Southwest Airlines refunds tickets for family kicked off flight
12:49 p.m. Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Wendy Slaughter says she is furious that she and her four children, two of which are disabled, were stranded by Southwest Airlines. She accuses Southwest of being unfair.
The airline refused to allow her family to board a connecting flight because they were too disruptive.
Slaughter was traveling with her four children, one is autistic, another has cebral palsy. Slaughter's pregnant sister was also with them.
The family was flying from Detroit to Phoenix and was supposed to continue to Seattle.
Both women told CNN the kids were anxious and restless, but say Southwest is being unreasonable.
"I just couldn't believe they could do something like that and just leave us completely stranded with no money, no way to get anywhere," Slaughter said.
However, Pat McElroy, a passenger on the flight, came to Southwest's defense and blames Slaughter and her children.
"Indeed it was the flight from hell . I never experienced anything like it in all my years of flying," she said.
McElroy says the children kept moving around when the seatbelt sign was on, going up and down the aisle and being disruptive.
"Shouting. Chaos. It wasn't just the kids out of control as much as the adults," McElroy said.
In a statement, Southwest Airlines says it needed to address the situation before it escalated saying "Southwest Airlines is responsible for the safety of all of our passengers, even the passengers whose behavior appears to jeopardize that safety."
But Slaughter says the kids were flying for the very first time and hadn't seen their father in weeks.
Slaughter's sister Jennifer Woodward says the kids were just being kids, and they were sitting in the back of the plane so they wouldn't cause problems.
The Slaughter family says there was no threatening behavior. They say police in Phoenix gave them money to eat at McDonald's and arranged for them to stay at a motel.
The following day, a relative paid $2,000 for them to fly on a different airline to Seattle. The family wants to be reimbursed for those tickets and their Southwest flights. For its part, Southwest says it has refunded the family for the tickets on its flights.
Comments
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Jul. 8, 2008 at 5:44 p.m. (Suggest removal)gereau (anonymous)
Since when can't disabled children be taught how to behave. When people say the child is disable, he can't do something.... you get flack and told these children should be treated like everyother child and given the opportunity. When you treat them like everyother child and give them the opportunity to behave..... then we are told they can't, their disabled. Make up your minds and quit using the diability as a crutch to covering up poor discipline.
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