Mike Jacoubowsky

I don't disagree that what happened on the flight seems wrong. But "Mom" becomes, er, wronger, when she writes it up as she has. She failed in her responsibility to see to the needs of her child, by informing the airline ahead of time. And then she does everything she can to offload all responsibility for what happened onto United.

I hate this stuff. There is no "win" to be had, or even a shared understanding.

Tchiowa

You're completely right. And common sense and compassion say to put the child in a child seat firmly strapped into her own seat. This is for her own safety and the safety of every one around her.

ZZYZXROAD

While she may have failed here she probably works harder than all of us combined if she is the caregiver. I will give her the benefit of the doubt for now, that's just me, and your right she assumed too much here.

My kids are healthy and my life is good and I could not imagine a flight in her shoes. Agreed totally blown out of proportion on her side, she should have let it go and not play the disabilities card here. But it's the holidays and I have a soft heart with kids and disabilities, both should have moved on.

Your assuming. I haven't strapped my seatbelt for many flights and me being 6'2 and 270, you need to be more worried about me and not a three year old flying thru the cabin. No one checks my seat belt, the FA just drives by and also assumes.

Common sense says put her in a seat and pray for the best. Compassion says she belongs in her moms arms and she just might be safest there, I don't want to assume since every scenario is unique.

Baze

What is a natural reaction to a hard force acting on your body? Putting your hands out to stop the movement and not hit something. Oops, when you do that you are no longer holding onto the child as well as you probably should be during that event.

HoustonConsultant

The mom and 11 year old have two seats in First and one seat for the 3 year old in coach.

Sounds like the dad and other family members also were traveling.

The answer to the situation is for the mom and 11 year old to move to coach (gifting two coach passengers nice new seats in First), taking the seats in the same row as the 3 year old.

They can assist the three year old in sitting during take off and landing, and then the mother can hold the three year old the rest of the time.

Loren Pechtel

It doesn't sound like they needed to file for an exemption--that seems to be for adults. Rather, they should have used an appropriate restraint system rather than flying on mother's lap.

Loren Pechtel

That wouldn't have fixed it. They needed a restraint system for the kid and they didn't have one. They should not have been allowed to fly.

GSBEWR

Sorry, but it can't work that way. There are reasons that rules are in place, even if most people don't like them. When I was a kid, there were no car seats or car seat rules for children. Now, young children have to be in a car seat. It might be inconvenient, but how many children were injured in accidents before they came up with the car seat rule. And how many lives were saved since because they were in a car seat.

Just imagine if that flight ran into turbulence. Think of the recent AA flight from Tokyo (I am sure many here have seen a video or two). There is no way to be sure that the child, in her mother's arms, would not suffer any injuries.

There are rules and sometimes you need an enforcer to do their job. Otherwise, people could get hurt. The pilot and the FAs cannot pray for the best.

greg99

Here's where I get on thin ice for potentially going OT and disagreeing with your point here, but the problem is not actually the accommodations that the disabled receive when traveling, but rather when people abuse the system.

I will tell you, as someone who is generally healthy but spent several months on crutches a few years back after a bad knee injury (cursed trampolines), and who is about to spend another month or so on crutches and several months in a brace while trying to travel internationally, I received no actual "benefit" from the accommodations. I just got part of the way back to where I would have been in my travel experience had I not been injured.

Here, it seems an awful lot like the mom was either trying to game the system (my hunch), or more charitably, do something that worked multiple times when her child was two, but fails when the child is three. That's the sort of abuse that gives disabled advocates/twitter moms a bad rap.

This mom lives a life that few of us can possibly understand. As I mentioned upthread, I have a child with chronic medical issues, and it makes life complicated. It's nothing like what she endures, however.

I have tremendous sympathy for mom and the life she is forced to lead caring for her child, and believe that she should have every opportunity to take advantage of every opportunity that the FAA and UA provide under their rules. There are numerous opportunities provided to her under the rules.

All that being said, she has to play by those rules. It's when people don't play by the rules (see, e.g. wealthy parents in SoCal hiring disabled persons to escort their families to the front of the line at Disneyland) and disability advocates jump to their defense that they look quite bad.

I think the mom here pushed the line too far, and while I have sympathy for her daily struggles, I don't have sympathy for the fact that she didn't like UA telling her that she had to comply with their (and the FAA's) published rules.

Greg

ZZYZXROAD

Agreed, the laws are way better now and safety for children is top priority. But we are talking about a spastic CP child who might be better served for everyone's safety in her mothers arms. I am not discussing about safety, that's absurd, it's not a normal situation if you ever saw or were around a spastic CP child. I do believe she was 'saving a penny' here but I have to believe a child with this condition on take off would be in her moms arms even if child was seated in Biz with her.

Guys, c'mon now. If the child is unpredictable and unsafe by herself, even if the mother tried to sit them together, everyone's best interest in this case if the mom was holding her. We have all been through a thousand take offs, let's be real here.

greg99

It's not the thousand good take-offs that the FAA spends most of its time worrying about. It's the one bad landing.

Nobody even needs a seat belt for a perfectly smooth flight, let alone a 16G seat, but the FAA mandates the latter anyway (for good reason).

Greg

lexdevil

Of course that doesn't really hold water when the airline in question is United. When my son was two-years-old United thought it was just fine to assign him a seat on the other side of the plane and several rows behind me. Additionally, a couple of years back I had the pleasure of supervising another passenger's pre-schooler when United did not prioritize seating the family together. The number of posts on this subject (and the extreme lack of sympathy of many FTers) cannot be exaggerated.

burr

Per http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/c...bral_palsy.htm

Spastic quadriplegia/quadriparesis (cerebral palsy) is the most severe form of cerebral palsy and is often associated with moderate-to-severe intellectual disability. It is caused by widespread damage to the brain or significant brain malformations. Children will often have severe stiffness in their limbs but a floppy neck. They are rarely able to walk. Speaking and being understood are difficult. Seizures can be frequent and hard to control.

This kid needs to be with his/her parents on their lap. The parents are going through it and the kid has a tough life already including a stroke. Look, I firmly believe in following the rules as it keeps things orderly and sets expectations correctly. But are you really going to give the mom a hard time for holding a kid with unique needs? First class or not I would have let this go. Go after the poachers of E+ or using restrooms in the wrong class but not this.

FlyingNone

This was their return flight back home to New Jersey. I'm assuming they flew United from Newark to Punta Cana on their outbound. If so, no mention is made in the article that they were allowed to have the child travel as a lap child on the way down to Punta Cana. Did FA's ignore/ overlook/ take pity on that trip?

Also there are pertinent details missing and much conflicting information in the article. Did everyone have seats in F class except the child in question? The parent may have made the booking as such but this would have been "caught" at check-in or somewhere along the line. Where was the gate agent and why didn't they get involved ? (Seating issues at the gate are usually referred to gate agents by flight attendants). Sorry, though I feel for this families issues, there should have been one adult assisting the child occupying a seat (regardless of cabin) next to that adult and the rest of the family could have worked out who would be seating in the coach cabin (oldest child) or the other adult. This is just way to much disruption for a planeload of passengers who probably missed their connections at EWR due to the one hour delay.

Mike Jacoubowsky

The situation is certainly unusual and unfortunate. And people shouldn't be questioning whether it's best for the child to be in someone's lap or in a seat without really understanding the specifics. You made an attempt to do so. The mother, on the other hand, should have done so ahead of time, through the petition process others pointed out, that's in place for exactly this sort of thing. The mother could have prevented this situation by following procedures (rules, if you will) that would allow other rules to be circumvented.

Unfortunately, neither mother nor FA were willing to find a way to bring emotions down; both were apparently more than willing to allow them to ratchet all the way up, as far as they could go, because each believed they had the upper hand.

But we cannot dismiss the mother's responsibility to make sure, ahead of time, that the special needs of her child are met. There are established procedures to deal with it. She may not think it's fair that she has to go through such procedures, but it's really not fair to her child if that's the case.

We are not a totally uncaring nation with totally uncaring corporations that willingly and publicly show their disdain for the handicapped. There will always be cost-related issues involved, questions regarding how much a business should be expected to subsidize a special class of customer, but ultimately a business is people, and I cannot believe that United has people across the board that would have a callous disregard for the less-fortunate. Individuals, maybe. Good people having a really bad day, maybe. But this broad-stroke tarnishing of UA, while in some areas might be deserved, isn't merited across-the-board.

We, as a people, as a nation, can't be that bad. Individual actions do not change that. This I believe.