Traveling can be stressful enough with young children, but when you have a child with special needs it’s so important to have understanding and helpful people around you to make your trip as calm as possible.
The Kirschenbaum family recently took a holiday trip to the Dominican Republic, and returned home on a United Airlines flight. Their 2-year-old daughter, Ivy, has spastic quadriplegic cerebral palsy which renders her unable to sit up on her own. As the family took their seats on the plane, the mother sat Ivy in her lap with the seatbelt across them. Many flight attendants passed them with no issues, but just prior to take off, one flight attendant told the family the 2-year-old had to be seated in her own seat. The mother explained the situation, but the flight attendant would not budge. According to Popsugar.com, the mother said that the other flight attendants sided with the mother, and even went and got the handbook to show that exemptions were made with special needs. Apparently the senior flight attendant would still not budge. After an hour of heated exchange, the only compromise that was made was that the child had to sit on the flight attendants laps for take off and landing, and would be allowed to sit on her mother’s lap during the flight.
The Kirschenbaum family has taken to social media to share their story in the hope that United Airlines will apologize.
“I don’t want free flights and I’m not interested in contacting a lawyer as some people have suggested I should,” she says. “I just want the airline to apologize.”
A spokeswoman for United Airlines released the following statement to ABC News:
“The parents, who were ticketed in first class, wanted to hold the child in their lap rather than have the child take the seat they’d purchased for her in economy. Federal safety regulations require any child over the age of two to have his or her own seat, and flight attendants are required by law to enforce that safety rule. As we did in this case, we will always try to work with customers on seating arrangements in the event of any special needs.”
According to Kirschenbaum they have yet to contact her personally.
What are your thoughts? Did the airline fail in this particular case? Or do you think their compromise was fair?
