Anybody who's been on a plane with their kids knows what a job it is keeping everyone happy. Cranky toddlers + airplane + vacation excitement/lack of sleep = disaster. I should know, since as the former wife of an airline pilot I got to travel a lot. Woo! With 3 kids in tow! Traveling stand-by! Which means you never know if you're getting on the plane until the last minute, if at all (you are SO jealous right now, I can tell)!
It also means that I know the drill for having someone removed from a plane. The Captain (pilot) is completely in charge of the plane. After all, he's got your life in his hands. So if he says you're off the plane, you're off. Just like that. No questions asked. The thing is, the pilots mostly stay up in the cockpit, flying the airplane. For which we should be glad. But that means that they're not exactly privy to all that goes on in "the back", where the unwashed masses passengers are. So who's really in charge back there? Why, the flight attendants, of course. Which means that if one doesn't take a shine to you, for whatever reason, there's a chance she/he can convince Mr. Bigshot Pilot to have you thrown off. Because he's got to make a snap judgment, along with pushing buttons and levers and talking to the tower and calculating how much fuel they have and using words like "vector" and thinking about the fight he had with his wife or the flight attendant he'd like to boink or maybe both, based on what some flight attendant, who chances are he's never even worked with before because pilot crews and flight attendant crews travel in different circles, is telling him. And he's got, like, maybe seconds to do this.
So the fact that Kate Penland and her 1.5 year old son Garron were thrown off a Continental ExpressJet flight recently doesn't altogether surprise me. But it does sicken me. According to witnesses, Garron said "Bye plane" repeatedly during the flight attendant's safety demonstration (do you pay attention to those? does anyone? should they? well, yes, but do they? hardly), and afterward the flight attendant leaned in to Ms. Penland and suggested she give Garron drugs to keep him quiet. Before anybody knew what was happening, the plane was taxiing back to the gate to be met by Houston police, who found no altercation and issued no ticket to Ms. Penland, but still she and Garron were forced to deplane.
I'm completely open to the possibility of there being another side to the story. Passengers aren't usually asked to leave planes just willy-nilly; the pilot has to fill out reports and stuff when this happens, and the pilots I know hate paperwork. And toddlers can be hell on planes; I once flew back to the U.S. from Ireland with a screaming 2-year-old who was in pain and could not be soothed by anything despite massive doses of Tylenol, until she finally passed out and all I can say is that I'm very glad they found another seat for the guy in front of us. But in this case, other passengers are saying that Garron wasn't any louder than any of the adult passengers, so what gives? Most flight attendants I've run across are pretty professional and courteous; was this one PMSing? Hates kids? Has hemorrhoids? What, then? You can bet that Continental will be taking a hard look at this, what with all the media attention, and I for one would like the full story. I'd like to be comfortable flying with my kids, not worrying whether one wrong move could get us a free trip back to the airport.
