Easy-PC
 

From today's Daily Mail. What would you, or you airline have done in these circumstances?
Quote:
Mother and her children grounded by the PC pilot.
To Ann Jordan and her family, it was simply a kind gesture from a fellow passenger who wanted to help resolve a problem.
But instead of allowing one of her two young children to sit on the lap of another traveller during take off add landing, the airline marched her off the plane.
The reason given, by easyJet had nothing to do with safety on board the short haul flight. It was made, it was explained, because of child protection fears.
And even though Mrs Jordan was sitting next to the woman passenger who had offered to look after her three month old son. Kaleb, she was told it was too much of a risk.
Rather than the airline finding an alternative, the 35 year old mother of two was hauled off the plane in tears and told to find a suitable booster seat before she could fly home.
'It was insulting, not just to me but to the passenger who wanted to help,' she said. 'I was absolutely disgusted. It’s correctness gone mad.
'I was in tears when they took me off the plane, 1 felt humiliated. The captain and the cabin crew just would not see sense and compromise, It was crazy.'
Mrs Jordan was flying from Bristol to Newcastle last week after visiting family in Cardiff when the furore erupted
Although she had arrived at the airport with a booster seat for one year old daughter Azrael, once on board she realised it would not fit the planes seats.
The woman passenger next to her happily offered to hold Kaleb, while Azrael sat with Mrs Jordan. But the captain claimed that because the woman passenger was a stranger it was possible although highly unlikely – that Kaleb could be abused
Other travellers tried to persuade the cabin crew to allow the family to continue their journey home but after a delay they were removed the flight. She and her children waited hours for another flight and were allowed to board only after Mrs Jordan's mother drove 60 miles through blizzards with a new safety seat.
Mrs Jordan, whose husband David, 31, is a computer engineer, said she would not fly easyJet again. 'The captain could have let the baby sit next to me on the lady’s knee, but instead, he left us stranded,' she said.
Mrs Jordan had no trouble flying to Bristol because she had been with her sister, Clare Ash, 27, and each sat with a child on their knee. But her sister was not with her for the return journey.
EasyJet said: 'Under the Child Protection Act, it is not easyJet's policy to allow another passenger to take responsibility for an infant to be seated on their lap for Take off or landing
'These Policies and our result action s were taken to ensure the safety of Mrs Jordan and her children. The safety of our passengers is our top priority.’

Rather unfair on the pilot who no doubt (and all too commonly these days) had no choice or discretion in the matter. A pathetic situation to get in to though and a reflection on societies near hysterical, tabloid fuelled paranoia about child safety in general rather than EasyJet who probably feel that they have choice but to enforce such rules. I can't find anything in our manual about it so in the absence of any rules I have to say I would let sense prevail if I could.

There is also the question of course as to whether a complete stranger, volunteering on the spur of the moment to help out by having someone else's infant on their knee has the remotest idea of the responsibility they are in fact taking on in the event of an emergency , and particularly an evacuation, on takeoff and landing. It is a kind offer to make, but its consequences could be dire. Imagine the Mum then claiming that the helpful stranger didnt do enough to save their child etc etc. It is far from a simple matter and is to do with legal correctness, not political correctness. The Captain did entirely the right thing despite any pressures he might have been under to do the contrary. Good to see Easyjet immediately and unequivocally supporting the decision.

Agreed skylion..that does sound much more likely to be the issue.

Remember that the source here is the Daily Mail.

Has our society really become this mad :ugh: :yuk: :yuk:

Sadly I think it has.

The Capt made the only decision he could based on the ops manual. If he'd compromised and there had been an incident the company would have been liable and he would have been on a sticky wicket for disobeying the ops manual.

I've had to offload passengers for a variety of reasons and its the most miserable thing to have to do. Well done to Ezy for suppporting their man.

Yes it has.

The safety reasons are quite right and, I am afraid, the child protection. As has been said, we have become a nation of morons who follow every word of the out of control tabloid press. Add to that a justice system that will go for the easy kill every time and you cannot blame prople for being as cautious as this crew was.

Sad but true.

And we are all responsible. Because we have let it happen.

One child on her lap and one child in booster seat would be safer than one child each on a lap. I see.
Per

Thank goodness Winston Churchill wasn't ruled by The Ops Manual in WW2. There was no such monster as Political Correctness in those dark days, either. :rolleyes:

clearly the terms and conditions were not read by the mom in question!

Yet she had no trouble flying to Bristol with her sister both of whom had an infant on their knee. Just because there is a family connection between the adults does not eliminate the possiblity of abuse or legal action should something happen. Most adults would, I believe, in that situation put the safety of the child first over their own.

Don't think PC comes into it, although the reasons given to the pax sound a bit daft. From Easyjet's carrier regulations on their website:
If an adult is travelling with more than one infant under the age of two years, but no less than six months, one infant may sit on the accompanying adult's lap and the other infant(s) must occupy separate seats and be seated in a car seat in accordance with the above table.
and
easyJet does not operate an indemnity policy and therefore under no circumstance, under the Child Protection Act, must another passenger be asked to accept responsibility during flight of an unaccompanied minor.
Seems pretty clear for once, especially as the EZY site also defines the acceptable dimensions for a child seat to be used on board.

From Bristol they checked in and boarded as a family.

This is somewhat different to being at the gate or in the aircraft and having to ask a complete stranger if they would mind taking responsibility for the baby.

Its no wonder the cabin crew and so the captain sought advice and acted accordingly.

The only thing I can add to this sad commentary is a thought which continually recurs to me these days, primarily when operating through the UK : Rules are there for the guidance of wise men and the blind obedience of ...... What more can you say?

Damned if you - damned if you don't.

" easyJet does not operate an indemnity policy and therefore under no circumstance, under the Child Protection Act, must another passenger be asked to accept responsibility during flight of an unaccompanied minor."

Interestingly, in this case, can the child be classified as "unaccompanied" if mom is there?? Also, if another passenger volunteers through "goodwill", can it be argued that that passenger has been asked?

Regardless, my position would be that the capt has to take into account the presenting information, his understanding of company policy and his esteemed professional judgement to make a decision. He is there - he is responsible for that a/c and I am sure that in any set of similar curveball circumstances different pilots will make different decisions for different reasons and be equally able to justify that decision.

Judgement - for the capt.

The country's going to hell in a hand basket.:ugh: :ugh:
When is this pc madness going to stop??.:D :D :=

Good on the skipper...............

Two screaming rugrats and a septic mother are not worth a career:ok:

A classic example of the Daily Mail molehill into mountain mentality, I would advise PAX to read the terms and conditions.

PC my arse:D

Bad Business
 

Why does it have to be one or the other?

A successful business does everything it can to accommodate its customers. A boster seat was on hand but didn't fit the seat. Does it fit in a first class seat?

Any management person should forsee this problem and have a booster seat stored at the terminal. No? Odds are somebody at the terminal has one. Borrow one or take $500 out of the till and buy one.

Rule one. Solve the customer's problem. If it costs a few dollars, it's money well spent. And when your work force applies this principle, back em up!

I was at work at NCL on friday night when this happened. The flight was delayed arriving into BRS an hour late and then delayed a further 45mins whilst the pax was removed. Just as the a/c was due to leave BRS I had the womans husband come up to me in the airport shouting and swearing, being called incompetant and allsorts!

I love the abreviation availibility used the british language.
What the hell means the abreveation "PC"?
Personal Computer?
Pilot Community?
Pay Cash?
:)

Mad World
 

Personally I can't see why the Captain cannot stand up and be counted. To abrogate his command responsibility and make life miserable for this passenger is too crass for words. He is obviously a "yes" man with no sense of leadership in a different situation. Sometimes we need to use Nelsons patch on the stupidity of the rules raher than always protecting our own backside. I would call the behaviour of the crew a disgrace and showing no initiative whatsoever.
We are becoming a nation of idiots. What about the old saying regarding rules being for the "obedience of fools and the guidance of wise men!!"
I know which category the crew of that particular flight belong!!

Whatever reason was given, I would not allow a passenger to be inconvenienced by another.
About time people take responsibilty for their own children.

A few years ago, one of my colleagues allowed a passenger to occupy the jumpseat instead of having to wait for the next flight.
Then the company received a complaint from said pax to the effect that the service wasn't good enough and it was uncomfortable. Seemed to have forgotten that the crew were doing HIM a favour.

Kraut
It stands for Political Correctness

@ LOGOS

Wow, strong words!
Where do you start or end not following written rules and think you can "rule" just because you are a captain?:=

@dv8
thank´s for lighting up my simple mind!:)

Spot on Kraut.

Logos

Do you think the captain in question enjoyed kicking off that women and two young kids? The easy course of action was to tell the senior to close the door and get cracking with the safety demo. The commander took the difficult decision of sticking to the company regulations, however unpleasant and unpopular that decision was. As Kraut alludes to, it isn't the captain's aircraft and it isn't his/her airline.

Call the crew all the names under the sun Logos - fact is you weren't there. It's very easy to armchair quarter back this one; I imagine it is a hell of a lot tougher to stand infront of a plane load of pax and explain to a mother of two that she and her young family aren't travelling because the company regulations reflect the sh*t world we live in. The captain was bound by those regulations whether he liked them or not. :(

Shouldn't this problem have been addressed at the check-in desk or the boarding gate? Why did this situation develop to the extent that the crew had to sort it?

I also think the captain has made a the right choice and has followed the rules correctly. Why would he want to dealy the flight for 45 mins whislt she was offloaded and her bags were found and whilst the load sheet was changed also. He didnt do it just to make the woman strugle he did it because it wasnt worth him possibly losing his job over. The article says that the entire crew showed no comfort or consideration towards the lady. I suspect that the paper may have went a little over the top on this one yet again.

A parent travelling with two children under the age of 2 needs to plan carefully. It appears that on one flight she took along another family member who took charge of one infant or young child and obviously that was sensible and mitigated any problem. On the second flight she had attempted to solve the problem by utilizing a car seat that unfortunetaly wouldn't fit in the seat.
Although another passsenger offered to assist by taking charge of one of the children, the airline it seems wouldn't permit that to occur.

I can imagine that staff might have (as sometimes happens in these difficult situations), quoted acts such as the Child Protection Act to excuse an action, when in reality they probably have no idea what the act actually states or encompasses ? However parental authority it seems was being given to another adult to act in loco parentis on this occaision thereby giving the necessary permission.

The problem arises because such permission it seems, is contrary to the airlines rules (which presumably are stated in its booking terms and conditions). If that is the case then the passenger implicitly accepted those conditions when booking the flight. The airlines staff were obliged to ensure those rules were executed, and as unfortunate as it was the passengers had to be removed.

It sounds like better planning by all, would have prevented this situation being allowed to develop all the way through to the "onboard stage". I have always believed that child seats (where required ) should only be supplied by the airline as a part of the advance booking procedure. Children under 12 should never be seperated on board from the responsible adult or guardian unless alternative arrangements have been made with the carrier. No more than one infant or child under 2 should be allowed to accompany one responsible adult.

It seems that neither the airline nor its handling agents did a very good job of allowing this situation to develop. However with the best will in the world we all know these type of things sometimes happen. The crew were the last link in the chain and shouldn't be blamed for then having to be the ones who ensured the compliance.

Sometimes the best way to deal with 'silly' rules is to stick to them rigidly and with lots of publicity, exactly as done here. That way the senior management get to review things and either allow a bit of discretion or modify things to work better next time.

Subject to what the lawyers say, provided both the parent and the helper understand the risks and agree to them, the airline should just let them get on with it (they're still safer than they were on the car journey to the airport). After all, had the mother found someone in the departure lounge who would agree to help out, would the airline have been any wiser? Two people boarding together with two children wouldn't have attracted any particular notice

No more than two infants per accompanying person are allowed. Infants under two weeks of age will not be accepted for travel.

Children aged two years or over must occupy their own seat and pay the same fares as adults.

It is the accompanying person's responsibility to ensure that the minor is adequately secured into the aircraft seat. To this end easyJet will accept a car seat supplied by the accompanying person for any child over six months for whom an airline seat has been purchased, provided that the car seat has a rigid metal or plastic frame, is no wider than 42cm, includes lap, shoulder and crotch straps, and is upright and forward facing. The required restraint device for the age of the infant is detailed below:

The above text is from the Easyjet websites terms and conditions.

Looks as though the seat was wider than 42cm and thats why she was obviously refused travel. Cant really blame anyone I dont think, Obviously the passenger didnt get the tape measure out!

Now llondel, apply that statement to any of your kids (if you have any etc..:ok: ) imagine a situation where an emergency takes place.
Would you be happy to entrust your toddler with someone you meet in a departure lounge?
The next thing that will happen is that the "helper" would get sued for contributing to a toddlers' injuries etc.....

Most rules like this protect an airline from particularly litigious individuals..and you can bet that someone who runs to the Daily Mail over their own ignorant mistake, would be the same type of individual who would run to a "where theres blame theres a claim" legal practice.

Just your average stupid passenger getting upset and trying to blame someone else because of their own lack of intelligence.

Most of us (sadly not all of us) realise that the country is going to the dogs. Not sure who is ultimately responsible for this, but I suppose the last two governments (Conservative and Labour) have a lot to do with it. But clearly there are posters who actually think what happened is perfectly reasonable - not many, thank goodness. But those that do are party to the problem, and I am afraid we are on a runaway train, and whilst they may be in the minority right now, in 10 years time they will be in the majority. We will probably have to have a major world catastrophe with massive mortalitities and starvation before people in this country start to get their values sorted out.

So given this situation, did the Captain make the right or wrong decision? The wrong one, because we should all do whatever we can to arrest this decline of common sense (actually, an elemination of common sense) whenever we can. This takes guts. We should encourage people to DO THE RIGHT THING, and support them when they do.

You say that, but I do remember a case a while back where a mother turned up with too many underage children and a man (even more scary, according to today's media) offered (in the presence of cabin crew) to have one on his lap even though he was wearing his suit at the time. His comment was that he had kids of his own and understood the mother's dilemma having no way of getting home with all the children. The family was allowed to fly on that occasion. I've just done a quick search for it but haven't found a relevant article yet. However, I don't think it was on easyJet.

I make no comment on whether it's a good idea or not, merely that (a) it has happened in the past and (b) it can happen even if the crew know nothing of it. I only have one kid so I hope it wouldn't apply to me, and he's old enough for his own seat now :)

The fact that this thread has even gotten to 2 pages in length indicates that pprune is now pretty much ruled by enthusiasts and armchair experts ... and muppets that actually believe what they read in the daily mail.

The airline pays us a great deal of money to operate their aircraft in accordance with the rules outlined in the law and in the ops manuals. End of story. Except in certain well defined emergency cases we do NOT have carte blanche to operate outside the rules - and even then, if we do we had better be prepared to provide a damn good reason for it afterwards.

The daily mail's basic reason for existence is to cook up 50 pages a day of manufactured 'political correctness' outrages because the British Public love to be outraged by stories of political correctness gone mad. Looks to me like the truth here is a lot more mundane, some punter has pitched up with two kids and a car seat that won't fit in the seat. She's in clear breach of the conditions of boarding but expects to be accommodated nevertheless even though that means the crew have to go outside the clearly defined parameters of the rules - which have nothing whatsoever to do with child molesting and everything to do with pax safety in the event of an evacuation. In accordance with SOP, the passenger is duly denied boarding. Well woop de doo, I'm sorry but where's the story in that?

Riverboat wrote :
"So given this situation, did the Captain make the right or wrong decision? The wrong one, because we should all do whatever we can to arrest this decline of common sense (actually, an elemination of common sense) whenever we can. This takes guts. We should encourage people to DO THE RIGHT THING, and support them when they do."

The Captain made a decision and in that situation the Captain is the final arbiter. In any event that decision was correct because it was in accordance with the companies rules which the Captain is charged with ensuring are, in all normal situations, complied with. There was nothing extraordinary about this womans situation. The Captain is in any event charged with ensuring the safety of everybody on board. Safety is not enhanced by a woman struggling with two infants / young children who she cannot adequately secure without enlisting the help of other passengers. In an emergency those same volunteers or willing conscriptees may not be able to ensure the safety of the young child or infant and may therefore compromise the safety of other people around them. In fact common sense would actually be to remove the passengers. Of course natural human compassion would wish for a better outcome or resolution, but that is another matter and when it comes down to hard facts, as ultimately it must, irrelevant.

The woman was not complying with the conditions of carriage. It is very likely that as a result of an unfortunate set of circumstances she found herself in that situation, but nevertheless that is where the fault lies, like it or not.

When travelling with small children, I've found that sometimes airlines and airports are prepared to provide staff to help cope with them ...

... but the one thing the parent actually wants to the staff to do is hang onto the child and stop it from escaping, whilst the (lone) parent does something else exciting, like collect the baggage or go to the loo ...


... and the one thing that the airline or aiport staff will absolutely refuse to do is ...

... touch the child:confused: :confused: :confused: :ugh: :ugh: :ugh:

So why offer to help if they're not, in practice, actually going to be prepared to do anything useful????:confused: :confused: :confused: :confused: :confused: :confused:

I agree with shaky on this one - why wasn't this issue spotted and dealt with at check-in? I've sat at Edinburgh as pax on an Easyjet flight for over 2 hours whilst a replacement child seat was sought for a passenger carrying two infants. Timewasted for ops and passengers alike.

The thing that surprises me most about this story is that the Daily Mail is running a negative (in their eyes) story about an airline other than BA.
D

Up to now, no-one appears to have quoted the Conditions of Carriage correctly. The key Condition is "An adult with two or more infants aged six months or less cannot be accepted for travel."
This should have been caught at check-in

EasyJet Reg's do not allow child car seats for infants under 6 months.

Anyway the seat should have shoulder, lap & crotch straps and be forward facing.
Their requirement is in excess of an EU approved child car seat Cat 0 so I doubt many would be permissable

Business sense suggests EasyJet should provide an approved seat at booking/check-in for a nominal fee (if any) since they will charge for the extra a/c seat reqd (with tax)

Rules may be rules, and I don't criticise the crew, but silly rules can be changed, as BA and Ryanair have found to their cost. (crosses and wheelchairs) Single parents with 2+ kids, no car or immediate family cannot fly?

I think Nov71 speaks some sense here.

As a piece of SLF, even I can see that the Captain had little choice but to enforce the rules. I can also see that putting this down to simple political correctness was, as usual, journalistic licence. The Captain in no way deserves to be criticised or villified for enforcing the rule.

However, as Nov71 says, that doesn't mean people shouldn't be critical of the rather unfair and inconsistant rule itself. I would agree that a far better way of handling this (and ensuring any child seats used are up to standard) would be for the airline to provide them at an appropriate charge.

Bobbsy