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Woman claims UA flight attendant forced infant daughter to sit in dangerous position

Woman claims UA flight attendant forced infant daughter to sit in dangerous position

Old Jun 13, 2018, 4:16 pm
  #31  
 
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Originally Posted by Kevin AA
Maybe a law that provides for statutory damages of $1,000 from an airline employee to a passenger when they pull this crap would cut it down a lot. That would be nice to get a thousand bucks every time a FA lies to you and tells you to put your dog in the overhead bin, or install the carseat backwards, or whatever stupid and false reason they come up with just to mess with you and make you miserable. Complaining to UA is tilting at windmills. Financial punishment is the only thing that will work IMO.
That's kind of silly - no evidence otherwise that they made genuine mistakes. Although I wish I lived in a perfect and mistake free world - that isn't reality.
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Old Jun 13, 2018, 7:21 pm
  #32  
 
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Originally Posted by geminidreams
No they were not 100% wrong. A car seat in a car is secured in a frame that is locked down. That does not exist in an aircraft so the alignment does not really make much difference. If the baby is strapped in the capsule the capsule will provide as much protection in either direction and unless you have a bundle of crash tests done like they do for cars you would be hard pressed to prove different.
the main reason infants should be rear facing is because they better protect against crash loads most likely to occur. That is a force from front to back , E.g. frontal collision.
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Old Jun 13, 2018, 9:48 pm
  #33  
 
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OK...Devils Advocate here... so.... here is the airline being castigated because the FA involved apparently made an infant travel in a way that was "not safe"

Yet whenever "lap children" are discussed here we see a LOT of defence of the practice....because (I assume) the chance of ANYTHING happening is so very slim....even though I doubt ANYONE would actually suggest a child on a lap IS in any way "safe".

Conclusion? Airlines can't do anything suboptimal for child safety.... Parents CAN. Sound about right?
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Old Jun 13, 2018, 9:53 pm
  #34  
 
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Nevermind….
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Old Jun 13, 2018, 9:53 pm
  #35  
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Originally Posted by trooper
Yet whenever "lap children" are discussed here we see a LOT of defence of the practice....because (I assume) the chance of ANYTHING happening is so very slim....even though I doubt ANYONE would actually suggest a child on a lap IS in any way "safe".
The FAA has declined to require that infants travel in their own seats, as they've calculated that the increased expense would cause enough families to drive instead of flying that it would be a net negative overall for child safety.

I'm not sure I've seen a ton of defense of the practice, so much as a deference to each family's own budgetary calculus.
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Old Jun 13, 2018, 10:43 pm
  #36  
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Originally Posted by trooper
OK...Devils Advocate here... so.... here is the airline being castigated because the FA involved apparently made an infant travel in a way that was "not safe"

Yet whenever "lap children" are discussed here we see a LOT of defence of the practice....because (I assume) the chance of ANYTHING happening is so very slim....even though I doubt ANYONE would actually suggest a child on a lap IS in any way "safe".

Conclusion? Airlines can't do anything suboptimal for child safety.... Parents CAN. Sound about right?
you said it yourself - FA (or based on my reading of the article, really GA, who apparently was pulling the authority card here) made the infant travel in a way that was less safe. It wasnt their decision to make...period, full stop.

What one family does vs. another isnt really relevant...at all. This particular family purchased a seat for their infant, and rightfully so, expected their child could sit in the safest way possible. The FA/GA didnt let that happen. It was completely wrong, presuming the seat was certified for air travel, which there doesnt seem to be any dispute on.
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Old Jun 13, 2018, 11:26 pm
  #37  
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Originally Posted by HNLbasedFlyer
That's kind of silly - no evidence otherwise that they made genuine mistakes. Although I wish I lived in a perfect and mistake free world - that isn't reality.
The vast majority of people claim "mistake" when they try to screw over someone and get caught.
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Old Jun 13, 2018, 11:30 pm
  #38  
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Originally Posted by trooper
OK...Devils Advocate here... so.... here is the airline being castigated because the FA involved apparently made an infant travel in a way that was "not safe"

Yet whenever "lap children" are discussed here we see a LOT of defence of the practice....because (I assume) the chance of ANYTHING happening is so very slim....even though I doubt ANYONE would actually suggest a child on a lap IS in any way "safe".

Conclusion? Airlines can't do anything suboptimal for child safety.... Parents CAN. Sound about right?
Because lap infant is free, but you have to buy a ticket to use a car seat. If a customer buys a second seat for the car seat, the customer should be able to install the seat the proper way, which is rear-facing, without some clueless gate agent interfering.

The staff either need to learn this basic fact about carseats, or just shut up and pretend to be there for our safety.
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Old Jun 13, 2018, 11:32 pm
  #39  
 
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Originally Posted by Kevin AA
The vast majority of people claim "mistake" when they try to screw over someone and get caught.
Huh? Really? So, you think the FA deliberately just did this for fun and knew otherwise - and just trying to as you put it "screw someone over"?

I just don't buy into line of thinking that Flight Attendants and crew in general - and gate attendants - employees in general, are out to get us on purpose. I live my life believing they have a difficult job and do the best they can.
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Old Jun 14, 2018, 12:27 am
  #40  
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Originally Posted by HNLbasedFlyer
Huh? Really? So, you think the FA deliberately just did this for fun and knew otherwise - and just trying to as you put it "screw someone over"?

I just don't buy into line of thinking that Flight Attendants and crew in general - and gate attendants - employees in general, are out to get us on purpose. I live my life believing they have a difficult job and do the best they can.
Everyone makes mistakes. I am not disagreeing with that. The problem is that UA staff have a "screw you" attitude with the customer, even when it's blatantly obvious who's right like this case. They enjoy abusing their power, and they need to be held accountable.
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Old Jun 14, 2018, 8:24 am
  #41  
 
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Originally Posted by ctownflyer
UA also has an unpublished rule banning carseats in Polaris. It will also wind up biting them one day.
I don't think the car seats are allowed in seats with shoulder harnesses.
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Old Jun 14, 2018, 11:11 am
  #42  
 
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Originally Posted by Kevin AA
Maybe a law that provides for statutory damages of $1,000 from an airline employee to a passenger when they pull this crap would cut it down a lot. That would be nice to get a thousand bucks every time a FA lies to you and tells you to put your dog in the overhead bin, or install the carseat backwards, or whatever stupid and false reason they come up with just to mess with you and make you miserable. Complaining to UA is tilting at windmills. Financial punishment is the only thing that will work IMO.
um, this statement is just not accurate with the events that were reported.
FA made a mistake, Pax called them on it, fixed the mistake, flew the flight, then made a complaint to the airline, complaint was fixed, then pax went to social media.

In other news, I ordered chicken, it came back uncooked. I told the waitress; she doubted me then showed it to a different waitress who brought me new chicken. I ate it, got my meal refunded-then tweeted about it and it made national news.
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Old Jun 14, 2018, 2:55 pm
  #43  
 
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Originally Posted by jsloan
The FAA has declined to require that infants travel in their own seats, as they've calculated that the increased expense would cause enough families to drive instead of flying that it would be a net negative overall for child safety.

I'm not sure I've seen a ton of defense of the practice, so much as a deference to each family's own budgetary calculus.

This. There is no doubt that lap children are dangerous. They are a 10-30ish pound unsecured (physics overrules even the strongest of parents arms at some point) object that will become airborne in a crash landing or even severe enough of turbulence. But not every passenger has a lap child and therefore it has been allowed as an acceptable risk.

Flying is FAR safer than driving and the number of yearly infant deaths due to being a lap-child pales in comparison to driving. (have there really been any besides the United Iowa crash?) i.e instances were belted passengers survived an event but lap children did not.

So are you taking a risk having a child as a lap infant? Yes. Is it less of a risk than then drive to the airport? Yes.

Originally Posted by spin88
this is dangerously wrong. Car seats can be held in place, and in nearly all cases are, by seat belts. They are designed for three point harnesses, but can be secured with two, and are designed that way so they can be used in airplanes and in some auto applications (older cars) w/o three point belts. It is sub-optimal.

Many FAs (and not just on UA, but all airlines) can have some weird ideas around the rules on Kids.
Car seats are FAR safer than being a lap child. Airlines should be encouraging rather than discouraging them. I bet it would be revenue neutral to positive, if you allow parents to "upgrade" a lap child to a seat for 50% off adult ticket. Most flights go out with at least 1 empty seat.


Originally Posted by emcampbe

I don't think anyone suggested it's the captain's duty to personally check all infants on the plane. However, they are the highest authority to make sure passengers are safe, and the FAs are the front line. Far from 'personally checking' infant seats onboard, they are definitely ones that should be brought in during a dispute, which clearly happened in this case.

FAs also shouldn't be enforcing anything based on what 'they think' is policy. If they aren't 110% sure, they should be referencing their manuals, which almost certainly doesn't require car seats to be forward facing.
Made up policy is the worst policy. Don't guess. Check.

Bingo. Captain is the boss of their AC. Period.

Last edited by pfpdx; Jun 14, 2018 at 2:58 pm Reason: one more sentence.
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Old Aug 14, 2018, 4:42 pm
  #44  
 
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This happened to me so many times that I ended up writing an educational/research doc about infant safety onboard of an airplane. Why, how, death stats, etc.

Children HAVE DIED in the past because they weren't properly secured.

It's extremely frustrating to have to argue with FAs about infant safety. Especially if the airline isn't registered with FAA and does not need to comply.
Being a parent that tries to keep their baby safe in their aft facing car seat literally requires you to have to argue with FAs on every other flight or so. Sometimes even with GAs, because they don't always want to comply with FAA and put the car seat into window seat.

Originally Posted by geminidreams
In a car the seat is locked into a frame secured in the vehicle. In an aircraft it does not. To say that is 100% wrong for the child to facing forward is incorrect as the securing systems and conditions are not the same as a car. Without a whole lot of simulations on all variety of crash conditions there is no way to determine survivability or likelihood of injury based on orientation as it is an aircraft and not a car. So my point is they baby is far more likely to survive in a capsule in the event of a crash and the orientation is likely to make little difference to the outcome. Certainly the outcome is likely to be much better than a baby sitting in a lap.
There are sled test videos (with infant crash test dummies) of simulated airplane crash landing that shows you why rearfacing is a must for any infant in any forward driving vehicle, not just a car.

Last edited by WineCountryUA; Aug 14, 2018 at 10:12 pm Reason: new members are not allowed external links/references
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