I've made it fairly clear that I have zero intent to ever get on an airplane again if I have to travel in the United States, but this story must be told. (And I apologize to my fair readers who have gone without a PolitBlog update for the last two weeks)
On a recent AirTrans flight, a three year old passenger was causing more than a little disturbance. Elly was generally carrying on at the top of her lungs and more importantly, not in her seat. Her parents did not put young Elly in her seat, and the end result is that a late flight takes off without Elly and her two parents.
Fast forward a bit: the family flies home the next day. AirTrans gives the family of three a reimbursement of nearly $600 for missing the flight. In addition, the airline offered the family three round-trip tickets anywhere in the sphere of AirTrans flight.
Am I the only one who reads the nutshell and scratches my head? A young girl causes a flight to be late, possibly ruining the day of 112 passengers, and instead of standing by the FAA rules, AirTrans caves and gives the family three free plane tickets? When the airline did nothing wrong?
I knew that America is gradually becoming a large-scale Bizarro World, but this is ridiculous. The people who should have been reimbursed were the 112 passengers who possibly missed connecting flights, or made their family members worry. But instead, the trouble-makers are paid off for creating a problem, when they should have been told 1) where to go and 2) how fast to get there.
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2 comments:
Those -are- FAA rules. If you bump someone from a flight, you need to pay them back the money for the flight they didn't take. The free tickets were just an attempt to shut them up so a big story wasn't made of it. Businesses do it all the time, regardless of whether they're in the wrong or not, because it's just easier to avoid publicity for something that may be percieved as negative.
Thing is, the family -did- go public with it, and it completely backfired on them. They got no sympathy from the public. AirTrans got a ton of feedback on this, and over 90% of the feedback supported the decision to boot them off the plane. That's absolutely awesome, expecially when you consider people who wish to praise rarely do, but people who want to complain always do.
I think they made the right call, free tickets and all. I can have a little paitence for a roudy kid, but after a point, enough is enough.
"I knew that America is gradually becoming a large-scale Bizarro World"?
I hate to break it to you, it's already there. I knew about the family getting kicked off, but not about the reimbursement. This is incredibly lame.
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