You actually called the news station over not seeing something on the website?

[Big Wallaby]

Family kicked off plane for having too many lap-sitting children

Of course, they claim that the mean airline kicked them off for bringing too many kids. No, the airline kicked them off because they couldn't safely transport so many unticketed humans. On an airliner, each row has one extra mask, and to take care of this family the way they booked, they would have needed an extra three masks per row, and for an aircraft designer to have to plan for seven people in a row designed for three... Well, that's just insane.

I can't believe ABC aired this. Well, yes I can. But I can't believe the family called them over it. The family claims that they did not see the link on the front page of the site that says, "Promos, Infants, Seniors..." and they would have followed the rules if they had seen that. I don't know how you make it more visible. It is on the top level of clickable items, where you decide if you are booking one-way or round-trip. It is the same size font. When you click that, you go to a new page that asks how many infants you have. It allows for one lap-sitting infant per adult, and explains it quite nicely:

Infants


US Airways defines an infant as a child under 2 years (24 months) of age. Infants must be accompanied on all flights and in the same compartment by an adult age 18 or older. US Airways recommends traveling with birth certificates for infants between 1 and 2 years old. There are two options available for traveling infants:

Infants (in lap)

On domestic flights, an infant in lap will be accepted without charge when traveling with a paying ticketed passenger age 18 or older. On international flights, infants in lap may require a paper ticket, may have to pay a percentage of the published available adult fare and are subject to international taxes and any surcharges. Taxes and surcharges are not discounted.

Reserved seating

If you want your infant to travel in his or her own seat, a ticket must be purchased and may be eligible for a discount depending on the destination. A Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) approved Child Restraint System (CRS), provided by the responsible passenger, must be used.

What happens if you try to book with one adult and two infants?

We're sorry

• Each adult may travel with a maximum of one infant in lap.

I am not sure how to make it much more clear.

I hope that guy isn't looking for a job any time soon, because this will not look good on his resume.

[hobie16]

I would suggest to anyone contemplating having their child sit on their lap during an airplane flight to watch the video below.

Fearless

[Mr. D.]

I have to say the web site needs to be revamped. The infants link needs to be put down next to the "How many people traveling" area. Not stuck up in a corner some place.

[DonutGoddess]

Most airlines want you to book online now, but I think this would have been prevented if they had booked through an actual agent.

[Mr. D.]

Most airlines want you to book online now, but I think this would have been prevented if they had booked through an actual agent.

Very true.


I also can see both sides about the agent at the gate not saying anything.

* The agent checking tickets should have questioned the number of tickets vs the number of persons.

but

* The agent sees hundreds of people in a line and can not really determine who's who.

I honestly think this was a simple "oops" that could have been avoided with better planning on both parties.


One thing that did strike me as odd though. We traveled to Fl a few years ago by plane. My sister brought her son's car seat on the plane. This was natural for her as a mother. Why did this mother not think the same way? There are times when you must be buckled in the seat of the plane, therefore your child must be in a car seat. IDK just seemed odd to me she didn't have a car seat with her.

[Cheshire Figment]

One thing that did strike me as odd though. Why did this mother not think the same way? There are times when you must be buckled in the seat of the plane, therefore your child must be in a car seat. IDK just seemed odd to me she didn't have a car seat with her.

Three choices:

A. She was an obliviot and thought that a 3yo could use regular seat belts.

B. The car seat that she would use for the 3yo did not meet FAA requirements so she knew she could not use it and did not bring it along.

C. With four small children there is not room to have four car seats in a car so she doesn't use any. Therefore she did not think to bring any.

My choice is "C".

[DisneyMom]

I would suggest to anyone contemplating having their child sit on their lap during an airplane flight to watch the video below.

Fearless

Yes, I forget which airline had a rough landing in which nearly everyone miraculously survived, except for a baby who was ripped from her mother's arms. The mom was writing about it to discourage lap-sitting on planes for infants :(

[Big Wallaby]

On the other end of the lap sitting statistic spectrum, we have a study that showed that because they did not allow lap sitting for a certain period, some mothers opted to drive instead of fly, and so the danger to the child went up over that time because statistically a plane is safer than a car. No matter what you do, you take a risk, and in order to live risk is necessary. Sure, we can mitigate that risk to some degree, but when you are pushing someone through space at more than a slow run, you are already exceeding the maximum impact speed of a human (meaning, if a human runs headlong as fast as they can into a wall under their own power, unless they are head down, they should survive, but if you accelerate them beyond that... well, the skull and sinuses protect the brain in a crash, but at some point they will fail, and that point is somewhere above the speed of a person running as fast as they can into a wall) and so there is a chance that the impact could kill them. Put them on a horse and that risk increases. Put them in a car at freeway speeds and slowing to a stop in under a second will probably kill them just from their organs sloshing around in their body, even if they are belted in and nothing impacts them. Tear a wing off a plane at FL250 and everyone aboard is done, and they're gonna have a few moments to think about it, especially if that plane is in a flat spin.

Life is dangerous. To me, if I was traveling with an infant, I may very well do the lap sitting thing, but I would certainly want them either swaddled or otherwise attached to me where they couldn't go flying in a hard landing. A lot has been done to make flying commercially much safer than it was even 20 years ago, but when you have a free-moving vehicle, stuff happens from time to time. I will never forget the day I was landing in Orlando, I was 14 years old, and at the last second the pilot switched runways, and from a seat on the port side of the plane, I looked out the starboard side, down the wing and saw the centerline of the runway we had been lined up for.

Stuff happens. I am glad that we live in a society where we can expect most, if not all our children to make it to adulthood, unlike our grandparents and great grandparents, who had to have lots of kids because at least a couple would not survive childhood. But on the downside, I think we live in a society that is so afraid to lose, that we give up so much of moving forward, so much of improving, so much of truly making the world a better place. It's like we're dealing with GlaDOS, but instead of testing, her obsession is safety.

Well, screw safety. To misquote Thomas Payne (though I think he would agree), "Give me significance, or give me death."

[/rant][/soapbox]

[shilohmm]

My sister brought her son's car seat on the plane. This was natural for her as a mother. Why did this mother not think the same way?

That was my question. I've always thought it weird that airplanes allow you to just hold the child -- I understand that it's safer than being in a car, but I'd want to be transporting the car seat anyhow, so why not? I never would have imagined expecting a 2yo to sit in a seat with another child, either. How saintly are these kids that they wouldn't fuss about that and pester each other?

C. With four small children there is not room to have four car seats in a car so she doesn't use any.

There's plenty of room in a mini-van, though. We had four kids in car seats at one point.

But on the downside, I think we live in a society that is so afraid to lose, that we give up so much of moving forward, so much of improving, so much of truly making the world a better place.

I find it really odd how hung up we are about safety and people's well-being as well. I agree that we end up shooting ourselves in the foot in our efforts to guarantee success. I think you've also pegged the reason we do that: Our lifespans and health have improved immeasurably in the past two centuries (which is to say, by every method used, but how do you calculate them all together?). An American family in poverty has a higher standard of living than 80% of the current world, so imagine if you compare that level to historical levels? Life is astronomically better than in the past, which I think has given people a totally skewed perspective. Since we can control so many things our grandparents could not, some people seem to think we can eliminate all risk.

Risk is life, folks. Or life is risk, if you prefer -- if we *could* eliminate all risk, that would be mere existence, IMHO. Success is only sweet if you don't take it for granted. OTOH, failure becomes an intolerable hardship when someone assumed guaranteed success.

[DisneyMom]

On the other end of the lap sitting statistic spectrum, we have a study that showed that because they did not allow lap sitting for a certain period, some mothers opted to drive instead of fly, and so the danger to the child went up over that time because statistically a plane is safer than a car. No matter what you do, you take a risk, and in order to live risk is necessary.....
Well, screw safety. To misquote Thomas Payne (though I think he would agree), "Give me significance, or give me death."

[/rant][/soapbox]

While I agree with you (especially when I saw the Mom freaking out yesterday because the wagon in Walt's Firehouse did not have steps so her boys could climb down SAFELY:rolleyes :) People today are so outer-directed that any unfortunate occurance must be SOMEONE'S FAULT and a lawsuit will follow :mad: The Plastic Surgery case Hubby was a juror on comes to mind....
multiple Plastic Surgeries, and sued because she had a complication after one of them even tho she was given advice that complication could happen beforehand...Clincher that made her lose was funny...one complaint was that she could no longer wear contact lenses, then she showed up AT THE TRIAL wearing them! :p: