Imagine spending thousands of dollars to fly yourself, your pregnant sister and your four young children from Detroit to Seattle, but instead of getting to your final destination without incident you end up at a police station in Phoenix and details of your horrific encounter are splashed in newspapers from coast to coast.
Hard to fathom, right? Well, that’s exactly what happened to Wendy Slaughter just a few short weeks ago.
Slaughter, her four young children, and her expectant sister were traveling on a Southwest Airlines flight from Detroit to Seattle and had gotten as far as the Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport when their trip took an unexpected and unwelcome turn.
According to news reports, that’s where airport police apprehended Slaughter and informed her that was as far as Southwest was willing to fly her because her family’s onboard behavior was “too disruptive.”
Reps from Southwest Airlines’ told police that during the 4-hour flight from Detroit Slaughter’s children were excessively unruly and caused safety concerns for themselves, other passengers and the flight crew, and consequently the entire family was given the boot in Phoenix and not allowed to board their connecting flight to Seattle.
According to police reports, flight attendants claimed “the kids were up and out of their seats when the seatbelt sign was on,” and despite repeated efforts to get the family to settle down, “both the parents and the children were unruly and uncontained in the cabin.”
To her credit Slaughter admitted to TV reporters that her kids were “out of control, restless, and excited,” but she added, it was their first plane ride and they were not used to being contained in a small area for more than two hours at a time.
Fellow passengers gave a different version of the events to news crews saying it wasn’t just the kids that were causing problems.
“I had more of an issue with the adults,” a man from Oregon seated directly behind the Slaughter’s told TV reporters. “They kept shouting and screaming at the kids. From Detroit to Phoenix I don’t think there were five seconds in a row when there was quiet. It just got on people’s nerves. I rolled up pieces of the cocktail napkins and put them in my ears it was so bad.”
Incidentally, unlike in past incidents where a flight attendant’s behavior has been questioned following a passenger’s booting, in the Slaughter’s case witnesses unanimously agreed that Southwest crew members “did the best they could and were as nice as they could be,” but ultimately decided “they were not going to inflict these people on another group of passengers.”
But the story doesn’t end there. As a result of being denied boarding on their connecting flight, Slaughter says she and her family were stuck at the Phoenix airport overnight without money to pay for meals or a place to sleep. Their nightmare trip could have gotten a lot worse, but thanks to members of the Phoenix Police Airport Bureau the family caught a break. According to police, once everyone’s statement was taken, the officers took up a collection, bought the family dinner at McDonald’s and found a nearby motel willing to house the Slaughter’s overnight. The next day, the family boarded another flight on a different airline and Southwest refunded their fares.
Reps from Southwest insist that their decision to kick the entire Slaughter family off the plane was “a last resort option.”
What would you have done if you were Wendy Slaughter? What would you have done if you were one of the passengers having to endure a 4-hour trip with kids (and apparently parents) having a meltdown mid-flight?
Traveling with children in the near future? Check out these blogs for helpful tips on making your next flight a smooth one:
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