A group of 101 high-school seniors from Brooklyn’s Yeshiva of Flatbush were kicked off an early-morning AirTran flight for allegedly being too rowdy — but they’re claiming that the airline went too far.
Officials at AirTran’s parent company, Southwest Airlines, complained that several students would not stay in their seats while taxiing at La Guardia on their way to Atlanta on a senior class trip, a police source told The Post.
In addition, “There were a handful of kids who wouldn’t turn off their cellphones,” when told to turn them off, the source said.
The captain turned the plane around and the crew demanded the Yeshiva group get off, the source added.
The flight was delayed for nearly an hour, the source added.
But those on the trip say the flight crew overreacted.
“Yes, we got kicked off the plane to Atlanta,” tweeted Emily Shrem, a student on the trip. “Who knew Southerners could be so mean.”
The yeshiva’s executive director, Rabbi Seth Linfield, said school officials are taking the matter seriously and have started their own investigation.
“Preliminarily, it does not appear that the action taken by the flight crew was justified,” he said yesterday in a statement.
The airline offered students and chaperones vouchers for future air travel, Linfield added.