A family was kicked off a United Airlines flight last February after they repeatedly complained about the in-flight movie.
The offended passengers were on a flight from Denver to Baltimore when the PG-13 thriller Alex Cross began to play on the plane’s monitors. When their demands became too much for the crew to handle, the flight was diverted and the family was asked to leave.
The couple initially addressed the situation with flight attendants. After they were told that the monitors could not be turned off, they took their complaints to the captain.
The family soon heard the captain announce that the flight was being diverted to Chicago for “security reasons.” Once the plane was on the ground, the couple and their children were kicked off.
The family wrote in an anonymous letter to The Atlantic :
“Throughout these interactions the atmosphere was collegial. no voices were raised and no threats, implicit or explicit, of any kind were made. The flight continued without incident, while my wife and I engaged our children to divert their attention from the horrific scenes on the movie screens.”
Officers from the Chicago Police Department boarded the plane and approached the family. They were instructed to gather their belongings and follow the officers off the flight. The family was understandably shocked.
The letter continued:
“The captain, apparently, felt that our complaint constituted grave danger to the aircraft, crew and the other passengers, and that this danger justified inconveniencing his crew … and a full plane of your customers, causing dozens of them to miss their connections.”
The family said FBI agents quickly discovered that they did not pose a security risk to anyone on board the United Airlines flight. Although the family has addressed the situation publicly, they have not received an apology from the airline as of this writing.
What do you think about the family that was kicked off a plane because they complained about the in-flight movie? Did the captain overreact to their request?
[Images via Wikimedia Commons ]