ORLANDO, Fla. - 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.
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.
Here is my 2cents...The parents are well within their rights to never fly Air Tran again, however anyone who has flown on a flight with a screaming child on board, knows how difficult it makes the flight in the first place. I have 2 children and have flown with them since the youngest was 3 months old. I made sure that I did everything that I could possibly do to make sure my children were at least calm and well behaved. Granted a 3 yr old child can be hard to control when they go flying of on a temper tantrum. However I do hold the parents responsible for the fact that they could not control child in a reasonable amount of time. That and Air Tran did refund the parents the ticket prices, and offered them flight vouchers for their troubles. AirTran did all they needed to do and they do have a business to run.
Your thoughts..
2 comments:
I agree the airline did everything possible. It sounds like to me that the parents have lost control which is really sad since the child was only three. I guess my three yr old granddaughter and her Dora CD player would become really good friends at that moment to get her to calm down
Want to bet that the child has never been spanked? It seems to me like this is one instance where someone needed to get her attention so she would listen.
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