School opens 'investigation' after airline kicks students off plane

New York (CNN) -- The dispute surrounding a student vacation flight from New York to Atlanta is getting uglier.

One hundred one students and eight chaperones were kicked off an early morning AirTran flight before its scheduled departure Monday. The controversy now pits the airline against an Orthodox Jewish high school.

"We take this matter seriously and have started our own investigation," said a statement released Tuesday by Rabbi Seth Linfield, executive director of the Yeshiva of Flatbush school. "Preliminarily, it does not appear that the action taken by the flight crew was justified."

From the airline's perspective, it sounds like a large-scale version of the parental "don't-make-me-turn-this-car-around" scenario.

Southwest, which owns AirTran, said the group of "non-compliant passengers" would not stay seated, and some were using their mobile devices after being asked not to. When the students failed to comply with requests from the flight crew, including the captain, they were asked to leave the plane, delaying the AirTran flight for 45 minutes, said Southwest spokesman Brad Hawkins.

www.cnn.com...

As normal, both sides claim a differing story. Maybe kids didn't take instructions seriously, soon enough or the crew had little patience.

I bet most kids don't understand that a plane isn't a playground, they are kids. If they were acting up too long maybe the chaperones should have gone over how to act on a plane in a bit more detail.

If it was 45 minutes of delay, that doesn't sound good.

Where are the kid's videos

Any clue which level of school these kids are. Yeshiva of Flatbush school runs 3 levels... Maybe I missed how old the kids were.

They were High school aged kids, so they knew better, and I side with the pilot and crew for kicking them off the plane

ETA: even an outside witness said the kids were disruptive:

But business passenger Brad Rinschler, who takes the commuter flight three times a month, said he saw "definitely less than eight" chaperones with the students.
He saw only two adults walk off the plane with the kids. And the chaperones sat in the front of the plane, while the noisy students sat in the back. Rinschler sat in business class, he said.
He said about 10 of the more than 100 students didn't listen to the flight crew's instructions and were noisy, swapping seats to sit beside friends and using their cell phones.
"They were laughing at them and ignoring them," Rinschler said of the 10 students.
The crew gave the students "multiple chances" to heed preflight instructions. "They pilot warned them. They did not comply. They thought it was a joke. You know, it wasn't a joke," Rinschler said.
"I've never seen this," he added. "It's a commuter flight. There's no families on it."
Rinschler didn't witness any anti-Semitic events. "Absolutely not," he said. "There was not one ethnic slur from anyone on the flight crew or anyone who was inconvenienced for two hours.
"If they were adults, they wouldn't have even had that many chances. That's the bottom line," Rinschler said.

. But business passenger Brad Rinschler, who takes the commuter flight three times a month, said he saw "definitely less than eight" chaperones with the students. He saw only two adults walk off the plane with the kids. And the chaperones sat in the front of the plane, while the noisy students sat in the back. Rinschler sat in business class, he said.
He said about 10 of the more than 100 students didn't listen to the flight crew's instructions and were noisy, swapping seats to sit beside friends and using their cell phones.

"They were laughing at them and ignoring them," Rinschler said of the 10 students.

The crew gave the students "multiple chances" to heed preflight instructions.

"They pilot warned them. They did not comply. They thought it was a joke. You know, it wasn't a joke," Rinschler said.

Sounds like they deserved it.

reply to post by smyleegrl


LOL we posted that @ the same time!!! GMTA!!!

Student Jonathan Zehavi said he felt they were targeted because they are an identifiably Jewish group.

"They treated us like we were terrorists; I've never seen anything like it. I'm not someone to make these kinds of statements," Zehavi said. "I think if it was a group of non-religious kids, the air stewardess wouldn't have dared to kick them off."

This is dumbest statement I've read today. Sure, the flight crew hates you cause your religious.

~Tenth

Ummm.. Okay, when you basically rented the plane for your OWN group? Where do they get off throwing off the whole group without making every possible effort and then some? I checked out of curiosity and two types of planes fly that route for Airtrans from NY to Atlanta. Boeing 717's and 737's. The 717 seats 106, so thats out. They wouldn't have fit, all by themselves.

The 737 seats 168 or so...So they comprised 2/3rds of the entire passenger load of the aircraft, assuming it was a full house with no empty seats.

Nice going there Southwest.... They have a real bad P.R. problem in recent years with their attendants being little power tripping nazi's. These are the same people who have thrown others off for the shirt or shorts they wore because it wasn't to their liking on one plane while another had no problem.

After 9/11, they got SO much power to just toss anyone off a plane for damn near any reason they want it's absurd. They should have to account and explain, officially (at the very least) for each and every single instance of a passenger being ejected from a flight. If it's alcohol or something obvious? Hey, easy report to make and no biggy. Something like this? They should have to account for it...IN DETAIL...for who and what was done to cause them to do this.

When did throwing people off planes become SO casual a thing to do that they don't much think twice on it? Well... Since they got the post-9/11 powers to do it, I guess. Booooo Airtran and Southwest. Crap like this is why I DRIVE to anything within the Continental U.S. these days, unless time is a required issue.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


To be fair Wrabbit, they were asked numerous times to behave, shut off cell phones, etc, they didnt, so they were kicked off the plane. as posted above, even a witness said they were disruptive. I hardly fault them for being kicked of the plane, they could have caused a safety issue

"One chaperone — not two, not eight — one talked to them asking for a second chance. The pilot said, 'You had a second chance, you had a third chance. There's other people; we have to go. It's not stopping,' " Rinschler said.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


Sounds like the kids wouldn't listen, set the plane back 45 minutes...if this is indeed the case, then I agree with what the pilot did. Why should the rest of the passengers be inconvenienced because these students wouldn't follow directions?

Personally, I'd be more likely to fly with an airline that took such situations seriously.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000

They have a real bad P.R. problem in recent years with their attendants being little power tripping nazi's.

not the metaphor I would have expected for this particular story ....

reply to post by HomerinNC


I think the problem here is that according to the school people, there is some dispute as to how much effort was made and how much tolerance was shown from the start. I can well imagine cranky flight attendants seeing nearly their entire plane fill with ONE group of school kids and groaning before the kids even start behaving like...well... kids.

They also make a very good point. Collective punishment? All 100+ people are tossed? Well, they must have enjoyed that after the kids were gone. It was literally an empty plane to how it must have felt to be on. 2/3rds of the paying passengers just got thrown out the door.

It's not like just a row of people being jerks and the whole plane applauds when they get tossed. This WAS nearly the whole plane being tossed.

Personally? I think following 9/11, Ceiling Cameras with feed to ground stations on command should have been installed on every commercial passenger aircraft in the country. Not for this, in my thoughts back then, but it sure would settle the He said/She said (Over over 100 he/she's saying) vs. the Flight Crew.

reply to post by smyleegrl
From the sound of it the chaperones weren't doing their jobs. They should have "taken up" the student's electronic devices when they wouldn't turn them off. When the kids were in high school I went as a chaperone on a charter bus trip halfway across the country (4 buses full of band students) and when the kids on my bus started hopping seats I put a stop to it just by using my "Exorcist" voice- and they straightened up quick!

Originally posted by littled16
reply to post by smyleegrl

 

From the sound of it the chaperones weren't doing their jobs. They should have "taken up" the student's electronic devices when they wouldn't turn them off. When the kids were in high school I went as a chaperone on a charter bus trip halfway across the country (4 buses full of band students) and when the kids on my bus started hopping seats I put a stop to it just by using my "Exorcist" voice- and they straightened up quick!

Agreed.

As a teacher, I know that voice well. It's part of my arsenal, which also includes.."THE LOOK."

reply to post by Wrabbit2000

Travelling as a passenger on an airline isn't a right, it's not a promise and it's no entitlement. It's a privilege from a private organization and they chose to set standards which excluded one area of people that were not compatible with their general overview of life.

I believe they had every right to do so

reply to post by lacrimoniousfinale


You're right. Flying isn't a right. Since 9/11, flying with these power trippers is agony and misery. The news has the stories regularly and I've experienced it myself, as I imagine a number of others here have as well.

When you give people the authority similar to a Police Officer with absolutely NO accountability to the use of that power? Abuse happens. Frequently, as it seems.

* Power wise..it's the ability to throw you off or even have you arrested upon landing, based on nothing whatsoever but their own say so that they want it to happen for xx reason. As this story shows, questioning the flight crew simply isn't an option for normal people and flat out isn't done by authority. So...they're encouraged to do even more.

Originally posted by tothetenthpower

Student Jonathan Zehavi said he felt they were targeted because they are an identifiably Jewish group.

"They treated us like we were terrorists; I've never seen anything like it. I'm not someone to make these kinds of statements," Zehavi said. "I think if it was a group of non-religious kids, the air stewardess wouldn't have dared to kick them off."

This is dumbest statement I've read today. Sure, the flight crew hates you cause your religious.

~Tenth

I am surprised he didn´t say it was antisemitism.

That group of my family.....the Judah bunch can be really contrary, concieted,arrogant,"above regular people"......and have an attitude of "so far above the normal people"....that we are scum, pigs, animals worthy of killing and such.

It's impossible to affect their attitude.So........

Hell, these modern kids just acted like they do on the school bus, like under-aged, social terrorist (you read that here first). They were, still, nothing more than typical kids today, not "raised" in the standard definition, but "supplied" with every need more than beyond what was really "needed." Maybe a bit spoiled more than the average American child because it seems they were from monied families.

Originally posted by Wrabbit2000
After 9/11, they got SO much power to just toss anyone off a plane for damn near any reason they want it's absurd.

Proof please. I've seen no evidence that airlines have any more power to kick people off than they did before.

The plane belongs to the airline, not the customer. The airline has every right to say who will or will not be on that plane. That's their call, not the customer's.

When a customer pays for a service on the plane, he agrees to abide by the airline's rules. If the customer breaks those rules, the airline is perfectly within its rights to remove him from the plane.

I don't like this attitude of 'I paid you, now I can do whatever the hell I like.' No. You can't. You paid for a service and agreed to its terms. Break them and you'll get kicked off the plane.

Simple as that.

reply to post by littled16


From what other passengers and Southwest said, the chaperones weren't even with the students. They were sitting up front, and the students were in the back portion of the plane.