Toddler tantrum sees family booted off flight
Is a two-year-old girl really a flight risk? Of course not, unless she's having a temper tantrum.
Colette Vieau and her family were heading home from vacation, when their toddler had a code red melt-down after boarding the plane. Refusing to stay seated and buckled up, and possibly agitating her three-year-old sister, Vieau's youngest daughter, Natalie, became public enemy number one as the plane crew waited for take off.
"We were holding them down with all of our might, seat belt on. And I said, 'We have them seated. Can we go now?" Colette, a pediatrician, told Rhode Island's NBC 10. "[The flight attendant] said the pilot's made a decision to turn the plane around."
Things got worse from there, according to the New England-based mum. The plane turned around on the tarmac and promptly booted the family of four from the flight.
A representative for JetBlue backed the pilot's decision, stating the flight had "customers that did not comply with crew-member instructions for a prolonged time period. The captain elected to remove the customers involved for the safety of all customers and crew-members on board."
Scrambling to find four seats on another Turks and Caicos flight bound for Boston, the Vieau family were forced to spent $2000 on overnight accommodations. Needless to say, their vacation ended on a bad note, but rules are rules.
Federal aviation regulations require all passengers over 2-years-old to be buckled up in their seats, seated upright, with cell phones turned off before take-off.
"I don't know that I could blame JetBlue, to be totally fair," Colette told the local news affiliate. "I just feel like it's airplane travel today in general."
