Posted on 01/23/2007 10:25:48 AM PST by presidio9
AirTran Airways on Tuesday defended its decision to remove a Massachusetts couple from a flight after their crying 3-year-old daughter refused to take her seat before takeoff.
AirTran officials said they followed Federal Aviation Administration rules that children age 2 and above must have their own seat and be wearing a seat belt upon takeoff.
"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," AirTran spokeswoman Judy Graham-Weaver said.
Julie and Gerry Kulesza, who were headed home to Boston on Jan. 14 from Fort Myers, said they just needed a little more time to calm their daughter, Elly.
"We weren't given an opportunity to hold her, console her or anything," Julie Kulesza said in a telephone interview Tuesday.
The Kuleszas said they told a flight attendant they had paid for their daughter's seat, but asked whether she could sit in her mother's lap. The request was denied.
She was removed because "she was climbing under the seat and hitting the parents and wouldn't get in her seat" during boarding, Graham-Weaver said.
The Orlando-based carrier reimbursed the family $595.80, the cost of the three tickets, and the Kuleszas flew home the next day.
They also were offered three roundtrip tickets anywhere the airline flies, Graham-Weaver said.
The father said his family would never fly AirTran again.
The comment about "she was hitting her mother" bothers me too. It reads to me like "it was just her mother".
You're right. I would say that a child's propensity to misbehave, to be violent, is the result of Original Sin. Of course, today's child-rearing experts don't believe in original sin and they think just the opposite, that children are naturally good and well-behaved. Therefore, their advice to parents--don't spank, reason with the child, distract the child, put the child in a time out, hold the child tightly while he is having a tantrum--is just so much nonsense because it is based on a false assumption.
"I think a 3-yr. old is light enough to be lifted by a parent and forced into a seat, strapped into the seat, and HELD FIRMLY into place." Agreed. Unfortunately, you can't "muzzle em."
"Yes sir"
Dang...I'm not saying the parents handled this right, but you can't know many three-year-olds if you think that's all there is to it. Five or six, maybe...not three.
But they certainly should have been able to scoop her up. I wonder how long it really took them.
"I just distrust most comments made by parents about how well they controlled their own kids." I agree. I don't blame the airline one bit. But I get so sick of people claiming how perfect their kids are at all times. The principal at our school thinks that my boys walk on water. She constantly goes out of her way to tell me how well behaved my boys are. I have to tell her that they have their moments at home.
Yeah, I think the parents blew it by making a public issue of it. The got another flight and 3 free tickets. Unless they missed a funeral, I don't see what the big deal is.
1-2 is near impossible but by 3 they should know better. Assuming (Ha!) the parents instilled discipline from the get-go.
My Mom and Dad raised eight well-disciplined kids, and Mom always said that the terrible twos were a myth - it was the terrible two-and-a-half and three that would get you.
Granted, there's a difference between a kid who's almost four, and we don't know how old this little girl was. In either case, even if they couldn't shut her up instantly, they could have moved her. That's the part I don't get. Same with slapping Mom. That wouldn't have flown - no pun intended.
Thank goodness, because I just put them on my list to fly.
That's actually a Victorian-era invention, the concept that children are naturally innocent until they are corrupted by the world.
What happened to the old stand-by of offering up a sip of Ny-Quill an hour before boarding?
AirTran just won a new customer -- me!
End of story. With turn around as tight as it is they were reaching the point of having a "cascade effect" that would end with people missing their connections.
Mom, Dad, Grasp your little darling firmly and put her in her seat. Now fasten the seat belt. I would ask you to put your hand over her mouth but undoubtedly some whining overly sensitive type would throw a fit.
But the kid's butt need to be in her seat or we are not going anywhere. If you are incapable of doing that I question your fitness as a parent.
The Osteens (and any other goat-herder masquerading as a shepherd) would use any travel carrier that would exalt them adequately. I doubt Air-Tran would do that. We agree.
LOL I used counting with my son too. He could "count" before he could really talk. Id start with oonnee and hed say "twooo", but I never had to get to 3:)
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