ALEXANDRIA, La. (BP)–Was the crew of an AirTran Airways flight correct to boot a toddler and her parents off a plane due to the 3-year-old’s temper tantrum? According to AirTran, 92 percent of responses to the airline support how the situation was handled.
On Jan. 14, Gerry and Julie Kulesza, along with their daughter Elly, were flying home to Boston after a brief visit to Florida. Elly, it seems, was not in the mood to fly. By all accounts the child refused to be buckled into her seat and was out of control.
“She [Elly] was climbing under the seat and hitting the parents and wouldn’t get in her seat,” a spokesperson for AirTran said, according to the Associated Press. “The flight was already delayed 15 minutes [due to the child’s behavior].”
Julie Kulesza indicated that she and her husband were not given enough time to console their daughter. She also said that she asked if Elly could sit in her lap and was told no.
While the crew’s decision to remove the Kuleszas from the plane was a judgment call, the refusal to allow the child to sit in a parent’s lap was not. The Federal Aviation Administration mandates that all passengers over the age of two occupy their own seat and be seat-belted when the plane takes off.
“In fairness to the other 112 passengers on the plane, the crew made an operational decision to remove the family,” the AirTran spokesperson said.
My first reaction to the news was sympathy for the parents. Why? Because of the hyper-sensitive, politically correct world we live in, the Kuleszas could not very well take little Elly and apply the board of education to the seat of knowledge.
Given the fact that a member of the California State Assembly has introduced a bill that would criminalize the spanking of children 4 years old and under, I am certain that had the Kuleszas swatted little Elly on the behind someone would have reported them to Child Protective Services. For the record, the assemblywoman pushing to make spanking a crime has no children.
The more I learned about the AirTran situation, the more the reality of the situation became clear and the more I sided with the crew of the airline.
After the Kuleszas were escorted from the plane, AirTran not only refunded the cost of all three tickets, but the airline also offered them three roundtrip tickets anywhere the airline flies. The offers were refused and Gerry Kulesza said they would never fly AirTran again.
Let’s get a clear picture of the situation. The family boarded the plane and the 3 year old refused to sit and be buckled in her seat. She hit at her parents and at one point crawled under the seat.
Not only is the scene extremely annoying to the other passengers, but due to the little girl’s antics, the flight has also been delayed by 15 minutes. The mother indicates that they needed more time to “console” their daughter.
If you fly very much, you know that a 15-minute delay could well cause you to miss a connecting flight. However, not only did the Kuleszas not apologize to AirTran and the passengers for the delay, they refused the airline’s gracious offer of free airfare and insist that they will never fly on the airline again.
Of course, what could have solved the situation was a small swat on the behind. We don’t know if Elly suffers from what medical doctor Bruce J. McIntosh labels “spoiled child syndrome,” but some children no doubt do. What is “spoiled child syndrome”?
“The spoiled child syndrome is characterized by excessive self-centered and immature behavior, resulting from the failure of parents to enforce consistent, age-appropriate limits,” McIntosh wrote in the January 1989 issue of “Pediatrics,” the official journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics. “Spoiled children often display a lack of consideration for others, are prone to temper outbursts and are often manipulative. Their behavior is intrusive and obstructive.”
Perhaps the assemblywoman pushing the no-spanking bill should have been on the AirTran flight.
–30–
Kelly Boggs, whose column appears Fridays in Baptist Press, is editor of the Louisiana Baptist Message, online at www.baptistmessage.com
