January 23 - First sorta "major incident"

4 Day Trip

Layovers in Orlando, Las Vegas, and San Francisco

Our very first flight from Boston to Orlando and there’s already an issue. 

A lady gets on the plane with 2 small children who are SCREAMING at the top of their lungs.    Apparently, the family tried to fly from Providence to Orlando earlier and were kicked off of the flight because the children would not sit down in their chairs and were freaking out.  The mother only speaks Spanish and our F3 (Spanish speaker) talks to her to find out, her son is autistic.  Both children are screaming, the son is kicking the chair in front of him and the F1 is freaking out, threatening to kick them off the flight if they won’t remain seated with their seatbelts fastened. 

A whole team of people comes down to handle the situation - 2 AO’s, a Conflict Resolution Officer (CRO) comes down, and a supervisor.  Customers are getting angry because they’re going to have to hear 2 children SCREAMING for the next 3 hours.  Great start to a 4 day trip.  Did I mention the flight is almost 100% full? 

Eventually, they decide to move the mother and her 2 children to the back of the aircraft because there is 1 open seat and that way, the son will not be kicking the person in front of him.  We move 3 passengers to row 6 and move the family to row 23.  Whew, crisis averted. 

Well, not exactly, now the tv’s in row 6 aren’t working, so the 3 people we moved are pissed they were put in these seats for 3 hours and the people who are now sitting by the children are furious that we moved the screaming kids to the back of the plane.  Screaming kids and now several passengers yelling at us.

We give people free headsets, the people in row 6 free drinks and hope for the best.  What else can we do?

Once we got up in the air, the kids settled down, like the mom told us they would.  They just don’t handle the seatbelts or the change in pressure well.  We ended up having to lock off a lavatory for this family though because the little boy pee’d all over Everything – mirrors, walls, floor, everything.

Turns out, the lady’s father is on life support in Puerto Rico and she’s connecting once she gets to Orlando.  They’re going to pull the plug, but are waiting for her to get there to say her good-bye’s.  She suspects her daughter is autistic too, but the doctors won’t diagnose her because she is so young.  I’m really glad they were able to make it on the plane.  The other passengers ended up being pretty understanding too.

Another thing I learn on this flight is that it’s very common for people to sue airlines, especially when it comes to people with Special Needs.  That’s why so many people came to deal with the situation.  At least that’s what the F1 told me.  I wonder how many lawsuits there are each year.