A family claims to have been thrown off a United Airlines flight for complaining about the in-flight movie. The Atlantic prints their letter here, but my executive summary is below–
- Legacy United crew / A230 / DEN-BWI / 02 Feb 2013
- Parents of 4- and 8-year old onboard object to Alex Cross movie being played on overhead drop-down monitors
- Movie is rated PG-13 and contains sex and violence, though it is not clear how much UA edited the onboard version
- Parents ask a FA to stop playing movie or at least close the monitor above their seats
- FA refuses, stating it is technically impossible to close one monitor and it would be unfair to other passengers nearby
- Other passengers chime in, agreeing movie is inappropriate for children
- Purser is summoned, agrees that content is not appropriate for young children, but refuses to intervene
- Parents ask if captain has the final authority to address the issue, but purser ignores question
- Parents ask for name of captain, purser refuses to provide it
- One hour later, captain announces flight will divert to Chicago over “security concerns”
- Police officer boards plane in Chicago, approaches parents, asks them to gather their belongings and disembark
- Outside aircraft, parents met by UA management and FBI
- Parents quickly cleared and placed on next flight to Baltimore, but refused reboarding on now delayed original flight
- Everyone involved, including some crew members, allegedly place blame solely on the captain
- Some crew members time out on the diverted flight, further delaying it
* * *
There are two sides to every story and I would love to hear the crew’s account of this incident. Perhaps the parents reached up and tried to forcibly shut the monitor after being told not to. Perhaps they refused to take no for an answer and loudly berated FAs, disturbing the passengers around them. But I must admit, my instinct is to believe the parents. After my own incident in February onboard a United flight, I can personally attest that crew members and captains will lie under the guise of safety.
Two issues arise here–first, whether it is reasonable for a passenger to protest an onboard movie and second, whether the captain was justified in diverting the flight. I’ll address the latter issue first.
A captain is responsible for the safety of everyone onboard and erring on the side of caution is not necessarily unreasonable. Yet while we only have one side of the story, we know that the ejected passengers were quickly deemed safe and placed on another United flight. That’s enough for me to believe that the captain was not justified in diverting the flight.
My theory is that an over-zealous purser rang the flight deck and exaggerated about how problematic these passengers were, adding that they were now asking for the captain. I suspect the captain assumed the worst and did not want to deal with them, so he diverted the flight instead.
It seems logical that these were disruptive, boisterous passengers–how else could a flight diversion be justified–yet this is by no means established. Some people assumed I must have been rude when I was thrown off a United flight just a week after this family was for taking a picture of my seat, but that was not at all the case. All I can do is caution those saying the parents are hiding something.
The second issue is the content of inflight entertainment, particularly overhead monitors that all are exposed to. United is free to air what it wishes, but it is in United’s interest to offer content that appeals to the broadest range of passengers without alienating more sensitive viewers. That does not mean UA must limit itself to content geared toward the prudish among us, but some discretion just makes sense. Alex Cross, which received a whopping rating of 12% from Rotten Tomatoes (reason enough not to show it), purportedly features sex and hardcore violence. Without being our moral guardians, if I were running an airline I would save movies like this for personal IFE systems rather than overhead monitors.
Let’s not forget that keeping a kindergartener and second grader from looking up to the moving picture in-flight is not an easy task and in that sense, the audience is captive–they cannot just get up and walk outside. Asking passengers to keep their heads down or eyes closed if they wish to avoid certain movies is not as easy as it sounds.
Yet do not think I am totally letting the parents off the hook. Ultimately, it is parents’ responsibility to protect their children from harm and not the job of United Airlines. That’s what iPads, iPods, laptops, coloring books, and magazines are for and it sounds like the parents were not well-prepared for the 3.5-hour flight.
Many of you said that had I not spoken up and attempted to explain my reasons for photographing my seat, I would have flown to Istanbul as scheduled. That is probably true, just like it is probably true if these parents had not spoken up, the flight would have continued to Baltimore as planned. But if the story did transpire as described–“throughout these interactions the atmosphere was collegial, no voices were raised and no threats, implicit or explicit, of any kind were made”–then the parents share no blame for merely expressing their objection to the movie being shown.
Let’s see how United responds to this, if they do at all. What are your thoughts on the content of programming shown on overhead monitors during flights?
Well at least they didn’t take pictures 🙂
PG-13 and edited. Parental Guidance. Parents should mind their children and leave the flight attendants to their duties which are primarily for our safety. I would have been one very unhappy flier if the movie wasn’t shown. Worried about inflight entertainment — drive and air whatever you wish. Fly and you watch (or ignore) the entertainment that is shown.
A sensible compromise would have been to issue the children earplugs or earphones and move them to an area where the monitor could be covered if necessary. Along with coloring books, that would have worked.
Sounds like the purser was ineffective and the parents’ request to escalate to the captain backfired because, like with Matt’s captain, they will often defer to back up their crew right or wrong.
I think the parent’s objection was valid in that the film is not rated for young children and therefore if a passenger with children objects, the captain should have yanked it and dealt with the fallout (different film, perhaps serve some drinks to the adults to make up for it, etc.)
Delaying the flight at considerable expense and inconvenience was overreacting and technically illegal. The captain is required to log and report to the FAA all security incidents. Not only was this bad business in terms of customer service, but the captain’s authoritarian manner also cost Delta tens of thousands of dollars and for what? To avoid turning off a sub-par Hollywood film or seeking to resolve the situation with the concerned parents on an adult level?
The top rated review of the film on imdb is amusing: “The acting is as bad as I have seen this millennium. Tyler Perry steps in the big shoes of Morgan Freeman, who played Cross in the previous two installments of the series, Kiss the girls and Along Came a Spider and does a terrible job. He cannot emote and is clumsy in the action scenes. When he should be all fire and brimstone, he is pretty lame . Edward Burns used to star in top notch movies like Saving Private Ryan a decade back. He is less than a shadow of his old self.”
I flew with my wife on Delta last week also on an older plane with overhead monitors. What a contrast to what I heard about United. The captain and purser continuously reminded everyone that they valued their business and the flight crew asked me if I wanted to take a survey of their performance (I gave them high marks.) The crew was amazingly friendly and helpful.
Matthew – Would you agree that United has had a generally bad attitude towards their passengers as of late – there have been a number of incidences? If not, do you think this is bad luck, bad PR (and those who try to counter these stories and make them right) or a growing issue with legacy employees that are willing to use “security” as any reason to discipline customers? I know all airlines have these sorts of issues but it seems like UAL is on a bad streak right now.
It took a full hour to mull it over and finally decide there were
“security concerns”?
@Sherpa: I do think UA is on a bad streak, yet I don’t see it as endemic. I still prefer a legacy UA crew over ex-Cons, all else equal, and I find the vast majority of crews to be just fine. But I do think legacy crews pull the 9/11 card much more often than ex-Cons.
@PK: Great points as always.
Funny thing Matt: I have a United FF# for my international travel but haven’t flown them for a long time. Nothing personal although I wasn’t pleased when the one United flight I took international didn’t include free wine in economy class. The best rates and routes for travel to Poland or Ukraine where I visit relatives are either on Lufthansa, Austrian, Aeroflot and now: Turkish Air (which I especially look forward to trying.) The only reason I put my miles on United was that they allow you to rescue your miles with some use (buy a magazine) while Lufthansa times them out after three years. Since many of these carriers are on different systems, I have a portfolio of programs.
Great we’re all going to be stuck watching bambi for every flight now. Oh wait Bambi’s probably too violent. There goes in flight entertainment. I hate parents with an excessive sense of entitlement. The world doesn’t revolve around you and your kids.
Ann, I agree that ultimately parents are not entitled to dictate what IFE is chosen. But this particular movie is just plain bad–I can understand why they would object and just hope that UA would be a bit more sagacious in selecting movies going forward. Movies like the King’s Speech and Argo–both rated R–are perfectly valid for overhead consumption, IMO. It is not about the rating per se, but the content itself. Excessive violence and sex just seems unnecessary when the screens are down for everyone to see.
Everyone has their own comfort levels, but some movies–like Alex Cross–just push the envelope too much.
I’m laughing at Ann mocking the parents for maybe wanting to cancel Bambi as too violent. A friend of mine traumatized her 5 year old son by taking him to see Finding Nemo. That first scene where the barracuda kills Nemo’s mother is dramatic. My friend’s son broke down crying and had to be taken out of the theater.
Disney films love to kill off mothers. Must be something about Walt’s psyche…
Now for overhead viewing in-flight movies, I would LOVE to see the original Airport! Or Die Hard 2! How about Con Air? When Rain Man was shown on many airlines, they decided to edit out the scene where Hoffman’s character rattles off the names of various airlines that have had fatalities. Except Qantas which gave the producer a FC seat out of gratitude.
I think US Air is the model that airlines will follow in the future–wi-fi available, eventually with streaming movie content ala Netflix for a fee. No need to worry about editing then.
The plane probably got diverted because the family wanted the captain (who by the way is busy, you know, flying the plane) to deal with something pretty trivial, something that the FA’s can and do handle.
It kind of raises a red flag, wanting the captain to get involved, wanting to divert his attention from what he should be doing. I really find it odd myself that the family felt the captain should deal with the situation.
This relationship is broken. Broken in a way that 9-11 can’t offer a precipice on which to stand.
If I make a false claim to local authorities, such as calling 911 when the fast food worker gets my drive-thru order wrong, I can and should be held accountable for those actions. In this case the pilot and crew can hide behind the veil of safety and likely never be called to task to explain their actions. After the authorities interviewed this family, did they turn around and interview the crew?
I believe these incidents are a clear message to the flying public that our status is equal to our luggage in the eyes of some crews. Maybe this pilot was having a bad day. And perhaps this pilot should consider a career change flying cargo instead.
Charmander, read the original letter. It appears that the purser says he didn’t have the authority to turn off the movie and this is what led to the family asking if the captain did. It’s a natural question. He didn’t insist upon bringing the Captain out of the cockpit. After this friendly exchange, the family did their best to deal with the situation.
Even if they had insisted upon escalating the issue to the captain, there’s a co-pilot at the controls and the captain can communicate via intercom without leaving the cockpit.
It’s like smoking issue, people that don’t smoke are not the problem, the harm comes from smokers. It’d not wise to have an offensive movie playing for all to see.
Ha, it was about 1990, I was 11 years old flying from New York to CDG, on TWA, they showed some movie where a woman appears fully naked. It was the first time I saw a naked women, lol.
I think it was “Hear no evil, see no evil”, but the movie available now is rated. I definitely saw a full frontal…
Although I have minimal desire to see Alex Cross, I would not be happy on this flight. As a father there are certain things I do not let my children watch, but these parents should not ruin things for everyone else. I hate being subjected to boring programs. So although I don’t want to be forced to watch Alex Cross, I also don’t want to be forced to watch old episodes of Barney. Which may be deemed bad for kids that do not believe in dinosaurs.
The parents should leave their children at home if they feel the need to have everyone else’s environment changed to accommodate their children or preferences. United’s and it Captain’s overreaction and inconvenience towards all of its passengers is also inexcusable. I’m sure the family will not be flying United again … But also a large number of passenger on that flight and experiencing similar issues will make the same decision. If I were United management I would act quickly to fire abusive crew.
I was on that flight. We sat behind the family. The family WAS NOT a threat. They complained about the movie. We have small children and we complained about the movie. It was an awful movie. One scene showed a murdered woman dressed in lingerie tied to her bed. Is this something you want your 5 yr. old to see? Much less, your 11 yr. old? I had to distract my kids from looking at the screen. The family was trying to distract their kids with chess and card games. That family’s 4 yr. old had the screen in front of his face. The flight attendant over-reacted. When they landed the plane for “security issues” I was terrified – was it another 9/11? Nobody knew…the flight attendant and the pilot should be fired for wasting fuel, and inconveniencing and terrorizing passengers. I am glad the family went public with this.
Why can’t airlines play something less offensive and more appropriate for everyone? Like maybe a PG or family movie? Its one flight. People can do without graphic violence and nudity for that amount of time. Those complaining about not getting enough sex and violence on the airline movie screen most likely do not have small children or even children at all else they would understand a parent’s desire to shelter them from such things. Our society use to be concerned about the effects such things would have on our children but not anymore. Its all about how uncomfortable we make adults. I don’t believe anyone has to worry about seeing Bambi anytime soon.
I believe the parents had every right to complain. I believe diverting this family was ridiculous. I also believe airlines should be more considerate about the fact that there are very young passengers on their flights. This family paid for their tickets just like everyone else and like everyone else expected and deserved a nice flight.