ExpressJet Baby Removal Update (well, kinda)

No one has a right to travel on an aircraft, a boat, a car, a bus, subway, train, whatever.

Tomorrow, when I commute to work, they can legally come in back, point at me and say, "Hey you, get off" and I've got to go.

Any legal recourse? Zero.

And I work for the airline! :)

Let's not confuse "entitlement" with "rights" because they're mutually exclusive.
 
tonyw said:
No, you don't.

There is no right to travel by airplane.
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If the airline sells tickets to kids, and the travelers purchased tickets and are in compliance with the Contract of Carriage, then the airline is bound by that Contract to provide transportation.

If the airline chooses not to sell tickets to kids, or if they are in violation of the Contract of Carriage, then they don't have the right to travel.
 
MQAAord said:
If the airline sells tickets to kids, and the travelers purchased tickets and are in compliance with the Contract of Carriage, then the airline is bound by that Contract to provide transportation.
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Can't they just give a refund and be done with it?

I think they can but I'm not sure.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not one of those no kids on my flight people but I don't think anyone's got a right to travel on any form of transportation if it comes right down to it.
 
Doug Taylor said:
If the passenger was speaking/screaming/whatever louder than the safety demo and the person responsible for that passenger would not (could not?) comply with a reasonable request to placate the child long enough to continue the legally required safety demonstration, the flight attendant doesn't have much of a choice.
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No one is disagreeing with the rules. What some of us are saying is that we don't know that anyone broke any rules (except for DH's rule number 2!). And to take a TV appearance and infer from one's perception of what constitutes bad behavior, tantrums and an inability to control a child, that the rules were, indeed, broken is not valid.

None of us were there. We don't know how loud the child was speaking. We don't know that it interfered with the safety demonstration. We don't know that the request to "shut up" occurred during the demonstration or after the demonstration. There have been televised statements from witnesses who say the request was after the announcement, the child was not disruptive, and that the FA was indignant. But we do not have the benefit of questions from someone other than a reporter. We do know the plane was delayed for a considerable amount of time. So the FA needed to have a really convincing argument to get the captain to turn the plane around and we hope that the captain had enough experience to know to thoroughly get the true facts before doing so.
 
Flights delayed on taxiways make the news because people claim they have rights.

Then when a flight attendant does something that makes 99% of the plane happy, it makes the news.

I don't get it.
 
MQAAord said:
If the airline sells tickets to kids, and the travelers purchased tickets and are in compliance with the Contract of Carriage, then the airline is bound by that Contract to provide transportation.

If the airline chooses not to sell tickets to kids, or if they are in violation of the Contract of Carriage, then they don't have the right to travel.
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Therein lies the rub...

The contract of carriage is pretty broad:

http://www.continental.com/web/en-US/content/contract.aspx

The Safety clause pretty much can be used as a "catch all"...

RULE 21 REFUSAL TO TRANSPORT
XX shall have the right to refuse to transport or shall have the right to remove from the aircraft at any point, any Passenger for the following reasons:​
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H) Safety – Whenever refusal or removal of a Passenger may be necessary for the safety of such Passenger or other
Passengers or members of the crew, including, but not limited to:

 1) Persons whose conduct is disorderly, offensive, abusive, or violent;
 2) Persons who fail to comply with or interfere with the duties of the members of the flight crew, federal regulations, or security directives;
 3) Persons who assault any employee of CO, including the gate agents and flight crew, or any CO Passenger;
 4) Persons who, through and as a result of their conduct, cause a disturbance such that the captain or member of the cockpit crew must leave the cockpit in order to attend to the disturbance;
 5) Persons who are barefoot or not properly clothed;
 6) Persons who are unable to sit in a single seat with the seat belt properly secured, unless they comply with Rule 6 I);
 7) Persons who appear to be intoxicated or under the influence of drugs unless the appearance of such condition is solely due to the person being a Qualified Individual with a Disability, in which case boarding
 will not be denied;
 NOTE: If CO determines a passenger has engaged in the activity(ies) enumerated in will constitute a Breach of the Contract of Carriage. 8) Persons who wear or have on or about their person concealed or unconcealed deadly weapons; provided, however, that CO will carry law enforcement personnel who meet and conditions established in U.S. F.A.R. 108.11;
 9) Persons who are manacled;
 10) Persons who have resisted or may reasonably be believed to be capable of resisting custodial
 11) Pregnant Passengers expecting delivery within seven days, unless such Passenger certificate dated no more than 72 hours prior to departure stating that the doctor has the Passenger to be physically fit for air travel to and from the destination requested flight and that the estimated date of delivery is after the date of the last flight;
 12) Persons with a communicable disease or infection known or reasonably believed by threat to the health or safety of others in the course of a flight. If a Qualified Individual with such communicable disease or infection presents a medical certificate (dated within the date of the flight for which it is being presented) to CO with specific conditions person can travel and not pose a direct threat to the health and safety of other persons, be provided to such individual unless it is not feasible for CO to implement the conditions medical certificate as necessary to prevent the transmission of the disease or infection the normal course of flight;
 13) Persons who fail to travel with the required attendant(s) pursuant to Rules 14 and 15.

 14) Persons who do not qualify as acceptable Non-Ambulatory Passengers. See Rule 14.​
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1, 2, and 4 could have easily worked in this situation even if the mother's situation was 100% true.

Bob
 
tonyw said:
Can't they just give a refund and be done with it?

I think they can but I'm not sure.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not one of those no kids on my flight people but I don't think anyone's got a right to travel on any form of transportation if it comes right down to it.
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I'm not talking about "rights" on a grand constitutional scale or anything. I'm focusing on the act of buying a ticket, which is entering into a contract with the airline for the purpose of transportation from Point A to Point B. Once that contract is entered into, refusal on the airline's part to fulfil that has to have a "reason". They can't just say "you're not traveling with us today, here's your money back, have a nice day." If there's a reason to deny boarding (say, appearing to be intoxicated), now that's different.

For some interesting reading, go to an airline's website (I used AA's), look for the Contract of Carriage, or Conditions of Carriage. You may have to do a 'search' to find it, but it's worth reading.
 
Captain_Bob said:
Therein lies the rub...

The contract of carriage is pretty broad:

http://www.continental.com/web/en-US/content/contract.aspx

The Safety clause pretty much can be used as a "catch all"...

1, 2, and 4 could have easily worked in this situation even if the mother's situation was 100% true.

Bob
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The clause IS pretty broad. But going only by the mother's tale of what happened I don't think the kid was in non-compliance. Other pax have said the kid wasn't an annoyance or causing a scene.

Again though, I wasn't there, and I still refuse to take a side yet.
 
Doug Taylor said:
Just to tilt the discussion back to the issue at hand.

Mothers, fathers, childless people, let's extract the emotion out of the discussion because the rules are clear:

If a passenger interferes with a crew member's duties, refuses to comply with federal regulations (staying seated for argument's sake), appears intoxicated, unruly or engaging in misconduct, the passenger will be removed if the request to discontinue the behavior isn't heeded.

The FOM makes no distinction about age, physical/emotional condition or anything else.

If the passenger was speaking/screaming/whatever louder than the safety demo and the person responsible for that passenger would not (could not?) comply with a reasonable request to placate the child long enough to continue the legally required safety demonstration, the flight attendant doesn't have much of a choice.

I apologize for the sterile nature of my post.
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Gee, Doug, aren't you glad you started this thread? :rolleyes:
 
Nick said:
Flights delayed on taxiways make the news because people claim they have rights.

Then when a flight attendant does something that makes 99% of the plane happy, it makes the news.

I don't get it.
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I don't understand this post. Who said the flight was delayed on a taxiway? The flight was delayed for hours in the airport.

Who said anyone claimed they had rights? I never read that anywhere or heard it on any of the telecasts.

Who said the FA made 99% of the plane happy? I saw telecasts of passengers complaining about her. That would negate your 99% claim.

Geez, stick to facts not your preconceived opinions.
 
HRDiva said:
I don't understand this post. Who said the flight was delayed on a taxiway? The flight was delayed for hours in the airport.

Who said anyone claimed they had rights? I never read that anywhere or heard it on any of the telecasts.

Who said the FA made 99% of the plane happy? I saw telecasts of passengers complaining about her. That would negate your 99% claim.

Geez, stick to facts not your preconceived opinions.
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I do not mean that this flight was delayed on a taxiway.

I was relating one recent group of airline news stories to this one. They bring on passenger after passenger in front of the news camera and they talk about how they have rights to go inside the terminal after 3 hours because the FAA won't give their flight a wheels up time. On the flip side, this flight attendant attempts (maybe her good intentions weren't the best decision but she was trying) to eliminate a problem on board and everyone turns it into a negative event. A Continental Express flight attendant goes through at least as many groundstops as the rest of them if not more, they are alone back there in a small cabin and if they feel like something isn't going to go well over the course of what could be the next 6 hours on an ERJ then she did what she thought was right and had them taken off.

I'm just saying that I think it's a little ridiculous how the airlines will not currently get ANY positive publicity right now and a decent portion of it is not their fault.
 
HRDiva said:
Who said the FA made 99% of the plane happy? I saw telecasts of passengers complaining about her. That would negate your 99% claim.

Geez, stick to facts not your preconceived opinions.
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At the time, returning to the gate makes people angry. They are spending extra time and they'll takeoff later because of it.

Had they had boarding time plus a 3 hour groundstop followed by 3 hours in the air for a total of 6-7 hours on an RJ next to a screaming child (not a wild exaggeration by any means), I guarantee they'd meet their friends and relatives at the curb of the destination and have to vent about what a horrible experience they just had.

It would have been bad publicity/word-of-mouth either way.
 
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