12:45pm July 14, 2013

➸ Family Says They Were Booted From JetBlue Flight Because Autistic Child’s Behavior Deemed “Potential Danger” – Consumerist

campdracula5eva:

goldenheartedrose:

vincenzof:

goldenheartedrose:

vincenzof:

This a toughie.

On one hand, I don’t understand why JetBlue didn’t do the right thing and move people around as needed to accomodate this family.

But on the other hand, when you’re making your reservation (either by phone, or particularly online) you can pick your seats. If there were no seats together, pick another flight if it’s that big of an issue with your special needs child.

I’m not letting JetBlue off the hook here, but honestly, if you knew your seats weren’t together or you couldn’t get seats together, and you knew it was going to be that big of an issue for your flight, there’s no reason in hell you should’ve been on it. Period.

And if you were going to request a seat change, you should’ve done so before you ever even boarded the plane via the person at the boarding desk.

This could’ve been handled better by both parties. JetBlue should’ve been more flexible, and the family should’ve been more pro-actively prepared.

Number one, that isn’t always an option. I traveled alone with my two kids 3000 miles. On two of the flights, our seats were changed without notice and we flew five hours with my then three year old son two rows behind me and my daughter next to me. I even pulled out both my reservation and my kids’ diagnosis paperwork, and they said, “autism isn’t a real disability". I’m sorry, but those fellow passengers are also really awful. On the second flight, the airline wouldn’t budge, but the passengers helped by switching so I could sit with my three and four year old.

Also, a potential danger? ? If she was already melting down and wasn’t harming others, I seriously doubt she would have hurt anyone.

Okay in regards to number one, there’s no evidence whatsoever that that happened here, so it’s moot. On the second one, that’s just people being dicks, but that’s not the airline’s fault.

I was on a flight once, sitting at a window in first class. My wife had a seat a row ahead on the other side at a window. They fucked up. A married couple got on the plane and weren’t sitting anywhere near each other, and after re-arranging the entire first class cabin (under our own initiative, not the airline’s initiative) everyone ended up happy and sitting next to who they wanted to. It took 10 minutes of maneuvering but we all ended up on a happy flight from Vegas to NY.

My point? When people want to work it out they can. I admit JetBlue was being dicks, but it wasn’t US Air (in our case) that re-arranged us in first class, it was us. We did it alone.

And I still think that if you know your kid has issues of separation to that degree that it might cause a meltdown, you have an obligation to:

1. Make sure you book seats together and do not allow your seats to be changed.

2. Speak to the ground and air crew before ever boarding the plane and inform them of the situation and how important your seating actually is.

3. Be willing to use alternate means if the airline’s being a dick (which they ended up doing anyway).

“Do not allow your seats to be changed”? Right, because you can control what the airline does? And if you have a time limit or a connecting flight, well, tell me how you presume to deal with that without dropping another several hundred dollars?

Most airlines have it in their T&C that they can change seats whenever they damn feel like. Seriously, read the small print when you buy tickets. It is NOT as simple as “don’t let them change your seats".

A lot of airlines also have vague references to ‘disruption’ in there too, allowing them to boot people from planes as long as they can make enough of an argument for ‘disruption’.

Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that airlines are really sneaky little bastards when it comes to these kinds of things and none of this is that family’s fault.

Also, you have to buy the tickets before you can pick seats.

Most people can’t afford to buy tickets multiple times until the seats they want are available.

This is a problem that could’ve easily been solved by the airline, and they chose not to. This is not complicated.

“Move to a different seat if someone disabled needs yours” is a basic principle of etiquette, and I have zero sympathy for a planeful of people who refused.