I wonder how early the idea of moving back to coach as a solution emerged, who it came from, and whether the reaction was “that’s a good solution, my relatives are in seats x, y and z, we will swap with them” or whether there was “we paid for premium, we should stay premium and you need to figure out a way to keep us here.”
Another passenger on the plane said the airline tried to accommodate the family but “nothing was good enough.”
Frazzled2thecore, I love your post.
It’s hard to know what’s true and what isn’t, but somewhere it was said that she initially refused to move back to coach. So most likely the FA offered that solution quite quickly, but it was a no go until the pilot came out and told her that they weren’t taking off until it happened.
I think that one can get a good idea of the woman’s character from reading her tweets.
Busdriver: I am so very sorry for your loss.
I usually feel like the most fortunate person on the planet these days because all my kids are grown up and healthy and doing fine. When they were young, they had sometimes life-threatening, chronic asthma. Even with a preventative regimen prescribed by some of the best specialists in the field, they frequently ended up with acute attacks in the emergency room and were hospitalized. And we couldn’t predict the on-set of these acute episodes. During this period of my life I was overstressed and extremely sleep deprived. If I wasn’t up taking one to ER in the middle of the night, or giving meds, I was scared to really sleep in case they quit breathing during the night. I was irrational a lot of the time and beyond mama bear overprotective. At the local clinic there were notes in the charts telling whomever was on call to do whatever mama wanted. Our pediatrician gave me his private home number and urged me to use it any time. If someone had looked at me wrong during that stage of my life, no doubt I would have gone off on them in a totally inappropriate manner. Usually folks looked at my eyes and just backed off.
And we flew because family was all far away. And it was really difficult. Once I had to take my four year old to the ER during a layover. The airline was really lovely. They assigned someone to take us and wait and take us back. On the trip back to the airport, the airport representative was chatting with me about all the wild reasons they had to escort parents and kids to the emergency room. Then he commented, “I was surprised your husband just went on with the other kids, seems like he should have stayed with you to help” and I replied, “His sibling is dying. He is trying to get to the hospital in time to to say goodbye.” And he apologized. I really hated that man for a few minutes, even though he had been extremely helpful and nice. I was pretty much out of my mind. If the internet had existed, maybe I could have been this woman trying to get someone fired. I absolutely can put myself in her shoes. I don’t think I am generally a bad person.
Actually, with all of that chaos going on to be sitting there on your phone tweeting about the lack of compassion displayed by a flight attendant is not something I can remotely relate to at all and she was returning from a tropical vacation which does not really sound all that stressful. Also, I agree we know plenty about her and not much about the other side of the story, but we have her version in it’s entirety.
An opinion piece from another mom of a special needs child:
https://www.yahoo.com/travel/unitedwithivy-mom-was-so-wrong-107267702627.html
On a general side note–I do believe there is a problem with rules and regulations being enforced erratically. I think this contributes to a lot of travel frustration. Shoes off here, keep them on there. Lap child okay for flight there, not okay for flight back.
This is quite minor, but my youngest child still remembers having a toy confiscated at security. It was one of those drip toys filled with colored water like this
http://www.officeplayground.com/Color-Mix-Amber-Liquid-Motion-Timer-Toy-P1481.aspx
We bought it for him IN THE AIRPORT at a store past security, took it on the plane. Flew home a week later with it in his carry-on backpack no problem. A few months later, flew somewhere, no issues with the toy. On the way home, it was confiscated for being a liquid over X ozs. No matter it had been scanned and x-rayed and deemed not to be a threat before. This agent was not having it. Fine, it’s the rule, but if it’s the rule, enforce it all the time.
Marie: I can see it from her point of view. I can see it from the FA’s point of view. I think all little ones should be in some sort of safety seat. I think mama should have made arrangements ahead of time. I think the FA should have adjusted to the situation. I think the FA should have been adamant. None of us are perfect and we face different challenges. Who knows what was going on with that FA? I don’t. I don’t have to pick sides in this sort of situation.
"Actually, with all of that chaos going on to be sitting there on your phone tweeting about the lack of compassion displayed by a flight attendant is not something I can remotely relate to at all and she was returning from a tropical vacation which does not really sound all that stressful. "
I disagree. I can’t imagine a vacation with a special needs child isn’t stressful in its own right, and she’s certainly human and entitled to be annoyed, displeased, whatever and tweet about her experience. What I object to is that nowhere has she really said – oops, I was wrong. I should have researched and found out that my 3 yo - disability or not - needed her own car seat, and brought one or made arrangements accordingly. The FA didn’t “humiliate” her in the sense of saying “well, stupid you and your stupid kid” - they just enforced a safety rule that she thought she was somehow entitled to break.
Every airline has a responsibility to ALL its passengers, not just one. And that responsibility is to get everyone to their destination safely and on time. The FA’s actions were directly in support of the collective good as well as the little girl’s, even if her mother chose to believe otherwise.
Maybe the airlines will get more adamant about enforcing the rules consistently after this episode. Public sentiment is definitely in their favor right now.
From the Yahoo article above,
So what that you bought it IN THE AIRPORT. You can buy a cup of coffee on the secure side IN THE AIRPORT and carry it onboard your flight. But once you walk out of the secure zone with it, you cannot bring that cup of coffee back in.
The TSA has missed an errant tube of toothpaste in my carryon bag now-and-then, too. That doesn’t make my toothpaste legal.
Well, I agree she’s entitled to be annoyed. She’s not entitled to her own rules, though. And, this is a situation where the mom was asking the public to pick a side and calling it raising awareness which is interesting since it appears the only awareness that needed raising was her awareness of car seats, also a little hard to believe since she has other kids and has been on other fights and spends a good bit of her life fundraising for special needs programs and is not lacking in the ability to provide her daughter with all of the available devices necessary. The surprise to her is that the public picked the airline and when people go public with some cause or issue and then after it backfires they shut down their social media that is a pretty good indication that they are aware of the fact that they are not winning.
Boy did she alienate people! If you read the tweets, a lot of people said they hate United, but they’re United with United in this case.
Bearpanther - it doesn’t matter that you bought it at a store past security; not everything that you buy past security is “grandfathered” to then be able to come through security again. For example, on a recent trip I stopped at a Body Shop past security and bought a large bottle of body wash I could then carry it on my plane with me, but that doesn’t mean that next time I go to the airport and go through security, I can bring that body wash with me. The same goes for buying lotions / perfume / alcohol in duty free - you can take it with you, but you can’t just take it again the next time around.
Sorry your child lost the toy, but buying it past security didn’t guarantee anything!
Ok, in the airport does not matter.
Perhaps I should have clarified that the toy had not been “missed” on previous flights–his bag had been pulled after x-ray on at least one of those flights, the toy examined and given back to us by an agent. So one agent had no issue with it, we continue to fly with it, and then another agent takes it away.
I’m just saying consistency would be nice. And while I believe this child, like any child, should have been in a car seat, “getting away” with having her as a lap child on numerous previous flights and then being told no should never have happened. It should have been no from the start.
And yes, I know unicorns and fairies and world peace would be nice too, and just as unlikely to happen. 
They knew the child needed to purchase a seat and claim not to know the child needed to sit in the seat. That is ridiculous.
Since people are loving talking about airline flights, and what people try to get away with, or how some of the regulations are not equally enforced, etc. I thought I would share what a realtor friend shared with me:
“She had already moved the snake to its new home, then launched into this tale (paraphrasing): This was a much easier move with the snake than when I came here from California. You would not believe how expensive it is and how much paperwork there is to transport a snake across the country. So I carried it on the plane with me.
Me: They let you do that?
Seller: Oh, I just wrapped it around my mid-section and got on the plane with it. I had just fed it, so it was content and slept the entire way. No big deal. I wore a big top so no one could tell.
Yes, folks, the lady next to you on that next cross-country flight could have a snake wrapped around her mid-section. Happy travels!”
“They knew the child needed to purchase a seat and claim not to know the child needed to sit in the seat. That is ridiculous.”
Right. that’s why there is little sympathy. If they had shown up with n-1 seats for n people claiming “we didn’t know she needed her own seat, we thought we could keep her on our lap,” then at least there would have been internal consistency.
“I usually feel like the most fortunate person on the planet these days because all my kids are grown up and healthy and doing fine.”
You know alh, pretty much nothing else matters, does it? You can spend their childhood worrying about every health/mental issue, from small to large, and in the end what matters the most is that they’re still alive. I know people that worry about every little tiny things about their kids, and others that have lost a child.
“Yes, folks, the lady next to you on that next cross-country flight could have a snake wrapped around her mid-section. Happy travels!”
Maybe that’s my problem. Here I thought it was eating too much Christmas chocolate and desserts, and maybe it’s just a snake wrapped around my waist! Now I wonder what creatures have attached themselves to my rear end…