fly airtran

The only people I find more boring than children are the people who don't realize (or have been forced to forget) how boring their children are.

I'm sorry if that stings a little, but it's true. Until you've lived long enough to have gotten your heart broken, lost a loved one, or been responsible for having hurt someone else in a profound way (ideally all three) you simply aren't likely be over the inborn notion that you are the center of the universe. Ergo: selfish, limited, and boring. Not to mention obnoxious.

Bill Hicks put it more succinctly: "You're not a person until you're in my phonebook."

I do deeply respect people who knowingly and willingly take on the task of ushering these little not-quite-humans-yet on towards adulthood. Especially those that do a good job of it. Seriously, my hat's off.

But in my experience, there is no shortage of people just like this:

Flight attendants often deal with obnoxious passengers who won't listen to instructions by kicking them off the plane. But a Massachusetts couple think AirTran Airways went overboard by treating their crying 3-year-old daughter in much the same way.

Julie and Gerry Kulesza and daughter Elly were removed from the flight when the girl refused to take her seat before takeoff, airline officials said Tuesday. But her parents said they just needed a little more time to calm her down.

...

"The flight was already delayed 15 minutes and in fairness to the other 112 passengers on the plane, the crew made an operational decision to remove the family," [AiTran spokesperson] Graham-Weaver said.

But Julie Kulesza said: "We weren't giving an opportunity to hold her, console her or anything."

...

The Orlando-based carrier reimbursed the family $595.80, the cost of the three tickets, and offered them three roundtrip tickets anywhere the airline flies, Graham-Weaver said.

But that's too little, too late for the Kuleszas. The father said they would never fly AirTran again.

Personally, I think it's a real shame that they reimbursed the family. But knowing that these yahoos will never fly AirTran again makes the airline very attractive to me.

I actually witnessed a near-identical scenario on a flight not that long ago. The child was not settled in his seat at takeoff. And to be honest, I could have cared less whether the kid went flying down the aisle like an errant piece of carry-on...it was the incessant negotiation taking place between the parents and a damn four-year old that made me want to open a vein.

The flight attendants on that flight--I think--decided to let it go, probably to avoid the very fiasco described above. I can't say that I blame them.

(via To The People)