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Speechless
ChrisCrossings · December 21, 2000

Q: I have never been in trouble with the law or experienced any problems with authority in my entire life - until I flew from Orlando to Allentown/Bethlehem/Easton, Pennsylvania via Cincinnati on Delta Air Lines last month.

I was traveling with my six-year-old daughter, my mother, my sister, my niece and two nephews. We were returning from a vacation at Walt Disney World.

We were helping each other by carrying different bags on to the plane. I was carrying my travel bag, my purse, my daughter's backpack and a Walt Disney World shopping bag containing gifts and Christmas ornaments.

As we were boarding, the flight attendant loudly said to me, "You may not carry on all those bags! What are you doing? Give me those bags to put in storage."

I explained that the bags weren't all mine and asked if I could keep the backpack for my daughter. I apologized and gave her my shopping bag. She took it.

Then the flight attendant began getting upset because she saw my niece in front of me with her own carryon shopping bag. I told my niece that she couldn't bring it on board. I took it from her and walked over to the flight attendant and gave it to her. I apologized again.

She took the bag from me. Now she was quite annoyed. She began talking very loudly in a demeaning fashion to my nephew, saying, "Give me one of those bags."

A few moments later, I asked the flight attendant if I could please get something out of one of the carryons that had been stowed away, but the flight attendant refused and ordered me to return to my seat. I apologized again and went back to my seat.

At this point the flight attendant was standing about three rows ahead of me. She was looking at me and she must have noticed how frustrated I had become. She came walking over and asked, "Do you have a problem?"

I calmly said "yes." I said I didn't like the way she was treating me, and that I though she was rude and that I didn't understand why. She just grinned.

Then I calmly asked for her name. I told her that I intended to report her behavior when I got home.

She immediately said, "No, you may not have my name."

Approximately five minutes later, a man came up to me in a red jacket. He identified himself as a Delta agent and asked what my problem was.

I said I didn't have a problem. I just wanted to get the flight attendant's name because she was acting so rude to us.

The flight attendant was standing next to the agent. She slammed her hand on the overhead compartment above me and screamed, "She is lying! I did not yell at her or her nephew - she is OFF this plane!"

I was aghast. My daughter began to cry. I looked at the Delta agent and said, "Please, let me tell you again what I said; I did nothing wrong."

The agent said if I did not leave the aircraft immediately, he would have security physically remove me and have me arrested. Now daughter begins crying - "Please, please, don't take my mommy!"

I was frightened for my daughter. I stood up and said, "OK, I will leave the plane. You are frightening my daughter."

My heart was pounding and I was trying to hold back my own tears. The agent said, "No. Your entire party is to leave this plane at once. Or should I get security out here?"

The next few minutes were a blur as my head was spinning and I grabbed my daughter and began walking off the plane, followed by my family, two other women and three other crying children. When I got back in the terminal I was greeted by two airport police officers and another Delta manager.

I was crying and begging the manager to just let my family back on the plane so they could get home safely. I kept saying, "I was the one that asked the flight attendant her name. I didn't know I wasn't allowed to do that."

They wouldn't listen to me. They told us to "shut up." At one point my mother asked the airport police to just listen to me. The officer looked right at her and told her to shut up or he would have her arrested.

We had to leave Delta concourse immediately after retrieving our luggage at baggage claim. We proceeded to push two luggage racks plus carry our carryons all the way to the US Airways terminal, where my sister is a silver club member. We caught the next flight out the following morning.

I am emotionally drained. I am appalled. I have no idea the long-term affects this will have on my child and the rest of my family. I will not walk away from this matter and I do not want this ever to happen to another traveling family again.

-- Pamela Batch Garza

A: For the first time since I began to write this column, I am speechless.

Note: Here's the follow-up column.

Christopher Elliott's column appears on Thursdays. All e-mailed questions to ChrisCrossings become property of Ticked.com and may be edited, condensed or republished at the site's discretion. You may reach Elliott at chris@ticked.com. Or visit his home page at http://www.elliott.org.