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[fineleg]

Misuse of authority by Continental airlines Flight attendant
Mom and toddler kicked off plane
Thu Jul 12, 2007

A woman said she and her toddler son were kicked off a plane after she refused a flight attendant's request to medicate her son to get him to quiet down and stop saying "Bye bye, plane."

Kate Penland, of suburban Atlanta, said she and her 19-month-old son, Garren, were flying from Atlanta to Oklahoma last month on a Continental Express flight that made a stop in Houston.

As the plane was taxiing in Houston en route to Oklahoma, "he started saying 'Bye, bye plane,' Penland told WSB-TV in Atlanta. The flight attendant objected, she said.

"At the end of her speech, she leaned over the gentleman beside me and said, 'It's not funny anymore. You need to shut your baby up,'" Penland told WSB-TV in Atlanta.

When Penland asked the woman if she was joking, she said the stewardess replied, "You know, it's called baby Benadryl."

"And I said, 'Well, I'm not going to drug my child so you have a pleasant flight,'" Penland told the TV station.

Penland said other passengers began speaking up on her behalf, and the flight attendant announced they were turning around and that Penland and Garren were going to be taken off the plane.

Penland and her son were let off the plane and did not complete the trip to Oklahoma, said Kristy Nicholas, spokeswoman for Express Jet Airlines, which flies as Continental Express on behalf of Continental Airlines.

Attempts by the Associated Press to reach Penland under a telephone listing that matched her last name were unsuccessful.

"I was crying, I was upset and I was thinking, 'What am I going to do? I don't have anything with me, I don't have any more diapers for the baby, no juice, no milk," Penland told WSB.

Nicholas said, "We received Ms. Penland's letter expressing her concerns and intend to investigate its contents."

[fineleg]

 The stories of people getting kicked off U.S. flights for what sound like the stupidest things never cease to amaze us. This time, a mother and her toddler were removed from a Continental ExpressJet flight from Houston to Oklahoma City because the kid kept repeating the phrase "Bye, bye plane."

The two-year-old child, Garron, apparently repeated the phrase throughout the flight attendant's safety speech. The mother, Kate Penland, said that after the attendant's speech, the attendant leaned over and told the man next to her to shut the baby up:

"As she finished, she leaned over the gentleman who was sitting next to me, and she said, 'OK, it's not funny anymore. You need to shut your baby up,'" said Penland.

According to Penland, she explained to the flight attendant that the toddler would soon fall asleep. But that apparently did not satisfy the attendant, who, according to Penland, said: "It doesn't matter. Regardless, I don't want to hear it." The attendant then suggested baby Benadryl and made a drinking motion, but Penland said that she was not willing to drug her child to make her flight more pleasant.

Shortly after the incident, the crew announced that they were returning to the gate, and authorities at the airport were notified of a "passenger disturbance."

Continental ExpressJet has so far had little to say about the incident, stating "We received Ms. Penland's letter expressing her concerns and intend to investigate."

Is refusing to drug your child a valid enough reason to kick someone off a plane? Is a chatty two-year-old all that uncommon on flights? I'd think not. Maybe the flight attendant was just scared by the phrase the kid kept repeating, "Bye bye plane." He doesn't look like much of a terrorist to me.