Senior class trip takes huge detour when students are kicked off plane

[Hatu]

(CNN) -- A New York high school senior class and an airline agree on one thing: 101 students and eight chaperones were kicked off an early-morning flight from New York to Atlanta on Monday.

From there, the accounts diverge.

Southwest Airlines said the group of "non-compliant passengers" would not stay seated, and some were using their mobile devices. When the students failed to comply with requests from the flight crew, including the captain, they were asked to leave the plane, delaying the AirTran flight for 45 minutes, said Southwest spokesman Brad Hawkins.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/03/us/new-york-students-off-plane/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

 

[Dont call me Shirley]

Eight chaperones for 108 kids? What were they thinking?

Can you imagine being one of the passengers on flight, had the kids not been kicked off?

 

[SharoninSAT]

Eight chaperones for 101 kids? What were they thinking?

Can you imagine being one of the passengers on flight, had the kids not been kicked off?

exactly!

 

[Kev3188]

Eight chaperones for 108 kids? What were they thinking?

Looks like they were thinking that since these kids are on the cusp of adulthood, that they could get by with less oversight. Apparently not...

Can you imagine being one of the passengers on flight, had the kids not been kicked off?

Can you imagine being on it with 100+ seats suddenly open?

 

[WorldTraveler]

Honestly, when you pull 100 students off the flight, what was the point of operating it at all?

Of course, passengers always have a different perspective than the airline but they denied it was as bad as FL said.

A brief appearance of the airport police and the threat/promise of having them meet the plane in Atlanta if anything else happened probably could have easily done the trick and allowed FL to make some money.

One source said WN ended up splitting up the group and sending them on connecting flights thru several cities including MKE...and WN still gave them vouchers for future travel.

 

[JFK Fleet Service]

Rules are rules.Jew or Gentile, comply with requests of flight crew or GTFO,simple really.

 

[SharoninSAT]

Looks like they were thinking that since these kids are on the cusp of adulthood, that they could get by with less oversight. Apparently not...

Can you imagine being on it with 100+ seats suddenly open?

Hopefully there were standby's that were glad to take some of those seats.
A little switcheroo...

 

[WorldTraveler]

Rules are rules.Jew or Gentile, comply with requests of flight crew or GTFO,simple really.

nobody said anyone is exempt from the rules.. the issue is whether the crew could have been a little more tactful and still have accomplished what it wanted - enforcing the rules - while retaining the revenue and the good will.

this group was hardly the first that had to be told twice to obey the rules... and a little knowledge of human nature says that not everyone was behaving the same and deserved the same treatment even if there were a select few trouble causers.

IF the standard in life was "three strikes and you're out" after being told the same thing, there would a lot of the human race that would be sent to the bench or the locker room early into the game.

Ironically, WN's cultural is replete with examples of their FAs being able to convey the importance of safety information that is both whimsical and achieves what they want. You have to wonder if the outcome would have been the same if WN were operating this flight.