American Airlines controversy

[FlightlessDuck]

What should he have done, grabbed the stroller brought it back to the jetway, then come back to her, take one of the babies while she bucked the other in? What kind of help other than taking her big bulky stroller that wasn't supposed to be on the plane should he have given her?
At that moment his job was to prevent an item not allowed on the plane from getting on the plane. She created that situation for him to deal with. He also gets paid for that.

Taken her bags? Held one of her children?

 

[mom2rtk]

Taken her bags? Held one of her children?

I just can't imagine traveling alone with 2 children if I had to rely on that level of assistance from others.

 

[Hikergirl]

I just can't imagine traveling alone with 2 children if I had to rely on that level of assistance from others.

Exactly, and that is what I was talking about when I said personal responsibility. You either have someone accompany you, or you find another way to travel, one that you can do by yourself.

 

[Soldier's*Sweeties]

Nothing exciting ever happens when I fly...

 

[Hikergirl]

Taken her bags? Held one of her children?

Well you have no idea what he would have done if she had just given up the stroller when he told her she couldn't bring it on board. By refusing she escalated the situation to something beyond normal boarding so you can't say he should have, could have done something differently without acknowledging that she should have, could have too. If she did, maybe he would have grabbed a bag or a child for her. Nobody knows.
Its not all on him (or the airline in general), the three people involved in that situation all acted bad all around.

 

[Hikergirl]

Nothing exciting ever happens when I fly...

You've got 2 kids, you should bring a double stroller with you next time and see what happens.

 

[bcla]

Nothing exciting ever happens when I fly...

I've been on a plane in really crappy weather where the crosswinds were just buffeting the plane during landing and we kind of skidded to a stop in the rain. Most of the passengers applauded once we landed.

Would that be exciting enough?

 

[mjkacmom]

Taken her bags? Held one of her children?

One child was in a carrier, the other pushed in a stroller/car seat combo. Taking the double stroller lessened her load.

 

[mummabear]

I've been on a plane in really crappy weather where the crosswinds were just buffeting the plane during landing and we kind of skidded to a stop in the rain. Most of the passengers applauded once we landed.

Would that be exciting enough?

Come fly into Wellington, it is quite fun to watch people who clearly haven't flown in before. The panic then the relief.

 

[AnnaFloridaLover]

Whether or not she spoke English, one would assume common sense would come into play. I'm also mystified at the loud sobbing. I don't think I've cried that loudly since I was two.

 

[bcla]

Come fly into Wellington, it is quite fun to watch people who clearly haven't flown in before. The panic then the relief.

My flight was Las Vegas to Oakland. They have a single commercial runway, so it's got to be that runway even though there are crosswinds.

There are are of course airports that are crazy landing airports even in everyday weather. Kai Tak in Hong Kong was one of the craziest. There was the approach over a hill, then past buildings. Landings had to come in at an angle and straighten out right at touchdown. Some people would go from around the world just to see planes landing there.

 

[bellebud]

I don't mean to be against the mother, but I can't understand what she didn't understand. She's an adult, she managed to have children, make airline reservations, so I'm assuming she's an intelligent person. She really didn't understand the concept of not being able to bring a stroller onboard? I don't think the language barrier had anything to do with it. I would understand them not allowing my stroller onboard if I were in China. No doubt the employee was a jerk, I just don't understand the mothers intentions. Did she think she could stroll that stroller to her seat?

 

[declansdad]

I'm flying American next month and I'm getting nervous...

Why?

 

[bcla]

I don't mean to be against the mother, but I can't understand what she didn't understand. She's an adult, she managed to have children, make airline reservations, so I'm assuming she's an intelligent person. She really didn't understand the concept of not being able to bring a stroller onboard? I don't think the language barrier had anything to do with it. I would understand them not allowing my stroller onboard if I were in China. No doubt the employee was a jerk, I just don't understand the mothers intentions. Did she think she could stroll that stroller to her seat?

All of the above. It could be that she was used to getting her own way. All reports were that it was a very large stroller.

Strangely enough, it's been reported that she just hired the same attorney who is representing David Dao.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...king-woman-american-airlines-incident-n750081

 

[mmouse37]

Well we flew United right after the "incident" and I am happy to report that we had the nicest FA's and other travelers....everyone was pleasant and had nice smiles on their faces.

We are currently sitting at Redmond, OR airport waiting for our United flight to San Fran. Hope to have the same experience on both our flights from RDM to SFO to EWR tonight.

Happy flying everyone!!!

MJ

 

[dish rag]

I'm flying American next month and I'm getting nervous...

Why?

 

[Kitty 34]

I just copied and pasted my story for a concerned DISer (I had Pm'd) at the end of last summer.......


Let me begin by saying I love to fly and have flown many many times.

So when booking American Airline (for the first time ever) to fly from Detroit to Lawton, OK this past August to visit with my new granddaughter I had no concerns.

Well.....here we go. We had a layover in Dallas for a couple of hours between flights. Right after landing there they had a huge rainstorm which delayed many flights including our little flight to Lawton, OK. Well finally two hours after our scheduled flight we sit watching the count down for boarding. Yay. It got to 2 minutes to board when our Lawton sign at this gate suddenly changed to Boca Raton, FL. Of course we thought it was a fluke in the computer screen. Well after a few minutes someone goes to the desk and slowly word gets around that the Lawton flight has been canceled. They never came over the speaker to announce it. Rude.
We go to the desk as everyone else. The next flight later in the evening and the two flights the next day are offered to us as only stand by. I call my son and make arrangements for him to drive down to get us (a 3 hour trip). So we ask at the desk if we can get our luggage since he's going to pick us up. The guy gets on the phone and a few minutes later says yes we can. However when we go down to baggage claim the lady there makes it very clear that we can only get our luggage (including our carry on that we gave them) at the Lawton airport. So obviously the guy at the gate desk lied to us. So son picks us up, we drive 3 hours to our hotel and the next day drive over to Lawton airport to get our luggage.

Unfortunately that was not the end of our AA story.

We have a beautiful week with our son, DIL and beautiful granddaughter in Altus, OK. Finally we say our goodbyes and our son drives us to the Lawton airport to begin our round trip home to Detroit. We go up to the little desk at Lawton. Very very small airport btw. I give the lady my ID to check us in. She punches keys for a few minutes on her computer and informs us AA has canceled our trip home because we didn't "finish" the trip when coming down. I about had a heart attack. Well, bless her heart and it took her 45 minutes to do so....she got us two seats. Yay! So we board our little flight once again headed to Dallas to get the big flight back to Detroit.

All goes well. We land in Dallas, eat at one of their restaurants and finally board our last leg home!!! ON time!!! Well, for a little bit. We get in the air and about 15 minutes into our flight the pilot comes over the speaker and says we have a sick passenger and we're headed back to Dallas. I feel bad for whomever is sick figuring he must be pretty much dying to turn a huge passenger plane around. Nope. When we land and sit on the tarmac, the guy gets up, grabs his carry on and actually walks off the plane. OKkkkk. All would have been well if they had just gotten us back in the air to Detroit but that didn't happen for two more hours. We just sat there! At one point the pilot says we were too heavy to fly. Really. We seemed to be ok when we took off the first time??? That was just strange.

We finally take off at the time my brother is arriving in Detroit to pick us up. He comes into baggage claim and obviously no baggage, no passengers so he figures he's at the wrong claim. He goes to a desk and they say our plane has arrived. Ah no it hasn't. They keep telling him that story for another hour and a half until they finally figure out it hasn't. Seriously, you can't make this up, it's so nuts!!!

Well we finally do arrive in Detroit at 1:30 am (instead of 10:30). We did arrive alive, tho so I guess that's the good part.

Hope this wasn't too long for you.

Kitty

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

How do people get things onto the plane that don't belong or fit?

No one saw her bring a stroller that was too big?

I just ask as about a month ago I was sitting next to someone who had a bag that was obviously not going to fit overhead. He threw a stink when they tried to take it and let him put it underneath his feet, which it barely fit. I was thinking, why did no one stop him from bringing it on in the first place? Perhaps airlines could avoid these situations if they looked at baggage when they scan tickets in? Maybe that opens up another can of worms? I would rather the altercation happened in the terminal vs the tight space of a plane.

I think in this instance yeah it was probably pretty easy to see the large stroller but during boarding time in my experience it's very fast when you are handing your ticket to the gate agent to scan it or hold your phone up to the scanner. Sometimes the gate agent is going so fast they barely have enough time to grab my ticket and scan before the next customer and nearly all the time I've already crossed the jetway threshold before the ding of the scanner goes off. Their goal is to make the process go by quickly so I doubt they can pay attention to each and everything a person has with them.

Probably a good practice though would be to have someone down at the end of the jetway because often there's a bit of a backup during the actual boarding part and that would give an agent time to glance at what the passengers have.

 

[Pacolovestacos]

Yes, and I imagine she was told that. But hey, she gets first class upgrades until the end of her trip. So it's all good, right?

So if I'm the airline, I'm absolutely making the passenger sign a document that the first class upgrade (or whatever the payment is) is the extent of any and all compensation that the passenger will receive and that they waive their right to seek additional compensation regarding this incident in the future.

Witnesses seem to think that English wasn't her first language, so there's a good chance she didn't understand what she was told. You're allowed to use a stroller on the jetway, but it sounds like she just pushed her way through with all that stuff rather than leaving it with the pile of other strollers and car seats. I mean - she didn't get past the first row of seats with all that stuff, so they were trying to stop her from getting to her seat with all of it.

Language barrier can't be used as a justification to disregard instructions on a plane (or anywhere really).

 

[Mizzoufan]

The passanger to blame in my eyes on this one. Why is it so hard to follow simple instuctions.