Did WestJet cancel a flight because a three-year-old temporarily had her mask off, a 19-month-old would not wear a mask, or because the delicate crew could not handle being questioned? I tend to think it is the latter.
Masking The Truth On WestJet: Two Competing Narratives Over Mask Flight Gone Wrong
Live and Let’s Fly has covered all sorts of in-flight mask stories since the pandemic began. All of them have involved controversy, though the controversy has generally been over the passenger’s mindset, not the facts that led to the ejection. Here we have a very different story.
A family of four was traveling on WestJet flight 652 from Calgary to Toronto on Tuesday, including two children, one aged three and the other aged 19 months.
WestJet claims the family was removed for refusing to abide by Canadian rules governing masks on airplanes. A spokesperson told CBC:
“Our crew requested the presence of the authorities after the guests refused to comply with Transport Canada’s interim order and subsequently refused to deplane the aircraft.
“Due to the rapid escalation of the situation on board, our crew felt uncomfortable to operate and the flight was subsequently cancelled.
“WestJet would like to clarify that there were two children, and we were not requiring the infant to wear a mask, but did require the other child, who is over age two, to wear one.”
But the family–and the witnesses onboard–tell a very different story. Passenger Safwan Choudhry confirmed that both children were initially not wearing a mask, but then explained that the crew demanded both children, including the 19-month-old, wear a mask.
“It started with my toddler and once we got a mask on her, they turned to my 19-month-old infant and said ‘every person on the plane has to wear a mask or the plane can’t take off. We were surprised to learn our 19-month-old daughter needed to be wearing a mask.
“Of course, being desperate to get home, we — despite there not being such a policy — opted to comply until she was crying hysterically, with the crew watching over us, until she threw up, at which point they told us you all need to get off the plane.”
He noted the three-year had no trouble wearing a mask and dutifully complied.
Yet WestJet crew and then the police allegedly told the family the baby had to wear a mask too.
Earlier today my family endure the most horrific & dehumanizing treatment onboard @WestJet plane. My wife was threatening to be arrested & forcibly removed unless my daughters, 3 yrs & 19 months would wear a mask. While my 3yrs wore her mask, the 19 months old was hysterical. pic.twitter.com/MHnaTnKgCU
— Safwan Choudhry (@SafwanChoudhry) September 9, 2020
Other passengers onboard began to stand up for the family. Then the Captain announced that everyone had to exit the aircraft “for security and safety reasons.”
Another passenger, Marian Nur, shared:
“I was so shocked, the parents never raised their voices, they never got angry with the attendants, they were just trying to reason with them.
“This was about a toddler not wearing a mask, and you felt the need to deboard the entire plane? There was a woman on the plane trying to get home to her mother on her deathbed. It was just frustrating, very, very upsetting.”
Flight attendants asked Nur to stop recording and she refused. Then they asked the police to make her stop recording and they declined.
Around this point, the police realized that the baby was only 19-months-old and did not have to wear masks (Canadian law requires only those two and over wear a mask).
With passenger agitated and the family upset, WestJet cancelled the flight.
Now Choudhry is claiming discrimination on the basis of race and religion (Choudhry is Muslim). He was traveling on an employee buddy pass, which likely means the WestJet employee will face the loss of pass privileges or disciplinary measures for what occurred. The entire Choudhry family has been banned by WestJet.
CONCLUSION
Nur added:
“This was about a toddler not wearing a mask, and you felt the need to deboard the entire plane? There was a woman on the plane trying to get home to her mother on her deathbed. It was just frustrating, very, very upsetting.”
Other passengers generally don’t stick up for rude and inconsiderate passengers who refuse to play by the rules. There are a lot of open questions concerning this case, but based upon the facts before us, it seems that the WestJet flight attendants were on a power trip and the family did not deserve to be thrown off.
image: WestJet
IMO you called it exactly! Along my travels, and before that working as ground crew, I’ve witnessed similar scenarios unfold over diverse issues (of course not masks back then) and I realized, as you know, flight crews get lots of say-so (pretty much the ultimate say-so in the moment) over anyone flying or not flying if they or any one of them become uncomfortable for any reason. While I get that, it is one main reason why even more nowadays it’s rubber-side-down rolling along for me.
Race was not an issue here. Unionized, spoiled Petty tyrants are given powers beyond their competence and the result is random and bias-driven. Maybe the wife smirked the wrong way or asked too aggressively for a gingerale or wanted two tasteless cookies instead of one. Passengers need a bill of rights in the era of petty tyrants. There should be a mutiny right if staff are abusive of their powers.
Do I think they should have cancelled the flight? Nope.
I don’t think they were discriminated on the basis of race and religion.
Also, in one of the videos the wife recorded, her 3 year old daughter was not wearing a face mask, she was wearing what appeared to be a bandana over her mouth and nose.
Give power to idiots and watch them lose their mind. Flight attendants are high on that list.
Canadians are some of the most racist and bigoted people on the planet, so it doesn’t surprise me this family was targeted by the crew.
Keep trying to stir that empty pot.
Westjet must be penalized for it’s non professional attitude towards the incident. This shows staff are untrained and have lack of ethics.
LOL yes the most ethnically diverse country on the planet with one of the highest incoming immigration ratios. LOL I guess they come for the racism? Unfortunately on aircraft, just do what you are told and they will fix it later. Crew has legislated authority and short of crew doing something criminal like sexually assaulting a passenger, there is no recourse but to do as you are told; right or wrong.
They insisted a 19 month old wear eye mask until the kid vomited. Currently rationalize that.
Move to Alabama then give an educated opinion instead of an asinine one.
Okay, in Alabama if you make a 19 month old wear a mask until vomiting you get your ass whhpped. How’s that for an opinion?
BS……..get a grip.
Joe….Wow! That is an extremely Racist comment!
It’s amazing all these people of colour want to live in caucasian countries, amongst Caucasians who on the whole don’t want people of colour in our countries. But the elite have forced onto us, these people of colour come to our countries to enrich themselves on wealth created by Caucasians. I say go home
They have as much right to be here as you have.
You realise that there are a lot of caucasian people living in people of color countries as expats to enrich themselves from the wealth of those countries. And you realize also that those same caucasians colonised some people of color countries for decades to enrich themselves and their countries. But it would be interesting if all people of color leave the caucasian countries and all caucasians leave the people of color countries!
Give me a break ! On the planet ? Go look somewhere else to spew your ridiculous rhetoric. You obviously haven’t met too many Canadians. The US would be a better place to pull the racist card
Try that racist whining in China which is a state-directed homogenous society and see how far you get.
Yes, let’s keep playing the race and religion card. That is the easiest excuse now for everything that doesn’t go the way one planned.
Let’s do the (intersectional )math. Passenger: POC +1, Muslim+1, female+1. Authorities: White -1, male -1, police uniform -10. Not even close. The actual law means nothing in these situations, and the sooner everyone realizes this, the better for everyone.
You think they were lying?
I don’t think they were discriminated at all. There is no way this was to do with race and religion. There might be some misunderstanding about what’s required and the approach might need to be improved but all WestJet did was based safety concerns of all passengers and crew members.
I don’t think they were targeted on the basis of their race/religion, but I did want to report on their allegations. But this wasn’t safety, at least the way I see it. This was an immature flight crew that did not like be questioned and that was not humble enough to admit their error concerning the 19-month-old child.
According to details like many businesses they change the rules according to what day of the week!!!
At the end of the article it says the family was travelling on a buddy pass. Working in the industry we all know to not lose that priviledge : dress appropriately be polite and never challenge whoever is on duty. So if anyone travelling on a revenue neutral pass becomes a problem. I can see them being a lot less tolerant.
Give me a break ! On the planet ? Go look somewhere else to spew your ridiculous rhetoric. You obviously haven’t met too many Canadians. The US would be a better place to pull the racist card
Not everyone thinks that way. Maybe you see things with a biased eye
This is exactly why I have no sympathy for the airline industry with the challenges they a facing with the pandemic. It’s my way or the highway for most of these crew members or the feel uncomfortable or threatened.
I sincerely hope Westjet goes bankrupt.
From the video, I agree that the family in question remained calm but some of the passengers were being unruly (for lack of a better word)…so maybe that’s the real reason for cancellation?
WestJet’s hands are tied. They cannot discuss the issue in depth due to privacy laws.
The story almost never is correct in the press in the first days after an incident. The family has a vested interest in appearing completely innocent. They are not. The incident was NEVER about the 19 month old. WestJet would never risk the liability of incorrectly banning people from future travel without the relevant facts. The fact is, they interviewed all of their involved employees as well as airport staff. They then banned the family from future travel. WestJet has also added a new paragraph on our staff travel website reiterating the responsibility of employees to make sure that people using their reduced rate travel, such as buddy passes or companions or parents/children of the employee follow the rules on mask wearing.
Frankly, there were some racist comments on-board the aircraft. But not from crew. From other passengers making inappropriate comments directed at the family. This resulted in other passengers directing comments to those making racist sounding remarks to the family. With the tense atmosphere on board, the flight attendants rightfully declined to work the flight. As a Captain with WestJet, I would have supported them 100%.
This whole incident could have been avoided if the parents directed their three year old to wear the mask. Failing that, they don’t travel. Our company has a zero tolerance policy because that is what the federal authorities, and most passengers expect.
As usual, with only the barest of information, people such as the author of this piece think they know what went on. He did not and does not.
I am not authorized to discuss this matter publicly and I do so here only as a line employee who has a little inside information.
I hope that clarifies for you some of what went on.
I appreciate you weighing in. Thanks for your insight. I also understand that WestJet cannot freely comment. But it does appear that the three-year-old was eventually compliant. Shouldn’t have then been enough? Is there no mercy? Can a three-year-old not be given a chance to correct?
Of course he can. But at that point there are a plethora of new issues that aren’t undone by putting the mask on. You can’t light a match, hold it up to the barn, have it catch fire, and then put out the match and go “there, problem solved!” The priority is always safety, once the atmosphere gets tense and passengers are unruly and confrontational to police… That cabin can quickly become a dangerous place even while it’s still on the ground. The captain observes this and has any interpretation that things could possibly escalate, it’s his/her duty to call a disembark right away.
You want to live in a world of armchair judging and toxic shortsighted overreactions? Don’t consider changing your line of thinking and subsequent expression of thought. As a writer with a public audience, you’re just being the wind blowing those flames from the barn to the next building over and so forth.
Sorry, there’s a pendulum between common sense and safety and I believe your analysis has swung too far in the “safety” category. You don’t think parents will get upset when they are badgered to put a mask on their 19-month-old?
If these people just made up the story and lied to hide the fact they refused to put a mask on their three-year-old, why have so many other passengers stepped forward to defend the family?
Sorry Matthew, on a confined airplane with tempers flaring at midnight, it gets to a point where the safest course of action is to cancel the flight and rebook the passengers.
The passengers who stepped up to defend the family, from what I have seen, are both Muslim. As the family was. Perhaps they felt they needed to defend their fellow Muslim family from what they “perceived” was racism. It was not. It is likely these passengers were unaware of ALL of the details, and likely had no idea of the seriousness that WJ and all airlines MUST treat mask wearing in the current tense environment.
Incidents of non-compliance are daily events at all airlines. In parts of Canada where I live, some governments are reversing the opening up of the economy due to outbreaks of COVID-19. Airlines are barely holding on, running down cash reserves every day, there are no profits being made. We cannot risk the government regulators further restricting our operations because of documented non-compliance with the procedures we have promised to implement.
Hope that helps.
What so many passengers are defending the family? it was one muslim passenger and she has since stopped commenting on the issue and made her twitter account private because she probably realized her mistake. There are people claiming to be passengers on that flight saying the opposite of that one passenger Nuri on Reddit. The family clearly lied while flying on a buddy pass at that.
Can you point me toward those passenger reports on Reddit. I would be happy to do a follow-up on this story.
The parents knew full well before getting on the flight. This is month 7 not day 1. It’s called teaching your children not waiting until you get on the flight to do so.
To let people know out there. In Taiwan and Malaysia my cousin’s is a Kindergarten teacher and they show me video the toddlers and kids age between 3-6 in day care of schooling for 6 hours wearing proper mask and face shield. Teaching them wash hand every break and face mask changing every 3 hours. It’s all about education!
Rules is the rule’s. Without enforcing, what’s the rules and agreement create for??
I can’t see any racism in this incident. Only excuses.
The family travelling on buddy passes are guests of the employee, who represent the airline during the whole journey. They are non-revenue passengers who don’t have the same rights as regular ones, and have to follow airline’s staff travelling guidelines. For whatever reason the crew can ask non-revenue passengers to deplane and they have to comply, i.e. a late passenger arrives after they have already seated.
Our everyday logic does not apply to this situation because whether they complied or not, or whether the 19 month kid were asked to put on a mask or not, as non-revenue travellers they knew, or should know beforehand they are not paying customers. The crew knew exactly who they are on the manifest seat chart,
I can’t believe WestJet or any other airline cares about spreading the coronavirus because if they did they wouldn’t load the plane from front to back. Is it more important to have first class passengers on board first or to stop the spread. When they load passengers from front to back everyone is climbing over each trying to get to their seat and store their baggage. It’s crazy. Stop doing this! It just doesn’t make sense!
WestJet’s problem is the ill-trained power-drunk Snowflake Millenial flight crew staff that lack maturity and discretion. I flew Ottawa-Edmonton in June to visit my Senior parents. I was disgusted that the obviously very intoxicated young man sitting in the aisle seat kept passing out and sliding his mask to chin while he snored profusely even before take off. Why wasn’t he removed for non-compliance? When he had a coughing fit (mask off) after the plane tool off, I finally used the call bell (had to ring it 2x with a lengthy wait before anyone came) to ask if the staff to move him to another seat. He was unconscious (as he was before the plane even took off) and they had trouble waking him to move him to an empty row. The Flight Attendant said she could give me wipes to clean the front of the chair he had coughed all over. I refused saying I had Senior parents in Edmonton and did not have the proper PPE i.e. gloves, at which point, she reluctantly wiped the chair he had been sitting in and the one he had coughed all over. The passenger sitting in the seat in front turned and thanked me.
WestJet ‘s problem is CLEARLY that staff lack the maturity, common sense and discretion to play “mask/health police”, nor should they have to. It’s beyond the scope of their skill sets and role. Have a Flight Marshall do that. On the flight home from Edmonton to Ottawa, I witnessed the WestJet Agent (20-something) at the Boarding Gate in Toronto, lecture a 14 year old boy with his Father about having expired ID. What does a 14 year-old kid know about having ID for a domestic flight? On the flight, I was harassed by a Flight Attendant for removing my mask for a moment in order to use my Ventolin asthma puffer. The flight was grounded for 30 minutes while a part was replaced, the Pilot explained. It was extremely hot as the Pilot acknowledged. The Flight Attendant attacked me verbally when I removed my mask for a moment to use my Ventalin for asthma. She badgered me accusingly asking repeatedly
if I was “well enough to fly”. I asked her “why wouldnt I be?” (a lot of people have asthma and use puffers). She wouldnt stop engaging until I asked, puffer in hand, if I could please take my medication. It was ridicuous. It felt like she was randomly targeting me and looking for a reason to put me off the flight which caused me a lot of anxiety. Meanwhile, a woman in the seat across (she wore a hajab) was talking on her phone the entire time with her mask on her chin. Nothing was said to her. These young agents have become drunk with power and are abusing it. Someone needs to sue WestJet to restore civic rights. It’s become beyond ridiculous.
Good day being a veteran flight crew for a few Canadian airlines on more then a few occasions I have had to instruct the crew and try to hold them back from elevating the situation. On one such occasion I had given a passenger a few minutes to put there bag under the seat, but before I could turn around my fellow flight attendant jumped the gun and called the flight deck while we were taxiing and had him return to the gate to deplane this passenger. I had just found a spot in the overhead bin and we could have avoided this situation. Not that it might have gone this way anyways they just didn’t allow me to finish dealing with this problem. Honestly it’s a hard job we have to deal with so many possibilities and the airline is always pushing for OTP. It’s a amazing skill to deal with problems in a quick and efficient manner. Many times it just takes a second opinion because somedays even the best of flight crew are not ready to or experienced enough to deal with all problems onboard.
Thanks for proving my point. No common sense or discretion, yet given the ability to make decisions that inpact people’s lives (flying/not flying to get home to children, dying parents, jobs, etc.) Its like handing a toddler a butcher knife. There needs to be accountability and a mechanism of complaining to authorities about inappropriate treatment by Flight Attendants that amounts to harassment. It never used to be like this and needs to stop. As I say, I hope WestJet is slapped with a huge Human Rights law suit. Seems like that’s what it will take to knock some sense into some of these dumb, snot-nosed Flight Attendants.
I’m sorry, but was this piece written solely on the information provided by news articles circulated about the incident?
If so, then the purpose here would appear to be to create a narrative that appoints “blame” on one side. I’m not defending either side in this story, and of course I find the available details of the story that we are being told disturbing, but writing opinion pieces like this is what is inciting people to make judgements without full proof.
Or perhaps you have more details about the incident that we don’t?
I witnessed a similar situation on a westjet flight from Toronto to calgary. A young two year old girl wouldn’t wear a mask. They kicked a mother, and her children off the flight. The were very rude and yelling at the mother. The flight attends are high up on their horses, thinking their superior than us paying customers. My 13 year old recorded the incident and the screaming attended came to him and started to scream at him to erase the video. When we got to calgary the 3 CPS were waiting for my 13 year old, because the higher than mighty attended called them. We also we threatened that westjet “might” not allow us to fly with them anymore. Worst experience for me ever and my boys. I never liked the service with westjet and now really HATE to ever fly with them again.
Do you have the video you can share?
I see you. Censor the replies.
Exactly why we shouldn’t fly with people like you
That’s your choice don’t fly with them.
Starting to feel like this country’s reverting back to being a one national carrier country
Beginning of the end for WestJet. They only can operate an airline in good times when customers tolerance for that nonsense is higher. Business model works until it doesn’t.
Good riddance!!
A quick look at another passenger who defended the family and the pilot concluded that he was Muslim. Really? Maybe he just has a dark skin.
No, that didn’t help, Just A Line Pilot. You threw a grenade and hoped to just walk away.
I can’t believe I took the time to actually read everyone’s crap in here.
Kids, we have a very long way to go….