Jet With Kids

It is getting easier and easier to get kicked off of planes.

Warning: Don’t let your toddler cry during a flight, and definitely do not cough or you run the risk of being removed from the flight.

The media has had a captive audience lately by playing on the new-found fear of being kicked off a flight. Most recently
headlines have been filled with the teenage girl who was removed from the plane on her way home from a Spring Break trip to NY. (You can read the media story here.)

The teenager woke up on the plane having a coughing fit. She was coughing and gasping for air. The Captain decided that he didn’t want to risk the chance of a medical emergency on a 10 hour flight to Hawaii.

Consequently, the girl was removed from the flight with a teacher.

Do we know all of the facts? No.

Was this girl causing a scene and drawing attention; was she panicking because she couldn’t breathe?

WE DON’T KNOW.

But the media loves to write about these freak events and put the fear about being kicked off a flight into everyone’s minds.

Having been the only nurse on-board two flights with medical emergencies, I can tell you that I completely support the airline’s decision if she was gasping for air.

There is not much medical assistance and equipment at 37,000 feet. And a 10 hour flight having to make an unscheduled
emergency landing will cost tens of thousands of dollars if not more. Airline crew need to make quick decisions. If the flight is threatened by one passenger, it makes most sense to remove that one passenger rather than inconvenience countless people who depend on that flight to remain on schedule.

Consider also the medical aspect - the responsibility of a young girl’s life as well as the basic medical need to help her breathe if panic took over - and it becomes easier to understand the decision made by the captain.

So do not be too quick to fall into the pit of fear that the media loves to create. People cough on planes every day without being removed from the flight. Toddlers and babies on airplanes have a bad reputation in the media. These “Toddler from Hell” stories often conveniently neglect to mention that an estimated 4.6 Million children under the age of 2 fly every year on domestic airlines and that most of these little travelers do not ever impact a flight’s schedule or warrant a media story!