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San Jose mom and cranky 2-year-old kicked off Southwest flight

By Lisa Fernandez

lfernandez@mercurynews.com
Posted: 10/29/2009 04:34:00 PM PDT
Updated: 10/30/2009 03:02:17 AM PDT

Pamela Root's 2-year-old son was screaming for the Southwest Airlines plane to "Go! Plane! Go!"

"I want Daddy!'' Adam shouted. Over and over again.

Despite her embarrassment, the stay-at-home San Jose mom remained confident that once the plane took off and she fed him, Adam would calm down and take a nap — just as he had on the half-dozen other plane rides with Mom.

The flight crew wasn't willing to find out.

Root and her son, Adam, were on their way home to San Jose when they were kicked off Monday's Southwest Flight 637.

"I left, rather embarrassed,'' Root said Thursday. "Then, I was so mad, I almost cried.''

With her luggage heading back home without her, Root was stuck in
Have Your Say!

* Would you kick the mom and child off the plane? Vote and comment

Amarillo, Texas, and forced to buy a portable crib and diapers and stay another night with her parents. Still fuming, she wants Southwest to apologize and compensate her for the flight and things she bought. Adam's father, Mike Root, a software engineer at Symantec, who was waiting for them in San Jose, is also livid.

Southwest, with its fun and family-friendly reputation, immediately began looking into the matter on Thursday at the request of the Mercury News. Spokeswoman Marilee McInnis said it's "very rare'' to ask someone to leave a flight, and especially "unusual'' to remove a crying child.

Root, 38, said she thought she had a foolproof flying routine with her son. Wait until takeoff to feed Adam so his ears wouldn't hurt.
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Then get him to take a nap on the flight. The routine always made him a bit cranky but never out of control, she said. There was always the bag of trucks and books about trucks for a backup.

Monday, Adam was more than a little cranky. There were annoyed looks from fellow passengers, Root said. Then the captain made a surprise announcement: The plane would return to the gate because of a "passenger issue.'' At first, she dreaded what sounded like a delay. Then, she discovered the passenger was Adam. Suddenly, they were being escorted off the plane by an attendant who told Root something to the effect of: "We just can't tolerate that for two hours.''

"He'll be fine once we take off,'' Root remembers insisting.

"We've heard that before,'' the flight attendant told Root.

Like most other airlines, Southwest gives its flight attendants discretion in determining what constitutes a "safe and comfortable'' flight, McInnis said. And they give attendants leeway in figuring out how to "resolve'' situations.

Other airlines have similar rules. United Airlines spokeswoman Sarah Massier said United has three pages of what they call "right-of-refusal" reasons. "But no,'' Massier said. "We don't have a policy on crying children.''

Tim Smith, spokesman for American Airlines, said it is "extremely rare'' for the carrier to deny boarding to a disruptive child — "far more rare than problems with disruptive adults, for sure.''

In June 2008, American Eagle removed a 2-year-old autistic boy and his mother from a flight in North Carolina because of a crying fit.

Still, Root might not get much sympathy from frequent fliers whose journeys often get bombarded with cries, wails and snores.

Palo Alto mom Kristin Loew, 32, sees both sides.

"This is a tough one,'' said Loew, who helps design the Silicon Valley Moms Blog.

On the one hand, Loew said that she definitely would have fed her girls, now 10 and 7, because she is hypersensitive to other passengers and remembers her pre-mom flying days with screaming kids on the flight.

On the other hand, Loew said, "I certainly never would have kicked her off the flight.''

"Kids can't help it,'' she said. "And it's so ridiculous that people can't understand that.''

Yes, she's mortified, but Root admits to learning a lesson herself. When she rebooked her flight home Tuesday, she chose a 5 p.m. departure and fed Adam well before takeoff. How did he do?

"He had his moments,'' she said. "I warned him what would happen if he acted up, that we'd get kicked off the plane.'' But soon enough, a nap kicked in and "he behaved beautifully.''

Quote:"Kids can't help it,'' she said. "And it's so ridiculous that people can't understand that.''

I think we all understand that certain kids can't help it. I don't think we have to put up with it, though. Kids who are disruptive AND WHO CAN'T HELP IT should be removed from the situation -- in this case, removed from the plane. Kids who CAN help it should know better, and should be made to "help it". If they can't, they should be removed.

I am not sure if people do not know how to raise children, or the children have never been made to sit quietly for any amount of time over 45 seconds, or if it is something environmental which makes all children twitchy, crying, fit-throwing little snot bags. I know that I was raised flying on airplanes from about the age of 6 months. And that from as far back as I can remember, maybe age 4 or 5, I sat quietly in my seat and played or read or talked to a parent or seat companion in a normal voice. Then, of course, my parents actually raised me and did not let me run loose as if raised by wolves, nor allow me to throw fits or run amok (ck?).

Yet another reason to LOVE LOVE LOVE Southwest!!! How awesome. Go staff at Southwest!

Seriously - why can't these people control their kids? My mom had four kids and I can guarantee you none of us EVER had a public fit. And she took us everywhere - we were all born within 8 years so she was dragging 4 kids to the grocery store (can you even imagine?!) and to the pharmacy, restaurants, everywhere. We never, ever behaved like this little shit.

Nowadays no one bothers to parent. They'd rather use the Einstein videos or Leapfrog or whatever. Then they get mad when the rest of the world doesn't bow down to accommodate their shitty parenting.

I'm glad to see Southwest didn't tolerate this brat and his ineffective moo. All too often kids are allowed to take over the plane with their running, screaming and other antics. If you can't fly with your kid, stay home, drive, or get other people to come to you.

Gods this is one issue that really gets me. I'm so glad the flight attendant actually stood up for the comfort of all the other passengers instead of giving in to this one useless parent and her snotling.

The last time I was on a plane was when I flew to Denver this summer, a Southwest flight, and this horrific nightmare of a monstrous kid started shrieking about 5 minutes after take-off, screaming at the top of its lungs the same unintelligible sentence over and over and over for the full 2+ hour flight. Because we were already up in the air, I guess the flight attendant didn't want to ask the pilot to turn around, or maybe the flight attendant thought the constant shrieking was cute or something. But it was the worst flight situation I've ever been in, and I've had lots of horrible kids on lots of flights, but this one was the top. I don't have the words that can accurately describe it to you so you can really get what this was like, but it was just shocking how loud the worthless little shit was, and it was equally shocking how it never stopped to even take a breath for over 2 hours, not for a second did the screaming stop, and I was trapped, already scared to death of flying, I was also trapped with this pointless kid.

Anastasia, I don't know if you said anything, but the way things go these days, they'd have probably kicked YOU off the plane in mid-air for daring to protest.

I always love the responses from breeders though: If you don't like it then don't fly! Ya, like the airline will fly a 747 with 3 people on it. NOBODY likes to listen to a brat screaming and carrying on. Well, nobody but the parhunts.

Damn. Southwest gave in and reimbursed Moo.
Here's a columnist for the newspaper who shares his view.
Herhold: My kid's screaming? Throw me off the plane

By Scott Herhold

Mercury News Columnist
Posted: 10/31/2009 08:26:26 AM PDT
Updated: 10/31/2009 08:26:49 AM PDT

When I write about an issue that seems thorny, I ask myself how I would expect to be treated in the same situation. It's a good way of clarifying my thinking.

This much jumps out at me: If I were the parent of Pamela Root's 2-year-old on the Southwest Airlines flight 637 from Amarillo last Monday, I would expect to be thrown off.

I'd expect to endure the shame, to be escorted from the plane with my son in front of the other passengers. In the end, I would assume I shared the blame for my son's behavior.

Root said it didn't occur to her at first that the "passenger issue'' the captain referred to when returning to the gate was in fact her son's wailing.

If that's true, then she had about as much sensitivity toward her fellow passengers as her son Adam did. And the toddler, being a toddler, had a better excuse.

Sorry: We don't have an untrammeled right to make our fellow passengers miserable. Airline travelers shouldn't have to listen to two hours of "I want Daddy!"

I know that it's often difficult to control the behavior of 2-year-olds. I have four kids myself, and I know something about the topic.

But Root made choices that risked making Adam cranky. She was taking a reasonably long flight. And she delayed feeding him until after takeoff.

Long trips

When our kids were young, my wife and I deliberately tried to avoid long plane trips. We wound up taking the
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train a couple of times across country, a kinder mode for kids.

I know that not everyone has that kind of time. If you fly with kids, however, you have to think hard about how to distract them — and the time of day you're traveling.

Pamela Root made the trip with Adam on Tuesday without incident, so it seems clear that she had a better strategy (She took a 5 p.m. plane and fed Adam well before).

Of course, there are times when even the best strategy with a kid falls apart. In that case, sadly, the interests of the rest of the passengers should take precedence.

Root has argued that the flight attendants should have expressly warned her that she could be thrown off. But this is a due process argument, not one of consideration for others.

I go by the Golden Rule: Throw me off. Maybe we can make a deal on the cost of a ticket. But don't pay for my portable crib or my diapers because of an extra overnight. I wouldn't have the chutzpah to ask for it.

I'm completely clueless when it comes to kids, thank goodness, but what the fuck does feeding the bastard have to do with it shrieking? I mean, if you don't feed it by a certain time it shrieks? Or what? What a goddamned nightmare to have to stuck to something so awful.

Kids will scream, shriek and cry about anything.
Anything.
ANYTHING.

Filling their stomachs has the same effect that it does on adults... it causes us to be more tired after we have eaten, and when flying it is good to eat something as you are taking off and ascending as that relieves the pressure in one's ears which means no pain (which would cause a young child to cry or be fussy). It's a reasonable tactic but you can feed the child most of the food before taking off and then have something sweet for them to eat during take-off.

I'm glad they made an example out of her. These days, flying is miserable enough without someone's sprog screaming incessantly on the plane. The comfort of the other passengers outweighs her embarrassment and inconvience. I applaud that flight crew for making the right choice, especially since she seemed to have no clue whatsoever that her pwecious babee was disruptive-going by the fact that she argued they should have warned her first before throwing her off. How clueless can one be?

Apparently, he was so loud that the passengers couldn't hear the pre-takeoff safety presentation!

(11-01-2009 10:22 AM)Ziggy Wrote: [ -> ]Filling their stomachs has the same effect that it does on adults... it causes us to be more tired after we have eaten...

Interestingly, I'm really tired UNTIL I eat, then I have lots of energy and am wide awake.

(11-01-2009 11:07 PM)anastasia Wrote: [ -> ]

(11-01-2009 10:22 AM)Ziggy Wrote: [ -> ]Filling their stomachs has the same effect that it does on adults... it causes us to be more tired after we have eaten...

Interestingly, I'm really tired UNTIL I eat, then I have lots of energy and am wide awake.

You're eating too healthy. Try overloading on carbs at lunchtime -- big-ass sandwich, huge order of fries/potato chips, soda. You'll be asleep by 3pm.

(11-02-2009 09:38 AM)PrairieGirl Wrote: [ -> ]

(11-01-2009 11:07 PM)anastasia Wrote: [ -> ]

(11-01-2009 10:22 AM)Ziggy Wrote: [ -> ]Filling their stomachs has the same effect that it does on adults... it causes us to be more tired after we have eaten...

Interestingly, I'm really tired UNTIL I eat, then I have lots of energy and am wide awake.

You're eating too healthy. Try overloading on carbs at lunchtime -- big-ass sandwich, huge order of fries/potato chips, soda. You'll be asleep by 3pm.

LOL! True, I pretty much never eat junk.