Most unhelpful airline attendants ever!

[willow08]

I am going to make an extraordinary request...
6.  I agree that helping her was the right thing to do.  Edited to clarify:  The help was great, but should have come once the plane was in the air.  When told to be seated for takeoff, folks need to be seated for takeoff.

behindbj

Excellent point and I feel kind of stupid for posting this now that I've thought about it.

I'm starting to see the points of some of the other posters. Not about the Mom being ill-prepared or anything like that, but I should have stayed in my seat instead of standing when the plane was in motion. I violated the rules, which is never really justifiable, even if you are helping someone. So I am at fault for that issue. But to me, the behavior of FAs (while in flight- not offering the Mom a paper towel, water or anything to help her or the baby) was not justified, either.

[willow08]

I've had it with the better-than-you, entitled attitude I have received from parents, and others, who are poorly prepared and expect others to automatically bend over backwards to help them, so I ignore them.

Can you share which part of the original post gave you the impression that this was the attitude of the mother in question? I also do not agree with this attitude, but I think I may have missed it in the OP's post. 

Actually, it wasn't necessarily the mother's attitude. It was the OP's attitude -- she was the one berating everyone for not bending over backwards to help.
[/quote]

Wait, wait, wait. I did not berate anyone. I was disappointed in the level of service provided to a customer of the airline. This was not a "woe is me, no one would help but me" post. This was a "I believe this person was treated rudely by a company she paid hundreds of dollars to transport her" post.

[goblue2539]

Yes, based on the description in the OP's self-described rant, you would imagine the flight attendants are shouting and bellowing, eyes poping out of their heads and their faces going red, with veins bulging in their foreheads as they screamed at and belittled a woman who was just a teensy weensy bit slow in getting herself sorted. Or do you think maybe they had told the woman several times that she needed to take her seat and stop causing a disturbance during take-off, and then maybe said with a bit more emphasis, "MADAME WILL YOU PLEASE TAKE YOUR SEAT NOW!"?

That's actually kind of my point.  I don't know.  Because for every FA I've seen who's been the soul of tact in a stressful situation there's one that is yelling for no apparent reason.  Which means that someone who's been exposed to one of the yellers isn't as likely to respond even ifthey should! Should the lady have sat down? YES!  Should the FA have tried help the lady sit down? YES!  I realize the second is only my opinion, but it makes more sense to me to try to help someone, even if it's just to promise help later.  "Ma'am, you need to sit down now.  As soon as it's safe for me to get back up, I'll bring you something to help clean up."  Granted, I don't know for sure that the FA didn't do this.  But, I have to believe that Willow would not have posted this at all if that had happened.  

[CreteGirl]

"Ma'am, you need to sit down now.  As soon as it's safe for me to get back up, I'll bring you something to help clean up."

I think that is all that would have been needed to be said to turn this into an acceptable situation.  The poor Mom obviously had her hands full, and a bit of common courtesy would have gone a long way.  And I disagree that she should have cancelled her flight.  We have no way of knowing why she was traveling, and if she could afford the cost involved in re-booking her flight.  Traveling is stressful, and so much more so when you are traveling with small children.  The world would be a much better place if people were more willing to lend a helping hand.

[anonymousmac]

The young mother in this story was terribly, terribly inconsiderate to the other passengers and did everything possible to make herself a hazard. Her behavior was rude and selfish and was the likely cause of the lack of sympathy showed by the FAs.

And no, I don't think it is the FA obligation to delay the flight to let her clean up or allow security rules to be broken so that she could be helped. She boarded a flight late with luggage that she should have checked while she was seriously ill and holding a child who was clearly also sick and when the child (predictably) vomits she is also unprepared. It is an unfortunate set of circumstances but one entirely of her own making and frankly, I wish airlines would proactively stop such people at the gate. It is unfair to the other passengers to expose them to sickness and disease and very selfish to delay their flight.

My goodness, am I the only one who feels any sympathy for this woman?  I'm seeing alot of indignation about things that most of us don't have a lot of control over.  Most people who board at the last minute are making connections from other flights, which is the airline's fault for being late, not the passenger's.  She didn't cause her child to throw up just to inconvenience people around her; it's a freak unfortunate thing and I'm sure it bothered her to be thrown up on much more than it bothered the other passengers.  And with a small child, you have to carry on things like diapers, food, and other supplies, so I'm guessing she really didn't have much choice about carrying the bags.

Have none of you ever found yourselves running to make a connection, struggling with your bags, and trying to deal with small children who suddenly have issues that must be dealt with?  Wouldn't it have been far better for the FAs to help her get seated, than to yell at her?  I'm really surprised that everyone is ganging up on this woman who was having such a bad day and got thrown up on and yelled at.

It's one thing to say people should be prepared for travel.  It's another thing to say that when difficulties arise, people are rude jerks who are doing "everything possible to make themselves a hazard" if they can't magically make children instantly stop crying or vomit and bags just disappear.  I really don't know what this woman could have done differently in order to be "polite" by those standards, other than never flying in the first place.

(Just my opinion.)

[platys]

I personally check all my luggage, so I just have my purse and usually a small bag with a book/knitting/ect.  It drives me insane when people carry everything they can on a plane, because it is so much slower, especially with kids. 

When I have had to run and barely make the plane, I sit down as fast as humanly possible, because I know I'm holding up 200+ people.  I guess I've been one of the 200 other people enough to listen to the minutes tick by while we're waiting for folks to show up at the last second, and then seem to take their own sweet time getting to their seat.

[graceh9]

 I disagree with those who say that sick passengers shouldn't board because of the unpleasantness and contamination of their illness. Like it's all that easy to just take another flight?? Not to mention that people have to get home to get to their jobs and other things. Unfortunately, a lot of times life doesn't just easily stop for illnesses. And there are germs everywhere one goes, so to find them on a plane isn't any different than anywhere else. Just make sure you wash your hands a lot and take your supplements.
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well tough -- because it is haaaaard doesn't make it right for people with contagious illnesses to spread them about by selfishly insisting on flying while ill -- eventually this is going to be the way some dreadful epidemic is spread before it can be contained -- 'there are germs everywhere' doesn't excuse you boarding with norovirus and barfing for 12 hours in the seat next to some innocent bystander -- or boarding when the TB is acting up again or the pertusis or the strep throat and infecting a dozen people -- airlines should be much more aggressive about denying boarding to people who are obviously sick before we end up with 150 people dead of bird fly because it was very important that someone 'get home to their job' in spite of their cough and fever

[ZipTheWonder]

 And, how would the FA's feel if everyone on the plane had an "it's not MY job" attitude about opening the window exits in an emergency - I am damsher that's not a passenger's job.

Actually, if you are sitting in an exit row it is your job.

Whose job is it to sit in the exit row?

[kingsrings]

I personally check all my luggage, so I just have my purse and usually a small bag with a book/knitting/ect.  It drives me insane when people carry everything they can on a plane, because it is so much slower, especially with kids. 

You're right that this is annoying. Then it just takes even longer for the passengers to put their stuff away, get settled, etc., and that is just so annoying when the plane has to take off at a certain time and you're sitting there waiting for them to put their one-hundred items in stow away. I really don't think that people need all those items like they think they do. If they just planned and organized better, they wouldn't hold up the plane by taking forever to put stuff away.

[Ciarrai]

And there are germs everywhere one goes, so to find them on a plane isn't any different than anywhere else. Just make sure you wash your hands a lot and take your supplements.

I apologize if I quote the wrong person, but I'm not used to nested quotes so I may have deleted the wrong poster names.
Anyway, yes, there are germs everywhere. But in most cases people have the option of avoiding them by walking away from the person. You cannot avoid them on an airplane because you're stuck in that metal shell with them for long periods of time with no opportunity to get fresh air. I cannot count the number of times I have been sick after coming home from a trip due to people coughing, sneezing and throwing up on the plane near me. No matter how much handwashing you do, you cannot get rid of all the germs.

[kingsrings]

I was watching an Oprah episode where a celebrity was talking about his arrest for disorderly conduct aboard a plane once. He was traveling with his 4 year-old daughter, and she had just been potty-trained. Even though she went before she boarded, after they were all belted in, she had to go again. So said celebrity proceeded to take her to the bathroom, only to be told to sit back down by the FA, as the plane was just about to take off and obviously no one could get up at that point. He was very indignant because his kid had to go to the bathroom and would pee her pants if she didn't. Well, that's what she ended up doing, and he got arrested for pitching a fit about it. What he did was absolutely wrong and the airline was right to arrest him, but what is a parent supposed to do in that situation? Your little kid has to go, and they don't have the control that adults do.

[freakyfemme]

 I disagree with those who say that sick passengers shouldn't board because of the unpleasantness and contamination of their illness. Like it's all that easy to just take another flight?? Not to mention that people have to get home to get to their jobs and other things. Unfortunately, a lot of times life doesn't just easily stop for illnesses. And there are germs everywhere one goes, so to find them on a plane isn't any different than anywhere else. Just make sure you wash your hands a lot and take your supplements.
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well tough -- because it is haaaaard doesn't make it right for people with contagious illnesses to spread them about by selfishly insisting on flying while ill --

At the risk of echoing other posters.......wouldn't you feel badly for thinking that way if it turned out that the mother and son were flying *because* he was ill, perhaps to go see a specialist of some sort?  Maybe the spontaneous, repeated vomiting was the result of chemotherapy or something, and maybe the little boy had indeed been fine earlier.  Also, maybe they were transferring from a previous plane that had been delayed, possibly because of another sick child.  We don't know for sure, but it's not very nice to automatically assume that late for flight + vomiting child = selfish and inconsiderate mother.  Anyway, maybe this is a bad example because it's not life-threatening, but when I was about three, I had a terrible problem with motion sickness, to the point that I'd throw up whenever I was taken anywhere in a car.  Often, I'd end up throwing up in stores and other public places (where I'd only be taken out of dire necessity, for example, if I needed shoes), and people would give my mom the most EVIL looks.  She wasn't a bad parent, she just happened to have been blessed with a daughter who had a weak constitution at the time, and what was she going to do about it?  I couldn't very well have just lived my life barefoot and confined to the house until my stomach got stronger.

[Brentwood]

My goodness, am I the only one who feels any sympathy for this woman?

No, you are not.

[DottyG]

What if this mother were trying to escape Godzilla who was nipping at her heels the whole time she was rushing to the airport because the child had an alien creature lodged in it and she was trying to get to the only hospital in the world who could get the necessary supplies from outer space to heal the baby?

And what if the flight attendants were actually the CEOs of a large corporation that was trying to overtake the world, but the only way they could keep all their plans under wraps was to pretend to be lowly employees on an airline until the battle cry was uttered, and they rushed into place as the kings of the universe?

Sorry, but it's just that there's suddenly become so much "supposing" in the thread as to the motives of each of the parties involved that I figured I'd get into the game as well!  Y'all, all we know is what we know from the story.  To "suppose" other details that aren't there is just that - supposition, which may or may not be true in the situation involved.

Suddenly, we have the baby dying of a deadly disease unless the mother gets to her destination quickly.  We have the flight attendants with bulging eyes and/or talking normally but forcefully.  The truth is, WE DON'T KNOW THE FULL STORY.  No one does.  Because each part of this story comes from that person's perspective only!  Including the OP's!

(Just wanted to make sure everyone was still aware of this! )

[MsEva]

My goodness, am I the only one who feels any sympathy for this woman?  I'm seeing alot of indignation about things that most of us don't have a lot of control over.  Most people who board at the last minute are making connections from other flights, which is the airline's fault for being late, not the passenger's.  She didn't cause her child to throw up just to inconvenience people around her; it's a freak unfortunate thing and I'm sure it bothered her to be thrown up on much more than it bothered the other passengers.  And with a small child, you have to carry on things like diapers, food, and other supplies, so I'm guessing she really didn't have much choice about carrying the bags.

Have none of you ever found yourselves running to make a connection, struggling with your bags, and trying to deal with small children who suddenly have issues that must be dealt with?  Wouldn't it have been far better for the FAs to help her get seated, than to yell at her?  I'm really surprised that everyone is ganging up on this woman who was having such a bad day and got thrown up on and yelled at.

It's one thing to say people should be prepared for travel.  It's another thing to say that when difficulties arise, people are rude jerks who are doing "everything possible to make themselves a hazard" if they can't magically make children instantly stop crying or vomit and bags just disappear.  I really don't know what this woman could have done differently in order to be "polite" by those standards, other than never flying in the first place.

(Just my opinion.)

I think it's a very valid opinion  

I cannot believe that everyone that is complaining so strongly about this woman can honestly say that they are truly prepared for every conceivable circumstance that can happen. Especially with a child. My little one is my first and has never been truly ill. She never even spit up much as an infant. I would probably be caught totally off guard if she were to get sick right before a flight. I also know that illness can come on pretty quickly in kids - I've seen happen with friends' kids. One can only pack so much in a carryon bag and a first time mom pretty much learns on the job.