I can contribute some Heaven Hill for anesthetic.

Ahh, for the lack of a sock and duct tape...
On a brighter note the rest of the passengers were spared the discomfort of a 3 hour ride from hell as provided by the spoiled tyke's vocal abilites. I suspect dad never really gave her a good reason to cry but from now on he'll reconsider his failure to apply a few life lessons to little Elly.

PS... This is another prime reason why if my destination is within 1,200 miles I drive. No brats, stop when I want and great scenery if you stay off the I. Sure, it takes longer but its a minor problem compared to the alternative provided by Fedco and brats.

I have sometimes been forced to tell people that my dog behaves better that their child does.

No one has ever answered back.

I was flying from Newark to Houston a few years ago and the lady behind me had a very unruly four year old boy who refused to put his seat belt on, and was very vocal about it. She was obviously not the disciplinarian in the family. Several people have commented on how I look like a thug and are surprised at how my demeanor doesn't match my appearance. So this lady came up to me and whispered, "Could you please come back and scare the bejeezus out of my little boy so he'll behave?" I readily obliged because he was really annoying me. For the rest of the flight he only acted up a couple of times, and then, just like I was with my Dad, I just had to turn around and look at him and he straightened right up. Maybe Shrillary was right, It Takes a Village...with an Asshole.

Nice one Hamous.

Sometimes the right carefully chosen words can achieve the desired effect.

For example, "let's roll".

I think they should have a special storage section
on airplanes for kids...sort of like a little playground thing like McDonald's. And Hamous could
be the model for those we choose to administrate
needed services and treats for the little ones.

Some people are so anxious to be held hostage by their children, they let the little sweeties get an early start. Mine tried it...everyone of them, they still do. I've always won, and always will...because I make good on my threats. No matter WHAT these parents (loosely) said, the kid knew it was fake. Just think, *that* kid will be the executor for them one day...

I think the problem has become parents try to treat their kids like child-sized adults and instead what happens is that they grow up to be adult-sized children.

Hmmmm....these guys actually were offered free tickets ON TOP of getting their actual fare refunded. I might be interested in renting some kids for my next flight.

...this is why there are overhead bins.

Actually, I can understand the 3 year kid being a spoiled brat. In my opinion, It's her parents that I think need a slap across the chops. They had 30 minutes to board the damm plane.

Plus the pilot held the plane for another 15 minutes -- risking missed connections for all the other passengers.

Yet the parents are whining that they weren't given more time to control their little princess. I wouldn't have given them a refund.

I read this story in several places and wondered if the parents were playing the victim card. Seems that the commenters here have the same reaction I did: sympathy for the other passengers and the airline crew, not so much for the family, who were given more than sufficient time to get the kid under control.

Too bad the reporter didn't ask about how the flight to Florida went.

My hat is off to Hamous (a.k.a.) Asshole. (Stagehands, display APPLAUSE sign to audience)

To Florida Cracker: If your "Surgery in the Sky" bit is meant to be some sort of a cynical stretch, I'm afraid I cannot stretch that far. Interpretation: You blew it! It appears that you thought you would garner support for the possessed three-year-old and her panty-waste parents (Now IT IS I who really has to STRETCH to call them parents) who need to be reported to Department of Children and Family Services, or whatever they call it up there in Teddy-land. The good side: Kuleszas said he would never fly AirTran again. GOOD! I'm checking AirTran first for my next reservation. GO AIRTRAN! YEAAAA!!!!

"It appears that you thought you would garner support for the possessed three-year-old and her panty-waste parents"

Oh, dear. Apparently I'm more subtle than I thought. That's all to the good, I suppose.

I'd like to see the little bastards stowed in the hold, in a cat box. I hate flying with rug monkeys.

I am a parent of 3. I can't believe what some people allow their children to get away with. NO is not a bad word in my house. These people need to grow up and realize that their little "princess" isn't cute to others when she acts that way. Nobody wants to hear a screaming child on a flight. They should shut their mouths and accept the fact that their child is a class "A" BRAT!!!

I think some are VERY quick to judge the parents and the child. When my daughter was 2 years old, she started having similar episodes over things like bedtime, water, driving, etc...she had horrible fears and night terrors. She was generally a VERY well behaved kid, the fits were never related to things she WANTED - they were all associated with terrible fears. As she got older she started having a lot of tics, and by the time she was 10 we found she had Tourettes Syndrome, and that seems to come with a complimentary case of OCD. No discipline would stop her hysterical fits once they started. In time I had learned to sense the onset and take meausures to distract her - if my timing was good, it worked.

This was a very unfortunate incident for ALL parties - the child, the parents, the passengers and the crew. AirTran could have handled it a little more sensitively (and they have agreed on that) The family should not have been treated as second class passengers threatening safety. And shame on all of the people who just ASSume this was an unruly 'brat'. They have NO idea the kind of torment a parent endures in cases of a child like mine.

When you hear hoofbeats behind you, don't expect to see a zebra.

Learn to spell "damn" you jackass! Wow, I can't believe so many uncaring and ignorant people exist in this world. Unless you've had a normally well-behaved toddler throw an ill-timed tantrum, you have absolutely no room to speak. If children on a flight bother you that much, maybe you shouldn't fly. How about a rule to throw all assholes in the luggage hold? Those poor parents who were humiliated by idiotic airline employees (most likely childless).

Jan - IF the child had some sort of syndrome, such as Tourette's, I'm sure that the airline would have been made aware of the extenuating circumstances and this would be a non-story. If the parents didn't divulge such information then the onus is all the more on them. I think its a reasonable assumption that the kid was just an unruly brat with "new age" parents.

And thanks for the English lesson, Erin! It's pretty funny that you screwed up the structure of your last sentence after chastising others on their spelling, though.

Sintinse fragmints wich ar dumm.

Dammit, we cain't hep it seein as how we's jus dumm crackas. I ain't had no book learnin no how.

Alas! An airline with their priorities in order. They should hire the flight attendant that used Xanax on the kid a few years ago and I'd be their most frequent flier.

c'mon, sympathy for the parents? have you seen these whiners on tv? i see where the kid got it from. how could they be so selfish as to think that one hundred plus other passengers and crew should wait on princess? they should be ashamed of themselves. i'd love to hear what actual passengers on this flight have to say about it.

The article states that one of the reasons AirTran asked the family to leave was because the little girl hit a lady. The father thought that that was absurd because the "lady" was the mother.
For one thing, if the kid hit the mommy this time, then she has hit her before.
For another, if the dad was there, and the kid is still gutsy enough to hit her mother, then daddy has set, or is setting the wrong expectation for resectful behavior.
She'll be cussing them next.

Erin,
>"Learn to spell "damn" you jackass! Wow, I can't believe so many uncaring and ignorant people exist in this world. Unless you've had a normally well-behaved toddler throw an ill-timed tantrum, you have absolutely no room to speak. If children on a flight bother you that much, maybe you shouldn't fly. How about a rule to throw all assholes in the luggage hold?"<
LOL! Say it sistah, say it! While it is true the parents should have boarded earlier, people who call children names are more childish and rude than the children they're referring to. I'm always amazed to hear people rant and whine about being on a flight with children...the poor inconvenienced babies (the so-called adults, not the children). Certainly, some children are just out-and-out misbehaving and should be disciplined. But I'm sure most are unsettled/anxious, bored or tired of sitting still - all perfectly normal for children, nothing to be bashed over by adults.
Plenty of adults have a phobia of flying, yet it doesn't seem to occur to anyone that some of these misbehaving children are afraid of flying. It would be nice if adults who don't like children could have separate flights from family flights, then all would be happy.

P.S. I meant to add, it says a lot that the passengers had no problem at all with the child. They were there and didn't deem the child a "brat". Doesn't make a whole lot of sense for anyone who wasn't there to pre-judge the child and assume the worst.

(120 persons * 20 minutes f'ing around with the brat) / (60 minutes/hour) = 40 person/hours wasted because those parents were afraid to give that child a stern reminder that they are the boss and what they say goes...period!

Maybe the child is good most of the time, but AirTran was justified. In addition, I don't know if this was a factor in this case, but do you realize the the FAA routinely FINES airlines that do not depart on time. Late flights cost MONEY people. Thousands of dollars. A late flight is not just a single late flight, but it delays the entire series of events which is to follow.

Today we are having a lockdown drill at my school. I'll have a entire 3rd grade class inside of a closet for x amount of time, as will the entire school (k-8, 1200 kids) It will be my expectaion that no one makes a sound. Not a peep, or moves a muscle.
It can be done.
Sometime in life ther're serious situations where obedience and disilpine is absolutly necessary. Time and money and running across the parking lot are some, and controlling your noise is another.
Three years old is not too early to learn it either.