Posted on 05/11/2015 7:05:40 AM PDT by ilovesarah2012
(CBSNews) — An Oregon family traveling with a 15-year old autistic girl was kicked off a flight this week for what the airline calls a “disruptive” situation.
The family calls it an outrage.
Video shot by a fellow passenger and posted to YouTube showed Salt Lake City airport police removing the family from a United Airlines flight last Tuesday, after the pilot made an emergency landing.
The girl’s mother, Donna Beegle, was shocked when officers explained why.
“He said, ‘Well, the captain doesn’t feel comfortable flying to Portland with your daughter on his flight,” Beegle told CBS News.
The trouble began halfway through the flight from Houston to Portland. Beegle says her daughter, Juliette, was hungry and started to act up.
“I know her. When she gets over hungry or over thirsty, she really struggles,” Beegle described.
Her mother says Juliette is a picky eater, so she asked a flight attendant if she could purchase a hot meal from first class — and says she was told no.
“Well, I said, ‘How about we wait for her to have a meltdown and then she is crying and tries to scratch — and then you’ll want to help her,'” Beegle said she told the flight attendant.
Beegle eventually got the meal and said Juliette calmed down. Then came an announcement from the captain.
“We were shocked to hear them say, ‘We’re going to make an emergency landing in Salt Lake City, we have a passenger in the back of the plane who has behavior issues,'” Beegle said.
(Excerpt) Read more at 5newsonline.com ...
Because airlines are not equipped to sell a meal to everyone in coach who decides they want one. Welcome to 21st Century U.S. airways. What this woman wanted was special treatment above and beyond what her fellow passengers get. Why is that fair? And if another person in coach demanded to buy a meal because the lady in row 22 got one then what does the flight attendant say?
She said she she would sue for training and I think that is a good thing because it is needed. With every 1 in 80 kids now on the autism spectrum I think service industries have to be more accommodating and work with parents because this is the world we live in. This was a pretty obvious case of an attendant who wanted to show his tail and make a mom beg. Sadly it seems that some freepers would be more comfortable sending all the “bratty Hellion defective children” to an institution.
You are literally being absurd by trying to defend your opinion. I am sure no one on the plane would start organizing for hot meals if they saw this girl get one. This situation resulted in a diverted plane. I can only imagine that the other passengers would have been more than happy if the airline would have just accommodated the simple request and not escalated to an emergency landing with cops and paramedics involved.
"I posted on your article but I wanted you to know I was on that plane and my seat mates and I were horrified and very angry with the horrid way they treated you. I talked with Jerod, the 2 female fight attendants and the pilot. I filed a formal complaint with the Salt Lake City police and posted on FB and called TV news stations. I am appalled with the behavior of the airlines and I am really glad you are doing something about it. I have photos and my seat mate an exec. with Shell Oil has video. I didn't hear of a single person that was upset with your daughter just in case you wondered. Please let me know if I can help in any way. Blessings, Jodi Smith"
That unless the other person in coach can prove that the Americans with Disabilities Act applies to him, he’s sh!t out of luck on that meal.
Giving the kid a meal that the mother agreed to pay for sounds like the most reasonable of reasonable accommodations, given that United’s own policy is to have bistro boxes on board flights that are more than 3.5 hours in duration, and Houston to Portland is. They nuke the sandwich, give the kid a hot sandwich, story over.
That said, if Mom knows this can happen, she should bring one of those box meals that you just need to nuke with her wherever she goes. Although the steward on a power trip may have refused to microwave it.
“She said she she would sue for training and I think that is a good thing because it is needed. With every 1 in 80 kids now on the autism spectrum I think service industries have to be more accommodating and work with parents because this is the world we live in. This was a pretty obvious case of an attendant who wanted to show his tail and make a mom beg. Sadly it seems that some freepers would be more comfortable sending all the “bratty Hellion defective children” to an institution.”
I come down on the other side. I believe the family needs to know the limits, and be prepared. Expecting the airlines and other passengers to have a bad flight experience is not a right the family should threaten to sue about.
Maybe we will ALL have to sign “release of liability” forms for air travel, to adknowle3dge the Captain is in charge of his flight, and has the right to have control.
OK, I read the ABC article (sorry, Freeper purists!), and it sounds like there’s plenty of blame to go around. Assuming the article is accurate (which may be a big assumption, I don’t know), the family tried to eat during the layover in Houston, but the daughter refused her food. The mother brought some snacks aboard the plane in hopes that this would work, but apparently not. So far, it sounds like she was doing what she could to stave off a problem.
I agree that she shouldn’t expect to be provided a service for which she did not pay. But why couldn’t the attendant warm up one of the snacks she brought? THAT just seemed really petty and heartless to me.
Where the mom went wrong is issuing her “warning” about her daughter’s behavior in a way that sounded like a threat. Under those conditions, I think the Captain did the prudent thing by making an emergency landing. Furthermore, the mom does herself no favors by threatening to sue over “discrimination.” That just makes her sound like an entitled attention whore.
But if what I’ve read is accurate, I must put the lion’s share of the blame on whichever attendant it was that refused to warm up the woman’s snack for her. Had this been done, it seems likely that the daughter would have been fine, and none of this would have happened.
George Bush and Global Warming.
I think the parent screwed up.
But the airline turned a screw up into an expensive inconvenient drama.
They had no business traveling. Mother should have bought the girl a hot meal at the airport prior to boarding and if she was too stupid to feed her before a flight, she should have stayed home.
You can bring whatever food they sell at the Houston airport. People regularly board carrying to go food, even hot sandwiches.
Not true. Once you're past TSA, you can purchase any and all kinds of food and carry it onboard. I've also brought food from home through TSA without incident, and brought an empty water bottle though the TSA checkpoint, then filled it at a drinking fountain afterward. Never had any trouble.
If the daughter refused her food, they shouldn’t have boarded. They knew how she was. The world doesn’t revolve around her.
We live in a 47-53 country, about half of us manage to not expect everyone to bend to our needs, and about half of us are gimme dats.
Maybe, maybe not. I am legally deaf in both ears. I always ask the airline in advance, when booking, for an aisle seat so that I can hear the flight attendants for services and instructions, particularly in an emergency situation. This a very simple request for a very simple accommodation. Southwest Air always accommodates. Delta always tries to accommodate although it is not always successful (meaning that Delta will provide an aisle seat if available for the same price that I paid). But even when an aisle seat is not available, the Delta flight attendants nearly always make a point to acknowledge that I am deaf and do their best to communicate with me by speaking loud, slow, and directly at me. My experience on other airlines has been dreadful.
But she’s the only member of her family who hasn’t been incarcerated!
She wants to make sure her daughter follows the family tradition.
Defective? Like a Chevy Monza or Ford Pinto? I hope you are blessed with perfect children. You definitely could have chosen a better word.
“Well, I said, ‘How about we wait for her to have a meltdown and then she is crying and tries to scratch — and then you’ll want to help her,’” Beegle said she told the flight attendant.”
At that point, it became an implied threat of violence.
Had the pilot continued to PDX, and the child scratched someone, the pilot would have been fired and the airline would have been sued.
Both airline policy and and FAA regulations state that if there is a threat, you land the plane and remove the threat.
The pilot was. 100% correct in his actions.
Did ANYONE actually read the article. This family was at Disney and had a layover in TX. This was an full day of flying with layovers.
I did read the article. She should not have travelled if it was too much for her to handle. The mom had poor judgement.
There was a time not so long ago when no one flew on trips. And we all managed just fine. Flying isn’t a right, and it is certainly not a necessity.
There is plenty of blame to go around in this story.
The mom foreknew what the girl was capable of, but she selfishly flew anyway.
The airline attendant acted stupidly to be so inflexible and not not even SELL a hot meal to defuse a mental health issue.
The airline captain may have overreacted by making an emergency landing, even though the immediate problem had been defused. Some passengers may have missed connecting flights as a result.
The amount of ignorance about autism displayed on this thread is amazing. “Autism” covers a spectrum of mental disorders ranging from mild to severe. It is real and yet no one really knows the causes. Those autism deniers are ignorant, but they are truly blessed they haven’t had to deal with it themselves.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.