3 year old kicked off plane for temper tantrum

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A Massachusetts couple is unhappy that AirTran Airways removed their crying 3-year-old daughter from a flight when the girl refused to take her seat before takeoff. AirTran officials say they were only following Federal Aviation Administration rules, while the parents said they just needed a little more time to calm the girl down.

Do you think the airline acted appropriately?

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I need a little more information -- like how long this had been going on.

If it was two minutes I think the airline jumped the gun.

If it was ten minutes I think they acted appropriately.

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If it was ten minutes, I'd have been tempted to throw her off myself...

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She was removed because "she was climbing under the seat and hitting the parents and wouldn't get in her seat" during boarding, AirTran spokeswoman Judy Graham-Weaver said.

"The flight was already delayed 15 minutes and in fairness to the other 112 passengers on the plane, the crew made an operational decision to remove the family," Graham-Weaver said.

I do not believe the 15 minutes was due to the child as that was never mentioned.

The mom said: "We weren't giving an opportunity to hold her, console her or anything."

At least this is as much information as I could find.

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It seems that they had the loading time plus an additional fifteen minutes to hold her and console her.

If she was the reason for the delay I think they most certainly did the right thing.

If she wasn't the reason I'm not sure. It seems to me they had ample time to get her situated. I've flown with a three year old and I know it isn't easy but crawling under the seats and hitting her parents sounds pretty exteme.

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Quote:

"Sir, we don't differentiate between 3 and 33."

Oh good grief.

If that account is accurate, it's dumb. Glad that AirTran apologizied.

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I don't know if the stewardess was that far off. What is if you have
such an unruly child in mid air carrying on with temper tantrums when even the parents cant cope with it?

I've flown to Europe with a 3 year old one, and she certainly is not a
quiet child, but you talk beforehand and explain the rules and if needed
enforce the rules.

I don't see why over 100 passengers need to deal with a child whose
parents are not able to discipline.

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I agree it is so hard to say who is in the right. Was the child out of control the entire 15 minutes the plane was delayed? I know both my children are usually very good at flying and whenever we go out, but it is just that one rare incident.

I remember once my normally easy to take any where little girl throwing a fit at the mall when I told her it was time to live (she wanted to spend more time in the toy store). I had never seen her act this way at home much less out. She began flaying her arms and legs and screaming. No reasoning would calm her down. I simply picked her up, put her in her stroller (yes with arms and legs flaying - I certainly did get hit a couple of times) and managed to strap her in - the whole way pushing her through the mall she continued to scream and flay. I managed to get her into the car - it was very difficult to strap her in her car seat, but I finally managed and she continued to scream. The whole thing probably did take more than 15 minutes before she finally calmed down.

This never happened before or again - at least to this extent. I can only imagine how horrible if this happened during boarding a plane.

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Oh, Linkat, I have had a similar experience at the playground and
I was completely exhausted by the time I finally strapped her in her
car seat, and she screamed all the way home. I think all of us experienced something similar at least once.

But honestly, if my child had gone into such a temper tantrum at take-off
I probably would have left the plane myself thinking she was very
frightened of the plane, and I couldn't have sat there knowing she might
be fearful of flying.

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CalamityJane wrote:

Oh, Linkat, I have had a similar experience at the playground and
I was completely exhausted by the time I finally strapped her in her
car seat, and she screamed all the way home. I think all of us experienced something similar at least once.

But honestly, if my child had gone into such a tamper tantrum at take-off
I probably would have left the plane myself thinking she was very
frightened of the plane, and I couldn't have sat there knowing she might
be fearful of flying.

But this was a return flight - the flight to FL was without any issues.

Sometimes young children just are not comfortable, tired or whatever. They do not have the same capacity as adults for calming down.

However, if I was in the situation I would probably just strapped her in and let her scream. That is all you can do - 10 or 15 minutes later and the little monster is usually fast asleep.

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Re: 3 year old kicked off plane for temper tantrum

Linkat wrote:

Do you think the airline acted appropriately?

Based on the info presented, yes.

I also wonder why the parents didn't take the initiative to get off the plane without the request/demand/requirement from the airline.

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I'm still not clear if the child was doing this for fifteen minutes or not. The delay could have been for other reasons. (I'd better read up on this.)

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Well, here's a link -
http://www.telegram.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070121/COLUMN01/701210459/0/FRONTPAGE

I dunno - I've some sympathy for taking her off if it was an extensive time, less if it wasn't.

I did once ride in a prop plane - noisy beasts - from one part of northern California to another with, among the fellow passengers (perhaps 12 to 18 of them), a young boy (2 1/2?)who screamed the whole flight. The miracle was that the rest of us didn't scream along with him. Daddy kept saying, Son, be nice now in a cajoling way. I'm not sure there was a flight attendent on board. We were all overjoyed when the plane landed.

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Here's another story:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070123/ap_on_re_us/flight_tantrum

I'm also still not clear about whether a) the toddler was the cause of the 15-minute delay or b) there was some other kind of a delay so they were in a hurry and not in the mood to give a second chance.

It does sound from phrasing like there wasn't a warning or a reasonable chance given for the parents to snap to it, just "that's it, you're out of here."

The hitting thing from Linkat's longer account is patently stupid, that they kicked them out because the toddler hit the mom (that's what the "doesn't matter if she's 3 or 33" quote came from).

If the toddler was the cause of the delay, or a few more if's, I think the airline is justified.

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Hadn't seen yours, Osso, that has a lot more info. The author seems sympathetic to the family so I can't tell what her "moments later" means, here:

Quote:

"Moments" as in 10 seconds? "Moments" as in 5 (or 15) minutes? Still can see things going a few ways from what info we have.

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ossobuco wrote:

I'm still not clear if the child was doing this for fifteen minutes or not. The delay could have been for other reasons. (I'd better read up on this.)

At least from what I read so far - it seems the 15 minute delay was not related. The attentant did not come over to them until after the 15 minute delay. Not quite sure, but from all appearances it seems the delay was due to other reasons.

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ossobuco wrote:

Well, here's a link -
http://www.telegram.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070121/COLUMN01/701210459/0/FRONTPAGE

I dunno - I've some sympathy for taking her off if it was an extensive time, less if it wasn't.

I did once ride in a prop plane - noisy beasts - from one part of northern California to another with, among the fellow passengers (perhaps 12 to 18 of them), a young boy (2 1/2?)who screamed the whole flight. The miracle was that the rest of us didn't scream along with him. Daddy kept saying, Son, be nice now in a cajoling way. I'm not sure there was a flight attendent on board. We were all overjoyed when the plane landed.

The issue though wasn't the screaming - it was that the child was not in a seat with her belt on. You cannot prevent a child from flying because of screaming, they were able to kick her off because of not adhering to FAA rules.

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Linkat wrote:

Not quite sure, but from all appearances it seems the delay was due to other reasons.

I get exactly the opposite impression - and the parents didn't say anything else on "Good Morning America" (that's as far as I could follow the online video).

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Oh, I understand. I was off tangenting about frightened and/or difficult children on a plane. Didn't mean to confuse the issue.

Lots unclear - for example, when she was under the seats and with people trying to deal with the situation, there might have been aisle blockage - and this while the passengers were loading.

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3 year old kicked off plane for temper tantrum

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