both high energy kids so I guess we were lucky.

I have been on flights with disruptive kids and the flights were anything but pleasant -- a few borderline trips to from he**. One international flight had a toddler freely roaming the aisles of the airplane sans parental control. Everyone tried to be patient until the child started spitting on people and then the flight attendant had to take control.

I know kids get fussy. Their ears probably hurt and they are confined to a very small space, but an increasing number of parents, and people in general, think they no longer need to make an effort to respect the comfort or privacy of others. Most of the traveling public does understand and will try to be tolerant if parents make an effort to manage their child's behavior. But I have seen some parent absolutely ignore the bad behaviors -- kicking the seat tops of the list -- and gives anyone that looks their direction a dirty look of defiance.
 
This makes no sense to me. I have been on many a flight where grown adults behaved less than a 2 year old, but we kept in the air for destination. There must be more to this story. If not, this is very disturbing.
 
If the story is true as it reads, then I think our intolerance for one another is at an all time high. For heaven's sake....
 
The crew bounced Root and her son off a flight in Amarillo, Texas, on her way home to San Jose because passengers could not hear preflight safety announcements,

A Southwest spokesman said the boy began to cry when a flight attendant was delivering important information to passengers. "They felt they weren't able to relay that safety information to the rest of the customers on board," Southwest's Chris Mainz said Friday.
Root said Adam's meltdown "was worse than a normal fit for him." She had picked a 12:30 p.m. flight because it was during his nap time. However, the flight was delayed. Once the plane finally left the gate, it began to turn around and the captain announced it would return to the gate because of a "passenger issue."

http://www.amarillo.com/stories/103109/new_news2.shtml

Now I understand why she bought the crib and diapers. Her luggage was sent on to her destination and she was had a layover in Vegas.

She said Friday she's not bothered as much by being asked to leave the Las Vegas-bound flight as she is by other Southwest decisions.
She was unable to retrieve her luggage and asked to postpone her trip until Adam was in a better mood to fly. "Our chief complaint had more to do with being stranded," said Root, known by her maiden name Pamela Simms during her time at Dumas High.
[/QUOTE

She said Friday she's not bothered as much by being asked to leave the Las Vegas-bound flight as she is by other Southwest decisions.
She was unable to retrieve her luggage and asked to postpone her trip until Adam was in a better mood to fly. "Our chief complaint had more to do with being stranded," said Root
 
Southwest apologizes, reimburses San Jose mom tossed from a flight with cranky 2-year-old

http://www.mercurynews.com/bay-area-news/ci_13680219?nclick_check=1

If she had just visited at her parent's house, I wonder why she needed to buy a porta-crib? Whatever.

My youngest was 3 when she took her first flight -- and on Southwest. On the first leg of the flight, they gave her a little packet of peanuts and she was so pleased. The second time they didn't give her anything and she was very disappointed, but neither of my kids ever screamed or threw fits. They were both high energy kids so I guess we were lucky.

I have been on flights with disruptive kids and the flights were anything but pleasant -- a few borderline trips to from he**. One international flight had a toddler freely roaming the aisles of the airplane sans parental control. Everyone tried to be patient until the child started spitting on people and then the flight attendant had to take control.

I know kids get fussy. Their ears probably hurt and they are confined to a very small space, but an increasing number of parents, and people in general, think they no longer need to make an effort to respect the comfort or privacy of others. Most of the traveling public does understand and will try to be tolerant if parents make an effort to manage their child's behavior. But I have seen some parent absolutely ignore the bad behaviors -- kicking the seat tops of the list -- and gives anyone that looks their direction a dirty look of defiance.
I'm not sure why they have to reimburse her for her own kid drowning out the safety messages! A lot of times airlines don't want to reimburse passengers for things that ARE the airline's fault. In this case, IMO the child screaming was NOT the airline's fault yet they reimburse the passenger. Oookaaay...
 
I think the reimbursement has more to do with public relations than anything.

Parents with kids might not chose to fly with Southwest if knowing they may get kicked off for their kids screaming.
 
I think the reimbursement has more to do with public relations than anything.

Parents with kids might not chose to fly with Southwest if knowing they may get kicked off for their kids screaming.
I think SW is the airline that kicked the lady off for wearing clothes that were too revealing.
 

Members online

Online statistics

Members online
93
Guests online
2,612
Total visitors
2,705

Forum statistics

Threads
590,010
Messages
17,928,910
Members
228,037
Latest member
shmoozie
Back
Top