PROVIDENCE, RI — A Rhode Island family of four found themselves kicked off a flight from the Turks and Caicos Islands to Boston when their two-year-old threw a tantrum.
Colette Vieau, her husband and their two daughters — Natalie, two, and Cecilia, three — were on board a JetBlue plane about to depart Turks and Caicos last month when Natalie began acting up, WJAR-TV reported Thursday.
Natalie — who was refusing to sit down — had to be held in place by her parents, who eventually managed to fasten her seat belt, while also dealing with Cecilia.
“We were holding them down with all of our might, seat belt on,” Vieau said. “And I said, ‘We have them seated. Can we go now?'”
However, JetBlue’s captain ruled that the aircraft could not take off safely with the family on board, and ordered them off the plane. With no other planes departing that night, the family ended up paying $2,000 for an extra night in a hotel and to rebook their flights.
“We did what we were asked to do. We weren’t belligerent, drunk, angry or screaming. We were just having a hard time struggling with our children,” Vieau said.
“I don’t know that I could blame JetBlue, to be totally fair. I just feel like it’s airplane travel today in general. I was certainly upset by the way this flight attendant handled the situation.”
In a statement, JetBlue said that the flight “had customers that did not comply with crew member instructions for a prolonged time period. The captain elected to remove the customers involved for the safety of all customers and crew members on board.”