The parents would surely sue if the little dear were injured during takeoff.

the little brat won't sit get em off the plane if they are delaying the flight.

sP

The attendant was having some kind of discussion with the parent; all I heard at the end of it was something like" Well, don't blame us if something happens!"

This child carried on for 5 hours. I don't pay hundreds of dollars for migraines.

No problem with the pilot's actions here.

"Flight 850 ... had customers that did not comply with crewmember instructions for a prolonged time period." (emphasis mine)

There's the key: "for a prolonged time period." If they'd been booted for a brief screech-fest or suchlike, then I'd agree that the pilot jumped the gun. But if the parents had conclusively demonstrated their inability to control their toddler's behavior by allowing her outburst to go on and on, then I think it can be argued this was justified.

The rule requiring all passengers to be in their seats and buckled in before takeoff is there for a reason, namely the safety of the passengers. It seems to me it would be even more important for a small child.

I've flown on screaming baby airlines enough times that I'd welcome this.

I think children should be banned from first class. On the Amtrak train too.

rich people should be exempt from screaming kids, they can afford to get an extra seat to put the nanny in the back with the runts.

Screaming kids are one reason I always bring a nice set of noise cancelling headphones, some nice loud music and a good book. Before I had three of the rotten little... I mean lovely creatures I couldn't stand their racket. Now I've trained myself to tune out anything except the dirtbag next to me that always wants to talk about my relationship with Jesus.

*GASP* How did you know my partner is named /Hey-seuss/?

.

...it's on an airplane. I've had enough flights where I've had to deal with asshole passengers - no one should have to deal with this crap while traveling. Flame away.

and it is hard not to empathize with parents who might seem to be doing everything they can to calm an inconsolable or angry child.

I do know that these kinds of situations have the potential to delay, inconvenience, and even cause harm* to hundreds of passengers. As my parents always emphasized, one needs to anticipate these kind of situations and begin the training early. They used to "challenge" my sister and myself with very brief visits to a number of public settings--always prepared to take us out at the first sign of misbehavior. Well behaved children don't come by accident and that should not at all be construed as my insensitivity to the challenges that flying with children present--nor the potential stressors for small children.


* as to "harm", my closest friend missed her parent's funeral mass because of a forced delay from a disruptive passenger (in this case, an adult)... Stuck on the tarmac while the situation resolved, the flight was late enough to miss her only possible connection, which in this case was to a non-hub airport with limited options. While they were able to schedule a second memorial for a few days later, it was without the priest, most of the original attendees, and she missed the graveside ceremony as well. So, yes... sometimes it is more than just a "minor" inconvenience.

Hardly.

Jet Blue made the right call. Why should the rest of the passengers suffer a delay due to an unruly child??

jetblue will continue to receive my business.

Generally, OPs should stick with the original headline.

I tend to post stories that might be LBN in GD instead, just to be able to write my own headline.

Of course, people who comment without going to the original article deserve to be misled.

There's alot we don't know, so it makes it difficult to be certain.

But the suggestion was that this bordered on sustained and recurring problem. From the pilots perspective, he potentially could have a child that ANYWHERE during take off could have repeated the problem. Furthermore, there could be a repeat performance A) at landing time B) during an inflight period of severe air disturbance C) during an emergency including an emergency evacuation. You had one passenger that could have ended up consuming excessive amounts of assistance from the flight crew. The reason that they kick you off if you're "too drunk" is basically because if there is a severe emergency, you can be too hammered to reasonably be able to participate in the emergency activities.

A friend of mine is a pilot. For a long time he flew the 50 seat commuter jets. He basically "saw" every person that got on his plane. Wasn't hard, they weren't always full. He said that he, and the crew, just knew who was going to be the pains. He was doing a "round trip' and on the way back he already knew the air was going to be "rough". He said he saw one guy get on and he just knew he was going to be a problem all the way through. He claimed to even spend a little time seeing if there was anything he could do to get him off.

Sure enough, the guy broke every instruction given. Complained all the way. They made an announcement soon after take off to "get everything you'll need now 'cause the light will be coming back on". The guy left stuff sitting in the aisle, he kept getting up for more stuff, wanted more cabin service even though it had been suspended. Kept hitting the attendant button. Just about anything to piss off the crew.

So you can imagine a pilot that saw a situation with this kid and thought that the best thing he could do was to act while he could.

Anything less is just a WAR ON CHILDREN!

in her little pinkie hat and dress. Cute toddlers get a pass. Homely ones...they gotta get off the plane!

Cute toddler got the boot.

But that's just the opening of a new front on the WAR ON CHILDREN™.

Freaking Guernica on the JetBlue concourse.

Bodies everywhere. Oh the humanity.

I mean, massacred children in batman pajamas is one thing, but massacred little girls in pinkie dresses is quite another.

Not something that I in good conscience would condone.

Pilots of small planes will tell you that they far prefer their passengers of any age seated and calm. Running around screamers make them nervous as shit, and the last thing I want is a nervous underpaid pilot flying me.

Between the extreme lack of personal space (mostly by clueless or just plain socially inept males), the crying babies, the overbooking and the expense, I'm only flying when I absolutely have to; I'm really starting to HATE flying. I hate it so much I'm DRIVING 11 hours to Atlanta this year . . . that'll save me $850 - $1000 (counting what I would have paid in car rental, depending if my son goes or not.

terrible twos. I always cringe when I see a family with toddlers (~18 months - 3 or so). We're lucky that we can do that, I bring my family to visit us rather than have us go to them.

I feel for these families, I know sometimes you have to travel and the kids have to come along. I even try to help them if I can, I'll play with kids if they're near me, I'll console them if their ears hurt. It's nowhere near as hard to work with an infant or a kid over 3 IMO, it's the toddlers and their inability (not their fault) to keep themselves occupied for a long period of time.

It was only from CT to FL so it was not that long a flight but the 3 year old made me nervous. Around that age is when tantrums happen the most. They were great on the plane but a longer flight might have pushed our luck.

shrieking and screaming and running up and down the aisle. The parents utterly failed to even attempt to control her, make her sit down and be quiet, and comply with FAA rules so the flight could depart. Finally when the crew had asked nicely about THREE TIMES they sat her down, but the shrieking continued. It was a major temper tantrum mostly consisting of I DONT WANNA!!!!!!

The pilot finally came back and informed them that the family of 4 (including a quiet infant) would have to exit the plane - it was not safe to take off because the other passengers would have mutinied if we had been forced to listen to another 4 hours of that.

If your children can't or won't control themselves, find another way to get where you are going, folks.

ETA: The temper tantrum went on for at least 2 hours. I was sitting right across the aisle from them. I wanted to kill myself to escape the noise.

OMG. I've had 4 kids. There were a few times my kids have thrown tantrums as toddlers right as you try to buckle them in their carseat. It's not easy to wrangle a child who is kicking then becomes as stiff as a board, and alternates between the 2, into a 5-point harness, but you're right - I just PUT her in it, put the seatbelt around her arms and buckled her. Problem solved. 5 minutes later she was asleep. Maybe the plane needs 5-point harnesses for small kids? Because I can see a kid in a full-blown tantrum wiggling out of those sorry excuse for restraints...I mean lap belts.

Unfortunately, when you are a parent, you learn quickly that your child is prone to certain things at the most inopportune times. If that was my kid, I'd be humiliated, and angry that we missed our flight, but the child was 2 - they really are still babies at that age, just bigger - you can't always blame the child or the parents. I found I was never able to reason with my 2 year olds. When I only had one kid, we went on a plane when she was around 3 and I was SO nervous she was going to have a tantrum (she was prone to having them) but she didn't. The trick is to keep them rested, well fed and occupied. I do feel for the parents, maybe the child didn't normally act like this, this was her worst tantrum ever, they didn't know how to handle it. I dont' know. I feel for them and I feel for the passengers.

I can say thank God for iPads!

My son was terrific during his flight, and no screaming. He always has plenty of choices.

from Chicago to Phila. with a howling 2-year old. Mine. Did absolutely everything I could to calm & quiet her but couldn't because (we discovered afterward) her eardrum had ruptured and she was in agony. I'll never forget the looks of utter loathing from the other passengers. Since then I've been very sympathetic to crying kids and those parents who at least look like they're trying their best.

That said, our kid was buckled in when the light went on, screams or no.

I saw that movie, too.

Dr. Colette Vieau

http://www.everydayhealth.com/doctors/dr-colette_s_vieau_md-12927525

answer. As a pet owner, I considered before when traveling with pets how to handle the stress of the situation for the pets & what I should do "in case" of a problem. The vet gave me mild valium w/instructions on how much to give them. It doesn't give them a headache or put them to sleep, but should've helped keep them calmer. Which is better for me, as well as for them. (the cat needed the valium, the dog did not.)

Pets & children don't analyze and control themselves under the highly stressful situation of traveling. It's boring, stressful, and tiring. It's only logical to carry a drug prescribed by a dr. for the situation. It's kinder for everyone.

and I agree with the decision to boot off the kids.

This isn't a "war on children" for pete's sake. Just common sense.

Why is the child's wants/needs greater than the wants/needs of the other passengers?

It it was an adult behaving the same way, I would do the same thing. Would that then be a "war on adults?"

Departure delays cause problems all the way down the line. Why should some passenger miss a connection because some toddler can't be controlled by her parents? Good call on the pilot's part, IMO.

The family was inconvenienced. Better that than the whole plane.

Edit to add: This was an international flight, to boot. Zero tolerance on international flights. Make a big fuss just before takeoff. You can get off the plane and catch one tomorrow.

Be delayed because some 2 year old throws a fit? A kid being bratty is not the same as a medical emergency or weather or mechanical problem. I don't see why the child worshippers insist everyone else be inconvenienced for one kid.

Truthfully because if her mother would have swatted her butt and sat her in the seat and told her that if she moved again she would get it worse, well, someone would have called social services, the kids would have been put in foster care, and everyone on DU would support the decision because corporal punishment is just WRONG WRONG WRONG!

but if the parents refuse to get their child in her seat (screaming or no), then THEY are the ones who should be inconvenienced. I'd be really pissed if my vacation plans got screwed up because a couple of parents couldn't handle their own kid.

It's pretty much the consensus among anyone who knows anything about parenting. If you have to hit your kid to gain compliance, you're doing it wrong.

The more you try to quiet them down the worse they scream. It's not called the terrible twos for nothing.

Likely this wasn't the first, but the lesson hadn't been learned yet.

our little ones threw one or two 'tantrums' (i doubt they could really be called that) and learned very quickly that the whole tantrum thing doesn't get them anything...

sP

A PEDIATRICIAN and her spouse couldn't keep small child in her seat???

I also want to know why it cost them 2: for an overnight hotel room. Even in the Caribbean.

Which seems like a lot unless they were flying first class or rebooked on another airline?

It didn't say whether they took Jet Blue the next day? Maybe Jet Blue considers that they have used the return trip ticket or they charge them a rebooking fee plus the bump up to a nondiscounted Y class ticket?

Why was it necessary to take the little ones to the Turks, instead of someplace like Myrtle Beach or Disney? Shorter plane trip and MUCH more kid-friendly.

The kids would have been happy with Myrtle Beach or Disney.

The Turks are not a vacation destination that caters to very small children.

and get a prescription for a mild drug to help the children handle the stress of traveling. This is something that I, as a pet owner, do. It's helpful to me, and helpful to my pets. Children can't be expected to handle the stress of traveling like an adult.

The plane shouldn't be delayed because of any passenger that cannot follow basic safety - including a 2 year old.

Edited to add: it's not a war on children, if anything this is a 'war' on unsafe passengers.

Need to see a video of what can happen when a plane hits turbulence and a unbuckled little kid goes bouncing into a hard object head first.

of particular children and perhaps the (usually) frazzled parents.

I have flown alone with 3 boys under 6, and although it felt like flying with three live hand-grenades, we all survived with a minimum of fuss.

This WAS during the "friendly-skies" era, so it was very different. but that said, kids have to know HOW to behave in public, and that takes parental input...and lots of it.

They'd rather turn the plane around instead.

That means, if the seatbelt light goes on, or you are told to prepare for takeoff, prepare or get off.

If you have crap that you are bringing with you that doesn't fit in the space above your seat? Don't fricking bring it. The most annoying thing to me, about flying (children included) are the asses who somehow think they can stow their crap wherever they want, and the crews who let them get away with bringing that oversized stuff on board. And...you have one armrest. Use it. Not mine. On that line, the person who gets stuck with the stupid middle seat gets the armrest on both sides of that seat. It's only fair.

and let passengers check bags for free.

That would solve a lot of the overloaded and oversized carry on problems.

doing one or the other is just screwing someone...or better yet, let's go back to NOT charging for bags! oh, wait...that's not gonna happen since it is a HUGE revenue stream for the airlines...

sP

the carry on bins. It would speed up time at the gate and there would be more room inside the carry on bins.

if you either dropped the fees or made them equal for either carry-on or check then you take away the incentive to abuse the system. as a matter of fact, the way it stands now, people carry bags to the gate that they KNOW they cannot get into an overhead or under the seat and end up gate-checking them to avoid the fees and THAT delays the planes even further.

the airlines could go a long way to solving the problem by 1) enforcing the two bag limit for carry-ons and 2) making people use the little size-wise checkers to make SURE they will fit in the overhead and 3) requiring that if you have two bags, one MUST go under the seat. Do those things and the problem goes away...and if you wanted to throw one more on there, require bags that have to be gate checked due to size or having too many bags be a minimum $100.

sP

They can still carry on one bag.

It would force folks who cram those bags into the bins that don't really meet the size requirements to check those bags.

I got this idea when I watched a family of four cram one carry on for each family member into the bins over two sets of seats. They got to board first since they had small children. And they took up all the bin space for several rows of seats. Never once did they get up during the flight to get anything out of those bags. They were just trying to avoid the checked bag fees. (And I don't blame them for that.) If they had been allowed to check those bags it would have been much easier - for them and for the people sitting near them who needed the overhead bin space.

and some bags you cannot carry on. someone is getting screwed and people are trying to 'game' the system if only one or the other gets hit with the fees. the three steps i listed above would do away with all the problems. two bags per walking person (one plus one small personal item that MUST be able to fit under the seat) and heavy penalties for people who violate that or size requirements.

sP

by 'walking person' i meant people old enough to need a bag...or maybe should have said per seat purchased.

But what do I know, I'm a single, childless selfish guy.

I'm sure I would've got the same treatment if they closed the door and I refused to sit down. Actually it would've been worse, because the cops probably would've been waiting for me when the airbridge was connected back to the plane.

don't take them to fancy restaurants if they don't use appropriate manners, at a minimum they should be 7. I think this generation
is so child centric we think they deserve to go everywhere and discipline is limited.

from the article: "We were holding them down with all of our might, seat belt on. And I said, 'We have them seated. Can we go now?' She said the pilots made a decision to turn the plane around," mother Vieau told NBC 10.

Gee, sounds like BOTH kids weren't under control....and what were mommy & daddy going to do once the plane leveled off? That's right---they were going to let go & unleash 2 out of control kids on the plane.

Once again, good call, Jet Blue.

The pilot was correct in kicking them off.

for children who don't travel well, just as dog owners take this into consideration beforehand.

Children are not adults and get stressed out easily sometimes from traveling. Doctors can help address this ahead of time, for extreme situations like this one.

Parents can be expected to sit and wait for long periods of time while putting up with misbehaving children, but hundreds of other people shouldn't be expected to sit and wait on others who aren't prepared to travel. Everyone has paid for their tickets and everyone is under stress and everyone has schedule to meet.

If more airlines would handle the situation this way, more parents would consider this issue beforehand, so it wouldn't be as likely to happen. But when it does happen, the family can just catch a later flight, after the child calms down or wears herself out from her tantrum.

or just being sarcastic? I'm really curious!

That is a normal thing to do, both for children and for animals.

It helps the children and the pets deal with the stress better and stay a bit calmer. People don't realize how stressful travel can be for little ones and for pets. Children and pets don't understand really what's going on. It's uncomfortable, boring, confining, and irritating to travel. Adults have trouble handling it sometimes, so it's easy to understand how it could get to children and pets. It's not like you can explain to a child or pet, "Now, we're going to be sitting here on the runway for about an hour, so settle in and be quiet and accept it." They won't understand, and even if they would, it's harder for them to deal with that situation.

You plan for this ahead of time, go to the dr. and discuss with him/her, and the dr. will prescribe a low dose medication for calming (you don't knock the kid or pet out or anything). I have done this before travelling with my pets. It's a common thing to do, and an excellent way to help the situation without causing harm. That's if someone really wants to help the situation and care about the child's experience in travelling.

As usual, the internet angryfest misses subtlety. When kids are misbehaving on a plane, there's a range of...

*bad behaviors
*times it takes to resolve such behavior
*efforts put forth by the parents

and I would think that rarely are all these things so far on one end of the scale that booting people off the plane is really necessary. "War on children" is probably overkill, though, when it was just one bad decision at worst. Not everything has to be a war.

The whole world doesn't have to revolve around children, does it?

I think in this case, it is the Children's War on Adults that got nipped in the bud.

The pilot made the right decision.

JetBlue boots incompetent parents unable to control their 2 year old child. If it takes you more than about 30 seconds to get your kid under control you have failed as a parent not only in that moment but in the time leading up to that moment in allowing their brat to believe that the tantrum would serve a purpose.

sP

The family is in RI, the flight went into Boston.

How did the local TV news get involved if not for the family seeking to whine about it? I guess they thought people would think their kids were exempt from FAA rules and instead just showcased for the national media their lack of parenting skills.

"Held them down as long as we could" is just a mind boggling statement for a parent to make in regards to trying to get 2 bratty kids to sit the fuck down and buckle their seatbelts.

LOL!!!

Good for the crew, I would have booted them too.

I often deal with parents who believe society and its rules should not apply to their children and any amount of inconvenience this causes others is irrelevant.