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Singer’s Crying Toddler Gets Her Booted Off Flight — Airline Calls 2-Year-Old A Security Threat

By Shelley Hazen
Published on: 01:47 PST, May 29, 2015

Toddlers cry. As Canadian songstress and mom Sarah Blackwood can attest, “they’re not adults. They are not always consolable.” But her crying toddler, a 2-year-old named Giorgio, allegedly raised such a racket that she was kicked off a flight.

Blackwood, who fronts the popular Canadian band Walk Off the Earth, is seven months pregnant and was flying to Vancouver via United on Wednesday. Her toddler was a bit fussy during the first leg of their trip, which exploded into a crying fit by the time they boarded a flight from San Francisco to Vancouver, CTV News reported.

But that’s what a toddler does, and Sarah said she did her best to control hers. First, her side of the story.

Little Giorgio was propped on his mom’s lap in a window seat, since he is young enough not to require a paid ticket. But he was fussier than usual, the singer admits, “crying really loud and squirming,” CBC News reported.

That’s when a flight attendant stopped by and told her to “control her child,” to which the singer replied, “I’m doing what I can here, I’m holding him. This is what I’m supposed to do.”

As the toddler kept on crying, another crew member had a chat with the singer. She started to become emotional, admitting that the scene was embarrassing.

Meanwhile, she said the other passengers didn’t appear bothered by his crying, which soon ceased when the toddler fell asleep as the plane taxied on the runway. In total, Blackwood said he cried for about seven minutes.

“I knew he was going to fall asleep, I know my son and he did fall asleep,” she told Canada Journal.

Her son finally calm, the plane suddenly went back to the gate, the pilot claiming that he needed to fuel up. Instead, an airline rep marched over to Blackwood’s seat asked her to get off.

“At this point I was in tears, but I just said, ‘OK.'”

They were escorted away to cries of protest from fellow passengers. For over an hour, the crew removed all the luggage from the cargo hold in search of her bags. United arranged for a later flight, and they arrived in Vancouver at midnight; what should’ve been a five-hour travel day turned into a grueling 13 hours.

Now for United’s side of the story. They claim that Sarah and her crying toddler posed a security threat because he “was repeatedly in the aisle of the aircraft before departure and during taxi” despite “numerous requests” to have him seated.

“The crew made the appropriate decision to return to the gate in the interest of safety.”

They also told Blackwood that she refused to put a seatbelt on her crying toddler’s lap, an accusation she refutes. She also said her child wasn’t running around the aisle.

Sarah also claims her fellow passengers are on her side, and that many have offered to corroborate her story to the press. A man who sat two rows behind her, Paul William Moore, told CBC News that she was trying to quiet her son, and “the only person that was not empathetic to the clearly stressful situation was the flight attendant.”

Now, the singer wants compensation of some sort and an apology from the airline. But in the end, she hopes her story serves as a cautionary tale to all travelers — particularly those without a crying toddler on their lap.

“There is no reason why any mother should be apologetic to the people around her because her baby is having a hard time on a flight. They’re not adults. They are not always consolable the way that people think that they are.”

[Photo Courtesy Twitter]

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