Delta Airline tries for bankruptcy msnbc.msn.com
Aircrew/airlines seem to get special training to be arrogant and stupid. Maybe continuous lack of oxygen in their brains causes brain damage. Maybe radiation damages their neurons. I'm sure some of them aren't like that, but maybe they get fired for poor performance.
Ryanair [the 6 flights I have had with them] is an exception. Their pilots are great. They actually fly the aircraft and do a great job. They get up fast, they get down fast. They do it smoothly and without wasting fuel. The price is cheap. They reward people who do things properly. They charge sensibly [though still not by total passenger/baggage weight].
<consider the experience of Emily Gillette, a 27-year-old mom from Santa Fe, N.M.,who made national headlines this month when she was forced off a commercial plane for breastfeeding.
Gillette, who talked to our NEWSWEEK colleague Karen Springen, said her troubles began when she and her husband and their almost 2-year-old daughter River were traveling from Vermont to New York. Their flight was delayed three hours and anyone who has ever traveled with small children can guess what kind of condition little River was in when the family finally boarded their Freedom Airlines flight (booked through Delta Air Lines) at 10 p.m., well past the toddler’s normal bedtime. The family headed to their seats at the back of the little plane. Mother and daughter took the window seat in the second to last row; River’s dad took the aisle seat. As the plane was getting ready to move, Gillette tucked in next to the window and began to discreetly nurse River.
That’s when Gillette noticed the lone flight attendant holding out a blanket, telling Gillette that she needed to cover up. “I was holding my shirt closed with one hand. There was literally not a bit of my breast exposed,” she says. “I was being as discreet as possible.” When Gillette refused, Gillette says the flight attendant responded; “You are offending me. You need to cover up.” Gillette refused again. Gillette says the flight attendant huffed off, and returned with a ticket agent, who told the family that they were being thrown off the plane. The stunned Gillettes gathered their things and started moving toward the door. “Gillette started quietly crying,” says Elizabeth Beopple, Gillette’s Vermont-based lawyer. “She was so humiliated. As they left the plane, the fight attendant was standing there, and Gillette said in tears, ‘Why are you doing this?’ ” According to the Gillettes, the flight attendant pointed to the door and said, “Get off the plane.” One of the copilots followed them out and apologetically explained that he could not overrule the flight attendant’s decision. “He said, ‘I’m so sorry. I have two children, and there’s nothing I can do about this…The same way that I have control over the cockpit, she has control over the passenger area.’” >
Mqurice |
