Air Tran Fiasco

Here is where I write about what happened to me two weeks coming back from my trip to NY. Ethan and I hopped on a 7:30 am flight out of LaGuardia to Atlanta. Our connecting flight from Atlanta to Bloomington was scheduled for 11:17am. Unfortunately, it got delayed due to foggy weather in Bloomington. 3 hours later, they cancelled the flight.

Waiting in line with a toddler all by yourself is really hard work. I kept his DVD player out while we waited to rebook a flight to any nearby city in Central Illinois. The weather wasn't getting any better, so I took my chances and got a flight to Chicago Midway for 4:20pm. David was already en route to pick us up.

Here is where the trouble began. We boarded the plane and took our business class seat (my mom bought us an upgrade!). It was a full flight, so I knew Ethan wouldn't be able to have his own seat, but he played next to me while we waited. Finally, the passenger arrived to take his seat, but Ethan didn't want to give it up! The entire 10 minutes we'd been on this plane he screamed and wailed everytime I tried to put him on my lap. The flight attendant told me that if I could not quiet him down they would have to ask me to leave. Well, Ethan didn't quiet down until it was too late. Luckily, a friendly lady behind me gave me a pen and paper to let Ethan scribble. This quieted him down, and he was calmly sitting on my lap. But the flight attendant made her way to me and said, "Ma'am , please go to the back of the plane. Some gate agents will speak to you there." I gathered my things in shame, trying to hold back tears, and went to the back.

When I got there, there were plenty of empty seats, so Ethan was happy. The gate agents arrived and tried to figure out what the problem was. "He doesn't want to sit on my lap," I said. "He wants to sit in his own seat." They asked me if he could sit on his own, and I replied that he needed his car seat. I then requested that they bring it to me, since I had only gate checked it before boarding the plane. "I'm sorry, ma'am, we can't do that. The flight is already closed," they replied. Apparently, this meant that no one could go below to get my car seat. They then reiterated that as a lap child, he needed to be on my lap for taxi and take off. But when I tried to get him on my lap, Ethan screamed again. "Ma'am, we're going to have to ask you to leave," the duty manager said to me. That was the end of that. With such finality in his tone, and me being at wit's end with humiliation and frustration, I got off the plane.

I called David while exiting the plane, sobbing. Probably from mortification, but definitely out of desperation. How was I going to get back home? WHEN? He said, "They can't do that!" But the plane was already backing away from the gate. He then asked me about the carseat. Well, that carseat was on that plane, still! At David's prompting, I hung up the phone and bared my teeth. I told those gate agents that my carseat was still on that plane, and if they didn't get it for me, they would have a lawsuit on their hands, because I couldn't go ANYWHERE without that carseat. You should have seen how fast those people moved! They radioed every crew member down there, spewing code words and such, and pulled the carseat out in all of five minutes.

I'll try to end my misery here, because I really want to just forget about the whole incident. They rebooked my flight for a Bloomington-bound one an hour later. That flight was capped off. They booked me for a flight to Chicago Midway a couple of hours later, that one got cancelled. They finally booked me on the last flight out to Bloomington at 9:20 pm. I was stranded in Atlanta for another 5 hours, with a tired toddler and nothing but a meal voucher to ease my woes.

The weird thing was, I wasn't even angry. I was just desperate and sad. I felt really victimized and unjustly treated. How could they treat me in such a way? It wasn't even my fault! They cancelled our earlier flight due to weather delays, which is why my kid was cranky!! I mean, who ever heard of throwing a mother and child off a plane because her kid is crying? Well, you may have heard that story in the Chicago Tribune in January, because Air Tran did just that. They kicked an entire family off of a flight bound for Boston because their 3 year old refused to get in her seat. OK, maybe that's a different situation, but those poor guys ended up being stuck overnight. In the end, AirTran refunded their flight and gave them three vouchers for round trip airfare.

So what did they give me? A full refund and a flower arrangement with teddy bear as their formal apology. And misdirected luggage which ended up arriving a day late with my wheels missing. Yeah.

I'm over it now, but some family members have urged to pursue some legal action. According to the AirTran customer service rep who took care of our situation, there is no policy regarding crying babies. There IS a policy regarding disruptive passengers, and the pilot does have the prerogative to give the boot to anyone on the flight. I guess he thought Ethan counted as a disruptive passenger. But AirTran customer service urges that this policy does not apply to children. She nearly darn well recommended we take legal action and contact their legal department. I'm leaning away from doing so. But there is a good argument for trying to get some policy in place. I'd hate for someone else to go through what I did.

What do you think?