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Source: (consider it) Thread: Hell: Bad parenting 101 (formerly Control your spoiled brat, please!)
Emma Louise

Storm in a teapot
# 3571

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Is Melon the only one sticking up for them? **hmm tried to insert a false support of melon but couldnt quite manage it*

Melon sweety - what would *You* do if your kids were doing that? Or do they regularly tantrum and you just expect the world to revolve around them??

Posts: 12719 | From: Enid Blyton territory. | Registered: Nov 2002  |  IP: Logged
saysay

Ship's Praying Mantis
# 6645

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quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
But in the end, I gather they did get removed from the flight, so that delay must have happenned anyway.

Actually, part of the shock! horror! what a horrible thing for the airline to do! aspect of the story is that their bags flew on without them, leaving them stranded with just their carry-ons for a day until they could get another flight.

Bags are supposed to travel with their people but sometimes they get separated - it's happened to me both in the US and in France.

[ET use right words]

[ 30. January 2007, 20:50: Message edited by: saysay ]

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"It's been a long day without you, my friend
I'll tell you all about it when I see you again"
"'Oh sweet baby purple Jesus' - that's a direct quote from a 9 year old - shoutout to purple Jesus."

Posts: 2943 | From: The Wire | Registered: May 2004  |  IP: Logged
Emma Louise

Storm in a teapot
# 3571

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[Overused] art dunce - thats the reply I would like to have written!!

*arent cross posts wonderful!*

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Choirboy
Shipmate
# 9659

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I'm a terrible parent.

I lose my patience and physically force them into their car seats, being at my wits end and having no alternative. Then I try to calm them down, but that might work and it might not - certainly will take longer now that I've been brutal. So we'd leave more or less on time but it would be far noisier for far longer.

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mousethief

Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953

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Let's all blame the parents, because if a child has tantrums that the parents can't control, it's clearly their faults. If only they had begun smacking the child harder and earlier, it would never have tantrums again.

Because, of course, the only children that have repeated tantrums are ones that are parented poorly.

You people are either sadists or clueless about children, especially difficult-to-parent ones.

[ 30. January 2007, 21:17: Message edited by: MouseThief ]

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Melon

Ship's desserter
# 4038

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quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
Melon, do you know many companies that like bad PR? Because I don't. No shit they're making nice. That's not an admission of fault. Ask any lawyer.

Right, so in that case we can't trust anything the parents say or anything the company says, which means that we have no information at all. Or am I missing something? What information do we have that hasn't come via the biased parents or the cowed company?
quote:
Because OHMIGOD! What if they had to be put onto another plane, that would be the ENDOFDEWORLD! Oh wait, that happenned anway after much misbehavior on the parents' parts (and, if the airline refused to reseat, on the flight attendant's parts.)
If I tried to get off a plane voluntarily at that point in a European plane journey, I'd expect to find myself wearing handcuffs. If that sort of thing is the norm in the US, expect more planes to hit more buildings at any point in the future.

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French Whine

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Adam.

Like as the
# 4991

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quote:
Originally posted by Amazing Grace:
... the Excited Snakes ...

Excited Snakes on a plane!

Anyway, the thing that disturbs me the most about this story is that their bags were left on the plane. I was on a flight recently were we had to remove some bags whose owners hadn't been allowed board for undisclosed security reasons discovered at the gate and, while they were removing them, they found a whole bin of bags that were meant to be on another plane!

It does make you a little resentful of all the new security hoops we have to jump through as passengers if they can be so careless with bags.

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mousethief

Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953

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quote:
Originally posted by Melon:
If I tried to get off a plane voluntarily at that point in a European plane journey, I'd expect to find myself wearing handcuffs. If that sort of thing is the norm in the US, expect more planes to hit more buildings at any point in the future.

I'm not a Frequent Traveller, but I was under the impression that once you give your baggage to the people at the front desk, you're supposed to get on that airplane, full stop. And if you don't, then they have to find and pull your baggage off it while everybody waits.

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Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001  |  IP: Logged
Melon

Ship's desserter
# 4038

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quote:
Originally posted by Emma.:
Melon sweety - what would *You* do if your kids were doing that? Or do they regularly tantrum and you just expect the world to revolve around them??

Emma, darling, I've dragged my kids all over the place by most means of transport, and at one point I used to take them on day trips by plane to Britain just to use their baggage allowance, so I suspect I have a little more experience in this area than you.

They are children, so of course they throw tantrums from time to time, and once or twice it has happened while in public transport. In each case I've sorted things out as quickly as possible, and that involves calming the child down and, generally, dealing with the inconsequential detail that for them is a huge problem. It generally takes about two minutes.

I have a vague recollection of one of my kids announcing that they would not get on the plane full stop. I do remember that they got on the plane, and that there wasn't a scene because I managed to talk them down. The "just make them do it" option only works if you want to inflict a controlled crying regime on the entire plane. My kids are quite capable of screaming all the way from Marseille to London if they set their lungs to it. So I reckon that a negotiated solution is in everyone's interests.

It doesn't sound like the woman with the walky talky was willing to give the parents the time or the space to do that, which is why the company is in total agreement with the parents that the woman with the walky talky is an idiot.

The plane took off 15 minutes late. In that time they got the family off the plane, and they probably missed their slot too, so the delay caused directly by the behaviour of the child was, what, two minutes? No-one claims that the parents refused to address the situation. The parents say that they were addressing the situation when the idiot with the walky talky accused a three year-old of assaulting her mother.

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French Whine

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Melon

Ship's desserter
# 4038

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quote:
Originally posted by MouseThief:
I'm not a Frequent Traveller, but I was under the impression that once you give your baggage to the people at the front desk, you're supposed to get on that airplane, full stop. And if you don't, then they have to find and pull your baggage off it while everybody waits.

That's definitely how it's supposed to work in Europe, and, if that's how it's supposed to work in the US too, Gwai's suggestion is nonsensical. Whatever the regulations, AirTran put the lives of the other passengers at risk by letting the family leave the plane without their luggage.

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French Whine

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Laura
General nuisance
# 10

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quote:
Originally posted by MouseThief:
Let's all blame the parents, because if a child has tantrums that the parents can't control, it's clearly their faults. If only they had begun smacking the child harder and earlier, it would never have tantrums again....

You people are either sadists or clueless about children, especially difficult-to-parent ones.

Right. Because smacking them was what everyone was suggesting.

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Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence. - Erich Fromm

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mousethief

Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953

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quote:
Originally posted by Laura:
Right. Because smacking them was what everyone was suggesting.

What everyone was suggesting is that it was assuredly the parents' fault (see thread title). That's fucked up.

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Gwai
Shipmate
# 11076

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quote:
Originally posted by Melon:
quote:
Because OHMIGOD! What if they had to be put onto another plane, that would be the ENDOFDEWORLD! Oh wait, that happenned anway after much misbehavior on the parents' parts (and, if the airline refused to reseat, on the flight attendant's parts.)
If I tried to get off a plane voluntarily at that point in a European plane journey, I'd expect to find myself wearing handcuffs. If that sort of thing is the norm in the US, expect more planes to hit more buildings at any point in the future. [/QB]
So the French generally say plane when they mean jail? [Biased]

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A mate of the wind and sea.
If they think they ha’ slain our Goodly Fere
They are fools eternally.


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Autenrieth Road

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# 10509

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Nothing in any of the articles linked so far suggest that the plane's 15 minute delay was caused solely by the time it was taking to get the child seated and seat-belted. They read to me like "we're already 15 minutes late, so we're not going to apply any more patience to anything else going on the flight." If so, that's an over-reaction.

Applying the "no hitting other passengers" rule to a child who has hit her mother sounds lunatic. Not that I support children hitting their parents, nor parents their children, but let's get some proportion here about which situations pose dangers to the physical safety of the crew and other passengers.

If flight attendants appeared out of nowhere the very first time to say "get her in her seat now", then at most did some off-scene consulting, and then returned to say "off the plane, now" -- that is a very poor way to handle it, and TransAir is right to be saying they'll be looking at improved ways to handle things in future.

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Truth

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saysay

Ship's Praying Mantis
# 6645

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quote:
Originally posted by Melon:
The plane took off 15 minutes late. In that time they got the family off the plane, and they probably missed their slot too, so the delay caused directly by the behaviour of the child was, what, two minutes?

The plane had already been delayed 15 minutes when they made the decision to remove the family. So, depending on when she started the tantrum, the parents might have been trying to deal with it for two minutes. Or, if the plane boarded on time, they could have been trying to deal with it for more than half an hour. I'm guessing they'd been trying to deal with it for a significant amount of time - long enough that the flight crew thought that there was a good chance the problem was not going to get resolved any time soon. The parents' suggestions of resolutions (holding the child in their lap) violated the law.

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"It's been a long day without you, my friend
I'll tell you all about it when I see you again"
"'Oh sweet baby purple Jesus' - that's a direct quote from a 9 year old - shoutout to purple Jesus."

Posts: 2943 | From: The Wire | Registered: May 2004  |  IP: Logged
Evangeline
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# 7002

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FWIW generally only the Captain of the plane can throw people off, so I think it was more than the cabin crew with the walky talky making the decision.

Assuming that the child's refusal to sit in the seat and wear the seatbelt had already delayed the plane 15mins, without blaming anybody I want to know what the solution is?

Is it reasonable that the plane and its 115 passengers wait indefinitely for the family to comply with legal safety requirements?

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Moo

Ship's tough old bird
# 107

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Before I had children of my own, I was involved in an episode that made me swear I would curb my future children's behavior.

My husband and I were visiting my cousin and her family at a summer biological research facility. My cousin asked us to watch her two children while she went to the supermarket. Her children were fine, but a little boy we had never seen wandered in.

He did a number of objectionable things. The only one I can recall is his tearing up a toy the three-year-old had made from a milk carton. He didn't break it playing with it; he deliberately tore it up. After we had had enough of his objectionable behavior, my husband said it was time for him to leave and walked him to the door. He called us the worst words he knew, which weren't very bad.

What shocked me about this was the intensity of my dislike for the child. I liked kids and normally enjoyed them, but I couldn't stand this one.

My cousin said that no one liked the kid, and he knew it.

I swore then that when I had kids I would insist that they behave in such a way that most adults liked them most of the time.

Aside from setting boundaries, I had to anticipate situations that the child would find very hard to handle. In these situations, I petted and sympathized with the child while I insisted on the things that wers absolutely necessary. Anything that was not necessary was ignored.

Moo

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Josephine

Orthodox Belle
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quote:
Originally posted by Evangeline:
FWIW generally only the Captain of the plane can throw people off, so I think it was more than the cabin crew with the walky talky making the decision.

While the plane is cleared for takeoff, the flight attendants have control of the plane. That means that, at the gate, they, not the captain, are the ones with the legal authority to throw people off the plane.

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Soror Magna
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# 9881

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quote:
Originally posted by MouseThief:
What everyone was suggesting is that it was assuredly the parents' fault (see thread title). That's fucked up.

OK, so let's leave aside the issue of fault. The flight crew's responsibility to fly the plane safely, which includes getting everyone on board to wear a seat belt. The parents' responsibility is... what, exactly? OliviaG

PS I'm not convinced that a child who hits a parent poses no threat to anyone else. If I had been on that plane, I'd be thinking the exact opposite: if she hits people she loves, what will she do to people she doesn't like?

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"You come with me to room 1013 over at the hospital, I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean." -- Tony Kushner, "Angels in America"

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chicklegirl
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# 11741

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I absolutely agree with what Laura said about parents need to be parents, not friends, to their children. That's a huge problem I see all the time, and it really becomes a major issue when kids become teens and don't respect their parents' efforts to discipline them if their behavior is dangerous or irresponsible.

In this instance, there isn't enough evidence from any of the obviously biased sources to say if this tantrum situation was exacerbated by bad parenting, bad customer service on the part of the flight crew, or (as I suspect) some combination of both. But even for good parents, a tantrum can be hard to deal with in a venue (such as a plane) that doesn't have a quiet place to help a child de-escalate.

For those with no personal experience, let me dispel a common myth: it's virtually impossible even for a strict disciplinarian to prevent a 3-year-old from throwing a tantrum in the moment it occurs. Whoever coined the term "terrible twos" missed it by a year; three is the age at which you become certain you gave birth to the anti-christ. The combination of increased motor skills, ability to articulate, and awareness of autonomy but still limited reasoning capacity is diabolical. I used to sit in church or stand in the grocery line and make snarky remarks under my breath about "other people's children." Perhaps that bad karma has come back to bite me in the butt, as I work with an extremely energetic, smart and intense 3-year-old son (thank heaven he'll be four in March).

Once a tantrum begins, you have a few options: relocate to an isolated venue to let it run its course (unwise to try and rush a kid into calming down, or they just get more agitated), ignore the tantrum and hope it will end quickly, or overreact and turn it into a speed-dial call to child protective services. Once the screaming starts, the point of no return has been passed and you're unlikely to be able to stop it no matter how good of a parent you are.

The trick is to stack the deck in you and your child's favor by avoiding situations that can trigger a tantrum in the first place. Tantrum prevention requires a keen understanding of your child's temperment, what kind of mood they're in, if they're tired/hungry/ill--and then realistically planning your own activities to accomodate that. I'm not saying that you make your child the center of the universe, but you help them to succeed in having appropriate behavior by not making unreasonable demands of them. That said, I've failed to do this several times and reaped the consequences, at which time I perform a hasty extraction if we're in a public place. I've actually left a cart full of groceries at the store and gone back to finish my shopping after my son was in bed for the evening. I let my son know in no uncertain terms that accompanying me to the store, the post office, or a restaurant is a priviledge that will be revoked if behavior becomes unacceptable. That's usually enough to produce acceptable behavior. But I've also noticed that if I'm in a rush, feeling stressed or even under the weather, my son will become a barometer and reflect that right back at me--so again, I benefit from accurately assessing if either of us are really up to running errands.

Unfortunately, when families are travelling the time constraints make this difficult. I think these parents would have been wise to postpone travel until their daughter was recovered, book a flight early in the day when she was alert and happy, board early, insist on being seated next to their child, and as a last resort, ask to be bumped to a later flight if they were unable to help their daughter calm down in a timely way.

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~ Henry David Thoreau

Posts: 916 | From: Sixth Circle of Hell | Registered: Aug 2006  |  IP: Logged
AdamPater
Sacristan of the LavaLamp
# 4431

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quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:
While the plane is cleared for takeoff, the flight attendants have control of the plane. That means that, at the gate, they, not the captain, are the ones with the legal authority to throw people off the plane.

Which makes sense. I suppose the Captain is in charge while the plane is in the air or taxiing, when throwing people off might be more problematic.

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Put not your trust in princes.

Posts: 4894 | From: On the left of the big pink bit. | Registered: Apr 2003  |  IP: Logged
dj_ordinaire
Host
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Oh, for crying out loud. What do people think chloroform was invented for?

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Laura
General nuisance
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quote:
Originally posted by chicklegirl:
The trick is to stack the deck in you and your child's favor by avoiding situations that can trigger a tantrum in the first place. Tantrum prevention requires a keen understanding of your child's temperment, what kind of mood they're in, if they're tired/hungry/ill--and then realistically planning your own activities to accomodate that.

This is solid gold advice. I know people with kids who go nuts when the blood-sugar drops. They travel with bags and bags of trail mix and pb sandwiches. Just in case.

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Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence. - Erich Fromm

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AdamPater
Sacristan of the LavaLamp
# 4431

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I know memory mercifully fades with time (so I don't really remember any bad tantrums, not our kids, oh no...) but it became very clear very quickly what situations to avoid; tiredness and hunger/low blood sugar were on the list all the time.

Though I reckon having been taught to eat broccoli with the aid of a few thousand volts selectively applied helped too.

All that said, I don't think our two were aware that not sitting in a seat was an option, not at three.

[ 31. January 2007, 00:26: Message edited by: AdamPater ]

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Put not your trust in princes.

Posts: 4894 | From: On the left of the big pink bit. | Registered: Apr 2003  |  IP: Logged
the giant cheeseburger
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# 10942

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Friends of ours travelled with Singapore Airlines from Australia when a similar problem to that described in the OP happened. The whole family (two parents, the bratty 3yo and the well behaved 7yo) was chucked off and informed their patronage was no longer welcomed by that airline. Further to this they were then told that, pending an investigation, they may be offered refunds minus departure tax (as they'd technically already 'departed' the terminal) and a 35% deduction off the remainder for administration, additional baggage handling and extra running costs. They ended up getting offered these partial refunds for three of the four tickets (the 3yo being the one confiscated) and also being sent a Families SA parenting psychologist referral.

While the parents were furious about this, they also conceded that it was their fault and that they were lucky to even get the amount refunded that they did. That was four years ago and they still haven't flown again, preferring to stay in country for their holidays now.

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Posts: 4834 | From: Adelaide, South Australia. | Registered: Jan 2006  |  IP: Logged
Evangeline
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# 7002

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quote:
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Josephine:
While the plane is cleared for takeoff, the flight attendants have control of the plane. That means that, at the gate, they, not the captain, are the ones with the legal authority to throw people off the plane.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Which makes sense. I suppose the Captain is in charge while the plane is in the air or taxiing, when throwing people off might be more problematic.

Not in Australia-not sure how they do things elsewhere. The cabin crew have no legal authority to offload passengers, if the doors are closed only the Captain has the right to do so, if the doors aren't closed then ground law enforcement must approve it. Cabin crew can request or suggest but a higher authority must approve. ALso I would have thought it would have to be the Capt's decision to takeoff with the offloaded passenger's baggage onboard (although with all the stricter security measures I would have thought that that was a no no these days).
Posts: 2871 | From: "A capsule of modernity afloat in a wild sea" | Registered: May 2004  |  IP: Logged
Erin
Meaner than Godzilla
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Jesus Christ, Melon, what the fuck crawled up your ass and died? I expect Mousethief to be a deliberately contrary ass, but you usually seem so reasonable. Setting aside the whole issue of being beholden to a three-year-old to take it upon herself to behave, there are logistics to consider. When there are over 80,000 flights per day in the US, any delay in a flight's departure can has a massive chain reaction.

Then again, my mother would have tanned my hide so badly I would still not be able to sit down if I'd pulled a stunt like that.

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Posts: 17140 | From: 330 miles north of paradise | Registered: Mar 2001  |  IP: Logged
the giant cheeseburger
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# 10942

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quote:
Originally posted by Erin:
Then again, my mother would have tanned my hide so badly I would still not be able to sit down if I'd pulled a stunt like that.

That would not have been a good move on her part given that sitting down and putting on a seat belt is at the heart of the issue.

ETA: Melon, any parent who does not make every effort to put the bloody seatbelt on their kid should be locked up for child abuse. The seatbelts are actually there for a good reason. Sometimes when I'm driving I feel like deliberately cutting off and/or brake-testing parents who can't keep their kids belted up. Except that women in SUV's are the most dangerous road users so I don't want to try my luck.

[ 31. January 2007, 02:05: Message edited by: the giant cheeseburger ]

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If I give a homeopathy advocate a really huge punch in the face, can the injury be cured by giving them another really small punch in the face?

Posts: 4834 | From: Adelaide, South Australia. | Registered: Jan 2006  |  IP: Logged
mousethief

Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953

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quote:
Originally posted by OliviaG:
OK, so let's leave aside the issue of fault. The flight crew's responsibility to fly the plane safely, which includes getting everyone on board to wear a seat belt. The parents' responsibility is... what, exactly? OliviaG

I'm not sure that's the right question. The question is, what could/should they have done? And it's impossible to know that, because you and I don't know what works to calm down their particular child.

It may be that they don't know how to calm down their child. Not because they're bad parents, but because nothing they've ever tried, or read in books, has worked yet. It may be in that case you just shouldn't fly with that kid until you figure out the solution to the tantrum question. It certainly would be more considerate to your fellow passengers.

Of course maybe they have a method that usually works, and it wasn't working this time because the child was especially worked up, or because the flight attendant with the walkie-talkie was exacerbating matters.

The long and the short, from my point of view, is that to automatically assume this is a failure of parenting is a knee-jerk reaction that's uncalled-for and very likely unfair.

Thank you, Erin, for justifying my "beating" comment.

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Anselmina
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quote:
Originally posted by MouseThief:
quote:
Originally posted by Laura:
Right. Because smacking them was what everyone was suggesting.

What everyone was suggesting is that it was assuredly the parents' fault (see thread title). That's fucked up.
It's funny how one can read things differently from others. I got the gist that some people - rather than 'everyone' - were suggesting that the behaviour of a very young child might actually be the responsibility of its parents. We all have faults and failure to control a child might or might not be one of them; but surely a parent could never reasonably wish to distance themselves from their responsibility for what their very young children do and the consequences? Maybe it's a fine line, though.

I was 2 and a half when I first went on a plane, with my 4 year old brother and my mother; a completely new and rather terrifying experience and as it happened we were very well behaved apart from extensive use of the 'boke bags' [Big Grin] . But whether we had behaved well or not would have been my mother's responsibility, whether fault came into it or not.

What she would not have been responsible sor - beyond the common responsibility we all share - was the safety of the craft and passengers, that belonging to the captain or senior flight attendant; and any situation tipping over into their area of care would have been for them to decide one way or the other in the best interests of all.

It's certainly a pertinent point as to whether or not airline staff gave the parents every opportunity to exercise their responsibility.

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Left at the Altar

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Good grief. The child is three. It seems she's been put in the row in front of her parents, which is particularly stupid on the part of the airline staff (who frankly should know better), but ....

could her daddy not have swapped seats with her and sat in front, so that she could sit in the row behind with her mother? Or her mother, so that she could sit with her father?

Really, in a competition between the airline staff and the parents for who was the most stupid, it's a photo finish.

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the_raptor
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quote:
Originally posted by Melon:
quote:
Because OHMIGOD! What if they had to be put onto another plane, that would be the ENDOFDEWORLD! Oh wait, that happenned anway after much misbehavior on the parents' parts (and, if the airline refused to reseat, on the flight attendant's parts.)
If I tried to get off a plane voluntarily at that point in a European plane journey, I'd expect to find myself wearing handcuffs. If that sort of thing is the norm in the US, expect more planes to hit more buildings at any point in the future.
What the fuck are you smoking?

1) The people who crashed their planes into the WTC, were not hiding in the luggage of people who got off the plane.

2) The people who currently want to blow up planes in mid-flight are quite happy to blow themselves up as well. If bombs are getting on planes you have already fucking lost.

3) The problem with the child was either the child's fault or the parent's fault. I find it a bit rich to blame the average three year old for misbehaviour. Apparently the previous flight traumatised the child and the parents didn't deal with it.

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Left at the Altar

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You're rather excitable these days, the raptor.

Perhaps a nice cup of tea would make you feel better.

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the_raptor
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No this isn't excitable. Excitable was when I posted several page diatribes about random things that pissed me off.

This is bored, and grumpy because it is to fucking humid and I don't have AC.

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Zoe: Big damn heroes, sir!
Mal: Ain't we just?
— Firefly

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Melon

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quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
So the French generally say plane when they mean jail? [Biased]

No, when the French say "anti-terrorist measure" they mean France, not Iraq. Letting people walk on and off of planes as if they are buses is an open invitation to have your planes blown up.
quote:
Originally posted by Saysay:
The parents' suggestions of resolutions (holding the child in their lap) violated the law.

No, asking a question is not yet illegal, even in America. If I was in that situation, and didn't know what the law was, I'd ask that question too. I've heard other parents ask that question numerous times, and the response in each case as been a courteous explanation of what the law says and why, at which point the parents have found another solution. It doesn't sound like the parents in this case got an explanation before they were back on the tarmac.
quote:
Originally posted by OliviaG:
I'm not convinced that a child who hits a parent poses no threat to anyone else. If I had been on that plane, I'd be thinking the exact opposite: if she hits people she loves, what will she do to people she doesn't like?

Good point. Any three year-old who hits her mother in the process of having a tantrum should be sent to a small island near Cuba and made to wear a red suit and handcuffs for the next five years while we decide what to do next. After all, the security of the world is at stake!
quote:
Originally posted by chicklegirl
it's virtually impossible even for a strict disciplinarian to prevent a 3-year-old from throwing a tantrum in the moment it occurs [snip] Once a tantrum begins, you have a few options: relocate to an isolated venue to let it run its course (unwise to try and rush a kid into calming down, or they just get more agitated), ignore the tantrum and hope it will end quickly, or overreact and turn it into a speed-dial call to child protective services. Once the screaming starts, the point of no return has been passed and you're unlikely to be able to stop it no matter how good of a parent you are.

Right, and, as you say later in your post, none of those options are available in a plane. Being "processed" by an airline is an extremely novel and potentially very unsettling experience for any small child, and just how unsettling has at least as much to do with the competence of the airline staff as with anything the parents are able to do in that context. If the airline really did put the three year-old in a different row, the whole incident is 300% their fault, because it displays stupidity on a "can you tie my shoelaces for me?" level. Even if they didn't, it sounds like the staff did nothing to calm the child or the parents, which is what all the airline staff I've seen in action would have done.

This is where all the self-righteous "structure" ranting breaks down. You can only guarantee a structured environment for your kids if you are in control, and the whole point on a plane is that you are not in control.
quote:
Originally posted by Erin
Setting aside the whole issue of being beholden to a three-year-old to take it upon herself to behave, there are logistics to consider. When there are over 80,000 flights per day in the US, any delay in a flight's departure can has a massive chain reaction.

Yes, of course, which is why the best solution is for everyone to work together to calm the child and their parents (if the parents are totally stressed out, you don't have a hope in hell of calming the three year-old). Almost all my flying happens on budget airlines where missing a slot has big financial consequences, and airline staff calm the passengers, rather than throwing them off the plane. That's partly because they have an IQ in double figures, but also because throwing a family off the plane takes a lot of time, especially if you bother to remove their luggage too.
quote:
Originally quoted by The Giant Cheeseburger
Melon, any parent who does not make every effort to put the bloody seatbelt on their kid should be locked up for child abuse.

Yes, but what does that have to do with anything? None of the articles says that the parents refused to make their child wear a seat belt. They simply asked if it was really necessary. As we seem to have agreed above, it's actually impossible to restrain a 3 year-old using a 2-point harness.

(I ran this experiment on someone else's 3 year-old before I had kids, when said kid kept climbing out of his high chair. Fortunately, I had to hand one of those ratchet belts that truckers use to retain palettes. The parents were up for the experiment. The 3 year-old stopped escaping about the time his toes started to go blue. And that was in a hard seat designed for a three year-old.)

Back to this "structure" thing. When my son was three, I took him to England for the weekend. It was the first time he had ever been away from his mother overnight. I planned it all meticulously, the flight out and all the driving around the UK went fine.

Then we missed our plane home (entirely my fault, due to getting lost in Buckinghamshire and then missing the Stansted exit on the M23). No flights anywhere useful until the morning. In the next 24 hours we hired a second car, drove to friends of friends who my son had never met to spend the night, left after 5 hours' sleep to return to the airport, flew back to the wrong airport, hired a third car, drove for four hours in a heatwave to the right airport, picked up my car and drove another 90 minutes home.

Sorry, but I don't think that another pack of felt-tipped pens would have sorted the above. I've seen plenty of adults freak out in far less trying circumstances. Hell, some adults freak out if they hear a three year-old crying on a plane, how screwed up is that?

The "structured parenting" response is that I shouldn't have missed the plane, or maybe that we should never have made the trip because the poor dear was too young. Really, guys, I fear for your kids. When they go to university and are separated from their box of structured wax crayons for the first time you just know they are going to end up in the university hospital with alcohol poisoning within a week.

There were three points in that 24-hour journey from hell when things got fraught. The first was when we got to the house of the total strangers at midnight and my son announced that he was sleeping in the car. I said I wasn't, and left him in the car for ten minutes. When I returned, he agreed to investigate the house. In the end, he settled for the double bed, which left me sleeping in the cot, but, hey, it got us through the night. That's an example of setting priorities. So no major meltdown there.

The second occasion was when we were hanging around trying to hire a car, and my son spotted the toys on the other side of a glass partition, which were reserved for children travelling alone. Slight meltdown there. But the kid was overtired, homesick, and fed up with running on adult priorities, so it wasn't entirely unexpected either. I got him out of the airport, into a car and then stopped at the first McDonald's which had a ball park. That bought me another few hours' goodwill.

The third occasion was 30 minutes before we got home, when he just started screaming and screaming in a totally incomprehensible way. There were only the two of us in the car, so that didn't matter in logistical terms, but eventually I worked out that he wanted a meringue and bought him one, which meant he was all sweetness and light by the time he got back to his mother. Three days later I realised that he had been screaming [i]ce truc blanc[i] ("that white thing"). That's an example of the worst case scenario, where the kid is so stressed out that communication becomes pretty much impossible.

But he was an angel on the planes and in the restaurants, which is clearly the only thing that matters in English-speaking society. No wonder your countries need ethnic minorities to bolster your birth rates.

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French Whine

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birdie

fowl
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quote:
Originally posted by OliviaG:

PS I'm not convinced that a child who hits a parent poses no threat to anyone else. If I had been on that plane, I'd be thinking the exact opposite: if she hits people she loves, what will she do to people she doesn't like?

My son, who is just two, hits and pinches me, with the occasional headbutt, rather a lot. He is the same with his father to a lesser extent. He has never, to my knowledge, hit any other adult, and has never hit a child.

He hits me because he has many frustrations connected to the fact that he is not yet walking and has a lot of energy he doesn't know how to burn off. I am fairly sure he is like it with his parents and no-one else precisely because I am his main care-giver and he is accustomed to me, and feels safest expressing his frustration with me.

It has little or nothing to do with who he loves most.

Please note I am NOT saying that I just let him get on with this. I am teaching him that it is not acceptable to hit mummy. This is harder than I would ever have imagined before I had a child, and I can well imagine people who don't know our situation looking in from the outside and seeing a violent child with an ineffectual mother.

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Melon

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quote:
Originally posted by the_raptor:
The people who currently want to blow up planes in mid-flight are quite happy to blow themselves up as well. If bombs are getting on planes you have already fucking lost.

They are happier not to blow themselves up as well, and there are plenty of examples of people trying to blow up planes without blowing themselves up, which is the logic behind "luggage goes with passengers" legislation. Why do you think you can't walk off a plane and leave your luggage in most countries?
quote:
The problem with the child was either the child's fault or the parent's fault.
or the fault of those who control the environment within which parents and child were operating, or, most likely, a combination of all three.

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French Whine

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Callan
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OliviaG:

quote:
PS I'm not convinced that a child who hits a parent poses no threat to anyone else. If I had been on that plane, I'd be thinking the exact opposite: if she hits people she loves, what will she do to people she doesn't like?
Since when did a small child present a clear and present threat to travellers on a plane? Perhaps Samuel L. Jackson will make his next movie 'Toddlers on a Plane' in which a crime lord insinuates an upset three year old onto an aircraft in an attempt to kill a protected witness. Bring it on, as they say.

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the giant cheeseburger
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quote:
Originally posted by Callan:
Since when did a small child present a clear and present threat to travellers on a plane? Perhaps Samuel L. Jackson will make his next movie 'Toddlers on a Plane' in which a crime lord insinuates an upset three year old onto an aircraft in an attempt to kill a protected witness. Bring it on, as they say.

There was a story on Today Tonight just last week about a gang of criminals using children as young as five to burgle shops. But then again, I find this hard to believe since Today Tonight, the seven network's idea of a current affairs program, is about as credible as Snakes on a Plane. So I wouldn't be too worried just yet.

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Melon

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The only thing we need to know is whether the adults provide a structured burgling environment for the children.

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French Whine

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Sioni Sais
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quote:
Originally posted by Callan:
OliviaG:

quote:
PS I'm not convinced that a child who hits a parent poses no threat to anyone else. If I had been on that plane, I'd be thinking the exact opposite: if she hits people she loves, what will she do to people she doesn't like?
Since when did a small child present a clear and present threat to travellers on a plane? Perhaps Samuel L. Jackson will make his next movie 'Toddlers on a Plane' in which a crime lord insinuates an upset three year old onto an aircraft in an attempt to kill a protected witness. Bring it on, as they say.
[my italics]

Don't let kids into the control cabin for a start. All those lovely switches and levers! It must be playtime.

There are any number of things passengers mustn't touch in the cabin too although "Do Not Blow In This Hole" will provoke adults, let alone children, to do just that (true story from my father, RAF Colerne, 1968/1969).

[ps, Melon, I like the concept of "structured burgling". No point nicking stuff if you haven't a fence.]

[ 31. January 2007, 09:42: Message edited by: Sioni Sais ]

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the_raptor
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quote:
Originally posted by Melon:
quote:
Originally posted by the_raptor:
The people who currently want to blow up planes in mid-flight are quite happy to blow themselves up as well. If bombs are getting on planes you have already fucking lost.

They are happier not to blow themselves up as well, and there are plenty of examples of people trying to blow up planes without blowing themselves up, which is the logic behind "luggage goes with passengers" legislation. Why do you think you can't walk off a plane and leave your luggage in most countries?
If a bomb gets on a plane you have already lost. No ifs buts and wheedling.

"luggage goes with passengers" is security theatre, a security measure that doesn't actually make people safer, and often makes them less safe (this describes the majority of airport "security"). It is not that hard to find some stupid fuckhead that wants his 72 virgins.


quote:
Originally posted by Melon:
quote:
The problem with the child was either the child's fault or the parent's fault.
or the fault of those who control the environment within which parents and child were operating, or, most likely, a combination of all three.
No, the airline don't control the fact the child had an ear operation and found the last flight distressing, nor that they are required to have all passengers belted for take off. Or that the parents couldn't physically restrain the child.

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Mal: look at this! Appears we got here just in the nick of time. What does that make us?
Zoe: Big damn heroes, sir!
Mal: Ain't we just?
— Firefly

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Erin
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quote:
Originally posted by Melon:
quote:
Originally posted by Erin
Setting aside the whole issue of being beholden to a three-year-old to take it upon herself to behave, there are logistics to consider. When there are over 80,000 flights per day in the US, any delay in a flight's departure can has a massive chain reaction.

Yes, of course, which is why the best solution is for everyone to work together to calm the child and their parents (if the parents are totally stressed out, you don't have a hope in hell of calming the three year-old). Almost all my flying happens on budget airlines where missing a slot has big financial consequences, and airline staff calm the passengers, rather than throwing them off the plane. That's partly because they have an IQ in double figures, but also because throwing a family off the plane takes a lot of time, especially if you bother to remove their luggage too.

Maybe in France, but not here. They don't even leave the gate until the flight attendants tell them that everyone is secure in their seats. If I'm a flight attendant and we're already fifteen minutes late -- for whatever reason -- and I have two parents who refuse to pick up their child and forcibly put her in the seat, then I have a decision to make. I can wait and then hope she doesn't lose it again while the tower is trying to slot us into the other flights taking off, or I can say, "look, you've on board for half an hour, at least*, and it's not getting any better, so you'll need to take a later flight".

*Even the times that I was sprinting to the gate as they were closing the door I still had a ten-minute wait before we began taxiing to the runway, so they had had way longer than 15 minutes to shut the brat up.

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GreyFace
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I should be amazed at the posts on this thread from people I otherwise regard as sensible and level-headed, but I'm not. Most people really do believe that you're a bad parent if you can't prevent (or are unwilling to use violence to prevent - thanks for that, Erin) your children from inconveniencing them in some way.

I've got news for you - parenting is a project that lasts at least until your kids are adults. You don't start with a clean slate, a perfectly behaved, perfectly intelligent, infinitely educated and trained child that will act with perfect sense and zero disruption to anyone unfortunate enough to encounter said child unless and until one of the stupid or lazy parents makes a mistake and fucks up its pristine perfection.

Parenting is a combination of protecting, caring and teaching. In this case you seem to be saying misbehaving child = failure to teach correct behaviour = bad parenting. It's about as reasonable as walking into a classroom and telling the teacher they're incompetent because their class of five year-olds doesn't know a tensor from an eigenvalue.

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Matt Black

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quote:
Originally posted by Melon:

Then we missed our plane home (entirely my fault, due to getting lost in Buckinghamshire and then missing the Stansted exit on the M23).

If you were looking for the Stansted exit on the M23 (as opposed to the M25), then you really were lost!

Re tantrums, as a father to a normally-well-behaved-but-occasionally-prone-to-tantrums toddler aged 2 and a bit, I can vouch for the fact that once a tantrum is underway, 9 times out of 10 you have to let it run its course until the child calms down and bear in mind that the child probably hates it more than you do. The good news is that they only tend to last a few minutes on the whole before they blow themselves out, but during that time it's well-nigh impossible to get any kind of co-operation from the child, still less wrestle them into a seatbelt. I know this because the Blacket threw an uncharacteristic wobbly this morning when I was trying to get him to nursery; he has a bad head cold and eczema and it hurt him to get dressed - as a result he was purple in the face with screaming by the time I got him to the car and took me over five minutes to get him into his car seat. There will come a time shortly when I will be unable physically to achieve that - certainly before he is the age of the child in the OP.

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Melon

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quote:
Originally posted by the_raptor:
No, the airline don't control the fact the child had an ear operation and found the last flight distressing, nor that they are required to have all passengers belted for take off. Or that the parents couldn't physically restrain the child.

The airline controls whether the staff work with the parents to solve the problem or whether they alternate between chatting with their friends on the walky talky and shouting at the parents.

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French Whine

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Rat
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quote:
Originally posted by the_raptor:
"luggage goes with passengers" is security theatre, a security measure that doesn't actually make people safer, and often makes them less safe (this describes the majority of airport "security"). It is not that hard to find some stupid fuckhead that wants his 72 virgins.

You seem to be forgetting that, quite aside from suicide bombers, large parts of the world regularly deal with bombers who prefer not to be blown up. The UK and Spain - just to name two off the top of my head - have to deal with IRA-spinoffs and ETA respectively on an ongoing basis (not to mention random rogues like the Soho nail bomber, the unabomber, etc).

While non-suicide bombers may be not be currently the fashionable worry, they're still there and still blow things up given half a chance. Making things easy for them by letting them put stuff on planes then leg it does not seem like a good idea.

(I'm genuinely surprised that the US has the same luggage rule, because I've personally seen it ignored, even since 9/11. Oh well, you learn something new every day.)

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Melon

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quote:
Originally posted by Erin:
I'm a flight attendant and we're already fifteen minutes late -- for whatever reason -- and I have two parents who refuse to pick up their child and forcibly put her in the seat

Do we have any evidence from any article that the parents refused to pick up the child, even before we discount all the evidence because it's from either the biased parents or the cowed airline? However you add up the times, there was time for an extended period of interaction with the parents if necessary before everyone else was seated, if the cabin crew had chosen to spend their time that way.

In my experience, the last people to sit down are always middle aged women without children who do not understand the concept of "stow your baggage safely", and the main role of cabin crew is to stop those women from blocking access to the entire plane for 15 minutes by standing in the aisle checking every single item in their handbags, which, inevitably, are bigger than a family suitcase.

However, the vision of you serving coffee to hassled airline passengers, dressed in a short skirt and a blouse that is one size too small (is that a FCC regulation?) will keep me smiling through the rest of the day.

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French Whine

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Rev per Minute
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quote:
Originally posted by Iole Nui:
quote:
Originally posted by the_raptor:
"luggage goes with passengers" is security theatre, a security measure that doesn't actually make people safer, and often makes them less safe (this describes the majority of airport "security"). It is not that hard to find some stupid fuckhead that wants his 72 virgins.

You seem to be forgetting that, quite aside from suicide bombers, large parts of the world regularly deal with bombers who prefer not to be blown up. The UK and Spain - just to name two off the top of my head - have to deal with IRA-spinoffs and ETA respectively on an ongoing basis (not to mention random rogues like the Soho nail bomber, the unabomber, etc).

While non-suicide bombers may be not be currently the fashionable worry, they're still there and still blow things up given half a chance. Making things easy for them by letting them put stuff on planes then leg it does not seem like a good idea.

(I'm genuinely surprised that the US has the same luggage rule, because I've personally seen it ignored, even since 9/11. Oh well, you learn something new every day.)

IIRC the PanAm/Lockerbie disaster was caused by luggage checked in and the passenger not boarding - so perhaps it's not quite so theatrical.

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Posts: 2696 | From: my desk (if I can find the keyboard under this mess) | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
the_raptor
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No, it is theatre because if a bomb gets on a plane you have already lost. It isn't that hard to set up a patsy to physically get the bomb aboard (or infiltrate the cleaning staff). Worrying about people leaving bags on planes, takes brain power and eyes away from worrying whether a bomb is on aboard the plane.

It also completely ignores the fact that there are plenty of just as good terrorist targets, that have next to no security (movie theatre's, shopping malls, the queues before the security checkpoint, etc)

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