According to this article over on Eagan Patch, a mother was separated from her 6 year old child on a flight due to seating policies. Staff would not move them closer together prior to the light and allegedly scolded other passengers who offered their seats to the woman.
From the article:
Single mom Jennifer DeYoung of Eagan booked the flight through Orbitz for both her son Avery and herself, but when they checked in at the airport they found out they were assigned seats in different parts of the plane.
Things didn’t get any better after they boarded. DeYoung said flight attendants were rude and suggested she take another flight the following day, and that’s when she started crying
As someone who has flown on planes and run into a similar situation, although with another adult and two children which was rectified before we boarded, I can’t say that I would be all that freaked out by being less than 100 feet from my child on a plane. I applaud the woman if she’s one of those people who are in constant view of their child, not looking at her mobile phone, and not chatting with another parent next to her while her child plays somewhere nearby; however, I have a feeling she’s just like everyone else and that distance wouldn’t bother her in the least in most other situations. This one simply was her not getting her way and seeing it as an opportunity to “SAVE THE CHILDREN”.
What about you? Would you throw a hissy fit if you weren’t allowed to sit next to your child due to booking on a site like Orbitz and then ignoring the slew of e-mails the airlines sends you about moving seats and potentially having to purchase upgrades to get you sitting next to others? Do you think this parent is just looking for attention and usually has her face buried in her mobile phone anyway? Whatever you have to say about this one go ahead and comment on as I’d love to hear your thoughts.
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March 20th, 2013 at 7:12 am
This happens all the time. People will usually switch because no one wants to sit next to the kid. One time, they made my son sit away from me. I asked the guy next to him to switch and he said no. Ok – I left it at that and thought “Great. I get to read my book.”. My son ended up spilling his soda and it got all over him. Ha! Karma. Sometimes things just work out. In this situation, the kid was probably more freaked out by mom’s response. She should’ve just went with it. Her behavior (crying) didn’t help the kid she supposedly was so worried about.
March 20th, 2013 at 7:16 am
It’s a trifecta of ridiculous behavior:
1) The parent was being overdramatic and made way too big a deal out of this.
2) Delta was unreasonable in not letting other passengers who volunteered to switch seats do so. People switch seats all the time and I’ve done so in this situation myself.
3) Finally, the local media outlets that are paying any attention to this are using poor judgement. This is so, so not worth covering.
March 20th, 2013 at 7:55 am
Tim hit it right on the head with point 3.
This miserable bitch went running to the media to tell them she was briefly separated from her child in a container with all of the doors locked IN THE SKY. Where the fuck did she think he was going to run off to? The comment about “You never know who he is going to sit next to” is laughable. My gut is the child would have been in better hands next to a random stranger than this sorry excuse for a parent.
The child was six, not 1. You belt him in, check on him 3 or 4 times during the trip (which is about 3.5 hours long in this instance). My first flight ever was as a 7 year old and I went alone. Pretty sure I handled myself just fine.
I can’t believe KARE11 did a story on this nothingness.
March 20th, 2013 at 8:31 am
Moron + kid = story at 10.
March 20th, 2013 at 9:17 am
We don’t take many trips by plane as a family, but we have, and I think it’s more of a story if you DO get to sit together. I thought jockeying seats in the plane to sit together was part of the game plan? Maybe I’m doing something wrong, because it’s the only way I know…
March 20th, 2013 at 9:32 am
darcie,
I’ve taken my family of four on a dozen or so vacations over the years and have never had a problem getting four seats on a plane together, or at worst 2 sets of 2. Given that they were planned vacations well in advance of the date, it was quite easy to pick the seats we wanted at the point of purchase.
The best way to do that is by using one of the travelocity or expedia websites to see what airline is offering the best price, but then going to the website of that particular airline to book. When you book with the airline, you can almost always choose your seats, which is not the case at times with those “travel agent” websites (who probably wouldn’t appreciate me giving you that advice).
Hope that helps.
lefty
March 20th, 2013 at 9:37 am
Thanks Lefty – We flew Southwest for the first time a couple of months ago – and if I have the choice – I will fly them every single time from here on out – no assigned seating, we choose where we sit as we board the plane, not one, but TWO free bags per person…I think this will make my (mostly non-existent) travel life much easier – but I appreciate the advice above, in case I do have to use a different airline again…
March 20th, 2013 at 10:04 am
jennifer and avery, same IQ, avery being the higher of the two.
bb
March 20th, 2013 at 10:39 am
Shoot, I’d pay extra to not sit next to my kid! I’d probably ask someone to trade seats, in an attempt to protect strangers from her. But if they said no, my kid would be fine. She’d talk their ear off all the way there. Most trips with my kids, I exit the plane quite exhausted by my kid’s behavior. I don’t think I’d complain at all about not experiencing that. I certainly wouldn’t be calling the media about it.
March 20th, 2013 at 11:07 am
As others have mentioned here, why didn’t the mom speak up when she got her tickets and would have seen that they weren’t together?
What is this obsession with some people to put themselves in the stupidity spotlight just so they can be on TV or in the news? Do they think that this will make them relevant somehow and that this could lead to other things?
And it’s not just the “Patch” or KARE (where The Patch got this story from) that covers lame non stories like this, it’s all of the media outlets really!
Does this mean that there either aren’t enough newsworthy events going on around this part of the world to cover, or is it that media outlets are only interested in covering more “human interest” stories because they bring in the ratings?
At the network level IIRC, there is (or was) a news and an entertainment operation that is supposed to be independent of each other with neither one having the ability to dictate policy to the other, as well as a separate COC that would merge only at the very top of the organization structure. IOW each division president would only answer to the CEO or the Board but in all other respects they are separate.
This is to supposedly insure journalistic integrity of the news division so that they could do a story on a big sponsor like Toyota without interference from the business side of the network.
Of course even at this level, this practice has not been followed as it should have been (see: CBS pulling the Philip Morris whistleblower story from 60 Minutes a few years back for a prime example of this).
Given that, I wonder if such a structure exists on a local level anymore, or are we just content with this diet of journalistic pablum that passes itself off as “news” these days that we really don’t want to watch stories that require you to actually think about issues.
So even though I think that today’s newspapers existence as a printed medium are numbered, you have to wonder who will do the serious stories that you may have to risk legal action to print?
What happens to to mass media when it’s no longer a “mass” anymore? How do we establish a shared consensus on critical issues when the internet is your only source of news? You say “but that’s great, more viewpoints are possible because anyone can start a blog these days so that’s a good thing!”
Well, not really. Just look at the signal to noise ratio you see on the comments section of any online news source today and you can see the intelligence level of the average commenter (ie “troll” in extreme cases).
With Comcast and Time/Warner, the 2 big players having control over most of the internet infrastructure these days, how do we know if someone isn’t being censored or denied access because of their political views? (See: The new “6 strikes” rule that is intended to curb piracy for an example of a tool that could also be used for evil if allowed to stray from that mission in the the name of “the children” or some such excuse).
March 20th, 2013 at 12:13 pm
I booked a flight on Hotwire for my family of 4 but read the fine print. Before I did anything I called Hotwire and asked what the chances of getting 4 seats together were. He told me he could not guarantee it, but it was probable.
It was a gamble, but we lucked out. I booked over the phone and they immediately transferred me to another guy who made sure we were 2+2.
March 20th, 2013 at 6:14 pm
I fly twice a month for work. Something does not add up in this story. I have never heard a flight attendent not allow someone to switch seats if the other person offers to. I suspect that the boarding doors were closed and everyone was supposed to be in their seats and this situation was holding up departure….Or that the person treated the flight attendents and other people rudely and got the same treatment back. I have found that if you treat gate agents and flight attendents with respect, you get it back. I think it is telling that the little boy was mostly worried about his mother crying all the way to their destination, not the fact that he had to sit between 2 ‘nice’ people..
March 20th, 2013 at 7:52 pm
WTF? as already stated, non-story. Obviously this gal was a pain in the arse and the staff on the plane did not act very professional holding the arsyness against the gal. I didn’t notice if this was a first time flyer, but usually it only takes a couple flights before you learn to get there early, and kiss up to the the folks working the counter at the gate, to get the choice seating locations.
Very disappointed in the airline staff, that they couldn’t make it work. All they had to do was ask if anyone wanted to switch spots for this gal. If no one wants to well then she would be SOL, but little point in the staff not trying to de-escalate things with the customer. oh that’s right, airlines forgot we’re customers, not cattle.
Funny part in the story. Kid was scared… not that he had to sit away from his mom, but that his mom might not stop crying for the entire flight.
March 20th, 2013 at 8:45 pm
No way, Y’all are all wrong. I’m with the parent. It is ridiculous to send a 6-year-old off to sit next to strangers when other passengers are ready and willing to switch seats. This is further evidence that the airline industry has little interest in treating us like humans.
March 20th, 2013 at 11:01 pm
When people enter and airport they turn into cattle.
March 20th, 2013 at 11:01 pm
an
March 21st, 2013 at 12:33 am
Total non-story. Suspect as another poster mentioned that there is more to this – like the doors were closed and everyone is supposed to be in their seats, belted in, period. Also a complete guess, but likely that little to no respect for the airline workers or others on the plane was given by mom.
I’ve got two kids. Travel with them several times a year. Never, ever had a problem at least getting two seats together. I’ve reserved them that way and had seats randomly assigned, apart. When that happens, I play nice with the gate agent, and 9 times out of 10, they make it happen. Even when they don’t, I haven’t had an issue with folks moving on the plane to make it happen. Usually the thought of sitting next to a five year old right there without a parent is enough to get people to move… And an aisle or window seat to trade helps too.
Traveling on Southwest makes all this go away – pure genius!
March 21st, 2013 at 10:54 am
I remember reading a few years ago that the safety of everyone on board is negatively impacted when airlines don’t seat families together. This is because in the event of an crash instead of exiting the aircraft people fight against the flow in order to get to their family members before leaving.
Bill might not pitch a fit, but I would certainly lose my shit and make sure I was seated with my kids. I don’t rile easily, but when I do it is noteworthy. ;)
March 21st, 2013 at 3:40 pm
Why do we need to know she is a single mother?
March 21st, 2013 at 7:44 pm
We don’t.