No comments from DL as to how their flight went?

What's wrong with acknowledging you can't handle something and sending the business to another provider who may be able to do a better job.

I have very strong respect for companies that do this. Don't bite off more than you can chew...

No. The news article that I read said that all the mother said her kid needed was some hot food. Noodles are hot food. If the kid is that picky then she clearly couldn't fly. And when the kid finally got hot food she was fine - that's the crux of the complaint. We're talking about airline food here - clearly nutrition was never a factor.

If it was, then I condemn her horrible judgement. Wrong place, wrong time.

Thats how I read the quote.

The mother changed her wording between interviews. The earlier version (see below) can't be that helpful to her case.

By the way, I don't think threatening to scratch the flight crew is any more acceptable than threatening to scratch other passengers.

Emphasis is mine.

how tough is to restrain that girl if she did end up overreacting? I wonder if a sleeping pill is more prudent for such cases. (don't know what the medical ethics are for such a case).

And from what I read in one of the accounts, the mother did offer to pay for the meal.

While the burden of this situation lies more on the parents, it seems based on another flyer's account, except for one drama queen passenger a few rows ahead, most of the passengers around that autistic kid didn't seem bothered for their safety. And if you placed the girl between the parents, how would she even be able to scratch another person outside the family?

Here is another passenger (not just the other flyertalker and the guy who filmed it):
Seems like the FAs again using terrorism as an excuse to get paranoid about safety threats and inconveniencing passengers who didn't seem bothered by this. While some people don't mind seeing their precious time wasted in the name of a trivial security risk, I do.

She didn't have an episode/fit/outlash (not sure what the right term to use is) so of course no one was bothered by her sitting there. But when she stands up and digs her nails into the person in the row in front's face?

What if she had the e/f/o 5 min later? How much time was left on the flight? Would a screaming (near) adult who is being forcibly restrained by her parents for 2-3 hours something the plane needs to go through?

You are correct, ALL the burden lies on the parents to determine if their child can travel by air safely. It is not the airlines burden to accomodate the mother's demands or threats.

Odds are that most of the other passengers around them have very little knowledge of flying rules and regulations and will sympathize with the family because they are ignorant of the seriousness when a passenger that becomes unmangeable during a flight.

It is very selfish of the family to subject all the other passengers to this type of trouble when they know the risks of traveling with the daughter.

The issue is not her creating a scene. The issue is the threat of violence. I would support UA in saying she is not allowed to fly again.

Parent of autistic child here:

UA was wrong to divert the flight. It was apparent that the child had calmed down, was not bothering anyone, and the crew was obviously not trained to handle someone with this kind of disability. I don't blame them personally, but more suitable training would have gone a long way.

Mom was 100% wrong to throw out the "scratching" bit. Once you cross that line, in the minds of FA, crew, etc it incorrectly gets pigeon-holed into the "this pax is a threat" mindset. It's the same reason that you never argue with a FA, TSA, etc no matter how wrong they are because you're invariably going to get the "do you want to fly today?" line. My 5 year old daughter still cannot drink well from an open cup - juice boxes are a requirement. TSA is hit and miss on getting them through security, but I always bring at least one extra for the TSA to open up and smell/examine/make me drink, etc. If I ever got a super-uptight TSA agent that simply refused them through in their entirety, it would be a problem. Thankfully, it never has. Could it? Sure. Is that reason for us to never fly? No.

I've flown with my daughter multiple times and she's never had a problem. However, despite the best planning, sometimes things happen and it's not the parents fault. I wouldn't expect anyone who doesn't parent an autistic child to understand this so I won't take personally several of the ignorant comments I've read on this thread...because I don't think it comes from a place of malice, merely ignorance.

I don't think that's the case here.

Look at it from the FA's perspective, particularly given the dysfunctional fear culture we have post-merger.

1. Serving the hot F meal as requested to calm the situation may result in disciplinary action.

2. Alerting the captain to the issue and having him make a call to divert the plane results in a large expense, a PR disaster, and 150 annoyed customers.

#1 is the "right thing to do" to go above and beyond, but that's frowned upon by the company. #2 is the safer thing to do from a liability perspective, and also the crew's perspective.

I think the crew acted completely as the company wants them to.


The crew needs do the right thing in a circumstance that arises, and when they make a call at 36,000 feet.

I suspect in this case the FA was trying to avoid a diversion! Putting food into the ovens that isn't specifically intended to be put in them leads to the potential for burning the item - and once there's smoke, there's almost certainly a divert on the cards. I don't know a specific policy on this one, but I wouldn't at all be surprised if it's completely not allowed to do so.


They really don't have a choice. The moment you're removing someone from a packed plane against their will there is always the risk of non-compliance, and especially when there has already been a threat of violence (regardless of it's actual form) then not having police involved would be asking for a further lawsuit if something went wrong as they were removed from the flight

UA do not fly SLC-PDX, so the only options for a direct flight were DL and AS. Presumably the child was fed before this flight, so the chances of a "meltdown" were significantly lower...

The decision to remove the family from the plane was done in the best interest of the safety for everyone. The safety card trumps all others. Period.

The mother should have.... the FA could have ....

I do not care about the should have, could have, would have and neither do most other travelers. We care about safely arriving at our destinations.

The family is extremely selfish to think that their daughter and her issues trump all other policies, including safety.

The child was ok again in that moment. Earlier there was a threat of violence. Who is to say that in 10 mins the situation might have changed yet again? So they start a diversion a second time? Oh, then it gets better again... so they continue on..oh wait, another episode! Sorry but once the mother brought up the idea that scratching could occur, its game over.

^^^^