A three year old child refused to take his seat and buckle his seat belt on a return flight from Bangkok to Hong Kong. Staff on the Cathay Pacific flight demanded that safety required the child to be buckled. For a half hour the father argued with airline staff and other passengers, but the family ultimately deplaned. The flight departed but was delayed by the incident.’
More details on the story at this link from Mail Online.
What do you think? Should the three year old have been allowed to fly while sitting on his mother’s lap. Was the airline too strict? Or does the danger posed by having the child unrestrained in an emergency outweigh the family’s concerns? (note: children under age 2 are allowed to sit on the parent’s lap during take off and landing)(note note: G-forces caused by severe turbulence or deceleration are so great no parent can hang onto a child, which then becomes a projectile)
I agree with you Paul. The child was running that family and there are times, as a parent, you need to look after their safety and not just try to please them.
I’d give Daddy a choice.
In a belted seat or in the overhead storage.
No time for people who impact on others’ travel plans…..
The most interesting part of the article, to me, was the identification of which language each of the people quoted was speaking…and apparently their words were not falling on deaf ears.
Except for the tone-deaf parents (and I’m not usually a parent-basher) who apparently allowed their 3-year-old to decide what rules apply. They should have turned their attention to buckling the child in, and not to arguing with the flight attendant.
Perhaps, like the anti-vaccination crowd, they think that common-sense rules are wrong, but they should have the common sense to understand that when you buy the ticket you buy the rules. Failing that, they could go by train.
I think all children should be buckled in, just as the law requires them to be in cars where I live, in car seats when small. There have been a number of cases where children have been among the only survivors of air crashes, the theory being their more elastic bodies withstand trauma better. But a baby (or 3 year old) sitting unrestrained or on its mother’s lap would likely not. I know of no seat belt laws that give an exemption for stupidity. The airline was right to remove the family.