A Flight Attendant’s Take on How United Airlines “Humiliated” a Family
Sarah Steegar January 06, 2015
The New Year hadn’t even learned to sit up yet when the aviation industry gave us our first travel story to spark outrage and debate. The hot headline centered on one word — “humiliated” — which is what Elit Kirschenbaum feels United Airlines did to her family after a single flight attendant took issue with the family’s unique travel arrangement regarding their disabled child.
I’ve no interest in judging a family in their situation. I do, however, like to take a look at the incidents between passengers and crew that the news chooses to pick up on. I don’t do it to point fingers but because, by default, we only ever get the accuser’s side of the story. These reports never have the crew member’s side because we’re prohibited from providing it to the media. That said, I don’t believe the crew member will always be justified; it just seems fair to look for the missing pieces.
The Kirschenbaums indeed have a bit of a tricky travel situation. Their 3-year-old daughter, Ivy, is a stroke survivor who also suffers from Spastic Quadriplegic Cerebral Palsy. Per FAA regulations, passengers over the age of 2 must be sitting in their own seat for takeoff and landing. Because Ivy is both small and unable to sit up unassisted, the Kirschenbaums usually purchase a seat for her in Coach and fly with her in their lap in Business Class.
This has never caused a problem before but, on this occasion, one particular flight attendant would not allow it. The short story, as reported, is that the entire flight was delayed over the one attendant’s insistence (let’s just call her “Betty”) that it not be allowed, even though the rest of the crew “pleaded” for her to back down.
Things I Note:
The Kirschembaums Were Mistaken About the FAA Rule
The first source of conflict to acknowledge is that the family misunderstood (or was misinformed about) the FAA rule. They were under the impression that passengers over the age of 2 are merely required to have a purchased seat. In actuality, the rule says they have to be in it for takeoff and landing.
I mention this because:
- It legitimately underpins the entire situation.
- It might answer a common question I’ve heard about this incident, which is: Why didn’t the family put Ivy into a car seat (as they presumably do for car travel)?
If Ivy is the Size of a 1-Year-Old, Why Did “Betty” Challenge Her Acceptance as a Lap Child at All?
Maybe “Betty” does that to everyone. I don’t know. It just made me wonder, so I looked at the family photo. I must say, to me, Ivy looks bigger than the 25-pound 1-year-old her mother describes her as. I’m not sure she’s of a size that would lead me as working crew to challenge her age; however, she may be in the grey area size-wise.
Is it possible that Ivy has grown a bit bigger than her mother realizes? It’s possible, but I don’t know for sure. Still, Ivy’s disability would very possibly warrant an exception (see below).
How does one flight attendant hold up a flight if she is not the lead, if the entire crew and pilots are in agreement against her opinion, and if the crew found an exception for disabled passengers in the manual?
This is most strange. If “Betty” was concerned about the letter of the law in the event of an incident, I would think her to be safe from repercussion due to a couple of things:
- The captain generally has the final say.
- If an exception is given in the manual, that’s the FAA’s word right there in black and white. We would never get in trouble for following an exception laid out in the manual.
By the way, the solution that was eventually devised — having Ivy lie belted in across her family’s laps in Business Class — doesn’t technically make sense either for a rule-stickler. Lap children should not be strapped into the parent’s seatbelt, as the child could be crushed between the parent and the belt in the event that something should happen.
As the story is told, fingers could technically be pointed in several directions if that’s what we were after. I think it’s more important to suss out what kind of information might be missing. Whatever the reason “Betty” was able to allegedly (and single-handedly) hold up the whole shebang, I suspect it’s important to the story.
Until these questions are answered, the main thing I’ll be taking away from the “humiliated” story is healthy reminders about handling disabled travelers with tact and compassion, and about reading beyond the headlines. Heaven forbid I should ever be involved in an incident, I hope others would do the same for me.
[Photo: Elit Kirschenbaum via ABC]
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Because the family purchased a seat for her in coach to begin with, this tells me that they knew they may get a hard time for doing what they wanted to do but expected that the hard time was going to be for them not purchasing a seat. The other airline employees should be ashamed of themselves for not sticking by their fellow co-worker who obviously was following the rules. They simply did not want to have a hassle and at the expense of making her look bad they broke the safety rules. I wonder if they would have done the same thing if the family wanted to pitch a fit about their other child needed floor playing room in an exit row? The family should have brought a special car seat for her. They are out there on the market for this! Afterall, do they plan to hold her on their lap in a vehicle as well and everywhere they go?
Rather than attempt to interpret FAA rules themselves, perhaps the parents would have been better served to consult with the carrier BEFORE buying tickets.
A few thoughts... What happens as this child hits 40-50 pounds or more and there is an emergency or sever turbulence? (Think about the AA flight out of ICN a few weeks ago!) If the child cannot be strapped in by themselves, you now have 40-50 pound projectile in the cabin. And you have a child in real danger. No way can I see a non senior FA saying the plane will not takeoff in this situation, while the senior (and I am guessing the captain) saying it is okay. As the captain always has final say, I believe the captain made the call. I am not sure why the family would think it would be okay to put an additional (non-lap) child in business class. I am guessing when their child was a smaller lap child this was a non-issue. But the reality is you should sit in the seat you are ticketed in. The airline could have just hung their hat on this one. I cringed when I heard they strapped the child in with the others under the seatbelt. A strong aborted takeoff could have had serious (sad) consequences to a situation that otherwise would have been a non-issue. Had the family purchased all the seats in coach - or first - and then said she needs to be on the lap, I could see supporting them more in their arguments. From everything read and researched, there appears to be no FAA exception. I know some people are claiming a sort of maybe exception, but there appears to not be one. The family - and others like this family - should be petitioning the FAA for an exception or viable solution. Of course this child should be able to fly - safely.
Other than legitimate risk management issues for the airline and/or crew.... ...if the parents of a young disabled child feel it in the child's best interest to have her sit on their lap, then my goodness why the pedantic adherence to policy? Arguments about safety ring hollow to me, as one should weigh the statistically low risk/probability of an in-flight accident/incident during take-off... (this risk, btw, being not one of it's simple occurrence, but rather the even more unlikely.."what is the probability of an accident/incident of such a nature that the child would've been unharmed in her own seat at take-off, while incurring harm on the lap of the parent....while additionally factoring in the context that all parties involved except the parents are ill-informed as to the capabilities of the child to withstand a solo seat takeoff unharmed and/or untraumitized in the first place"!!) ...vs. the near certainty of at least some degree of physical/emotional trauma to the child and parent if she's forced to sit alone. In short, rules/laws are simply the collective intent of the makers imprecisely represented in words, and incapable of addressing every situation that might arise. Hence a primary need for judges. In this case, "Judge Betty" did a very poor job of interpreting intent, IMO, instead clinging to the words, while seemingly ignoring the human interest context that called for a more liberal extension of policy. JMO. And btw..I'm not some wide-eyed idealist. I recognize the lawyers(no offense) have compelled us to shuck judgement in favor of robotic regurgitation of policy...but I submit that while we might be a bit safer...we're also, in many ways, a lot poorer for it as humans. Off my soapbox.
I thought that this was a compassionate, but wise, view from the parent of a child with special needs on the stuation: We do not need to cast aspersions on the parents' intentions, or minimize their difficulties, to conclude that they may have made good faith mistakes that created the incident.