A United Airlines captain was heard communicating with the company on whether to divert a flight because of a trio of raucous school groups onboard who were climbing over seats like a “school bus” and not respecting flight attendants. There was no easy answer here.
United Airlines Captains Plots Plan To Deal With Naughty Children Onboard “School Bus”
Cockpit communication between the captain of the unidentified flight and United lays out a story of chaos and disorder onboard thanks to three different school groups onboard:
We have three schools that were traveling together. They’re all in the back of the airplane. They’re climbing over the seats, they’re not being respectful of the airplane.
My FO and I were talking about it. We get it. They’re kids they want to have fun and they’re with their friends. Unfortunately, this isn’t a school bus and they’ve been very disrespectful to the flight attendants in the back. And we are trying to figure out, if they don’t calm down, our next course of action to divert to one of the bases and kick them off…I’m pretty beside myself with the actions that have been discussed to me over the intercom…
I agree with that, my FO agrees with that too. I’m waiting for another call back to see if they’ve actually calmed down before we have to make that statement. I’ve made a PA over, and kind of made a gesture of ‘hey you guys gotta be respectful and respect the airplane’ they’ve kinda calmed down but I’m not too sure what’s going on. We just got a call from the flight attendants about a light, so we’re going to see what that’s going on about and I’ll get back to you.
https://twitter.com/thenewarea51/status/1781189635768459490
To be fair to the kids, we do not know exactly what happened. Kids will be the kids in the sense that they will talk loudly. Were they really climbing over seats, though? What else were they doing to be “disrespectful” to flight attendants? Perhaps playing music or games loudly from their phones without headphones?
Handling school children is a difficult issue. Can you imagine the headlines had the flight actually diverted and dumped off the kids? The press would have a field day mocking United.
But how is a captain supposed to regain control? Suddenly drop the flight 10,000 feet? Warn passengers that any movement could “break” the Boeing aricraft? Come out and start spanking children? If chaperones could not control their kids, I doubt the captain could do anything more…
Perhaps the answer is to limit the number of kids on any one flight or separate them involuntarily in order to space them out onboard.
I remember a high school trip I took from LA to the East Coast in high school. We flew Southwest Airlines and everyone onboard was quite well-behaved (it was an Air Force Junior ROTC group… perhaps expectations were higher). At the hotels, though…
Of course, I would have just let other passengers handle it…
Let the other passengers handle this for you… pic.twitter.com/i24Hc8NbCQ
— Ben Johnson (@snvboy) April 19, 2024
Hat Tip: View From The Wing
seems like the kids just need a good hard spanking
A good hard spanking every now and then is good for a child
Depends if they were 6 years old or 16 years old…
Here in Texas, the 16 year old would be the one likely to get the Board of Education in this instance as paddling is more common in high school than kindergarten
You can raise your kids correctly without spanking.
@Aaron … +1 .
@Aaron: but spanking may be appropriate for some children…
@Matthew …
Aaron is correct about avoiding corporal punishment . A school excursion is not the Marine Corps .
It ought to be much more constructive to Reason with a small person (child) , so they can practice Reasoning . Frequently humor can be used for a small person to appreciate the silliness of a position .
A good book on reasoning and humor is by Barak Lurie : “Keeping the Kids All Right” .
That might be the dumbest suggestion yet. Reason with them. These 6 year olds traveling without their parents. These are older kids I’m guessing at least 10-12 maybe older. They need to be dealt with as thinking humans. .
Better to ground them. You just need to figure out what the best way to punish them is, and withhold that from them.
I see your point that it is a matter of IQ. Spanking smart kids will only lead to animosity and resentment. Smart kids need to be reasoned with and explained in detail why something is wrong or not ideal to do and be given an opportunity to give their input. Spanking may work for lower IQ kids who will fear physical discipline but not intellectualize it or consider whether physical violence is appropriate. Whatever the case it should never be done outside the home and not by anyone but a parent.
Whenever you consider physically harming a child, ask yourself: would you do the same thing to your partner, co-worker, neighbour etc. when they misbehave? There is not excuse to beat a child, and by doing so you rightly deserve to be placed in front of a judge.
Sincerely,
A grown man that was beaten by his parents at a young age because “A good hard spanking every now and then is good for a child”
I’m a high school teacher, and you cannot begin to imagine how badly behaved these kids are. When I was in high school, we talked when we shouldn’t have, and we did our best to prolong bathroom breaks. We made tasteless jokes, swore under our breath, and passed notes. But these kids are altogether different. They scream and throw things and swear out loud constantly. They swear *at* teachers and threaten us. One student at my school poured a bottle of water on a teacher’s head while the principal watched. There is no discipline because schools are afraid to get sued. People don’t know how bad it is. No one gets it.
Before boarding take away all of their mobile phones and devices , to be returned at the end of their flight , IF they are quiet .
This sounds like excellent crewmember instructions, to which Federal regulations require compliance, BUT some children can be pacified by electronic devices. Just not maybe these children.
I would like to know the routing. I suspect TO MCO, because that seems to be the station that attracts the most children. Whereas flights FROM MCO tend to be much more chill and calm as the passengers are worn out. Sort of like the difference between flights to and from LAS, for adults.
Perhaps these children have only flown Spirit before?
Yes we all know Matthew gonna spank his little mini me whenever he actually wants to do kid things. It’s been very well documented on this blog, he is not allowed to be a kid. Turn on cartoons the paddle comes out! Better sit up straight at all times!
LOL, was waiting for your comment. So sad about how you are traumatized by what must have been a terrible childhood or else regret over the way you raised your kids.
Instead of leaving my kids on the couch to watch TV, I take them around the world, or at least take them to the gym and go swimming and play basketball and sit in the sauna with them. I read to them every night and even at the ages of 3 and 7, we have great dinner conversations.
My kids explore the woods around our house and build forts in the backyard. Augustine composes books for fun (he’ll be a great contributor to this blog one day) and Claire Marie builds towers out of Legos and is already reading.
So you’re myopically wrong as usual. Please don’t superimpose your insecurities and regret on my family.
My children had to ask my permission to breathe and if they didn’t, they knew I would not Spare the rod. Oh and yes, they all turned out to be very productive adults MIS directors and CFO of a multi billion dollar company.
Matthew raise your children as you see fit!
Years ago I was a chaperone on a EF tour for my godchild’s school. Six teen girls. I chose the carrot versus the stick approach, in other words bribes. Urban Decay tattoos, eye makeup etc. They may have looked like tramps but they were busy and quiet. Totally worth it.
@ Maryland … +1 . What is an “EF tour” ?
Alert EF is company that provides tours around the world to school groups. There are tour guides and chaperones.
The captain took his play from the following saying:
“Calm down or I’ll turn the car around”
To:
“Calm down or I’ll turn the plane around”
Put the seatbelt sign on. Then put the aircraft into a +1g / -1g phugoid until the kids barf. That should quiet the party mood down!
Absolutely hate groups of teenagers. The chaperones are useless and the kids act like they own the plane. One flight I was working was so out of control on the way back from Cancun spring break, we had a college Lacrosse team detained in customs. They were scrutinized for so long, they missed their connection back to school. oh well……
Weren’t there chaperones to watch over the kids? If there were, they should have been the ones to speak to in order to calm the kids down.
They should have diverted to the nearest hub and dumped them off the plane. Totally unacceptable behavior. The kids need to understand there’s consequences for bad behavior.
It really depends on who those “kids” were and what they were doing. In the first place we shouldn’t assume flight attendants are telling the truth since flight attendants often have poor judgement and are prone to exaggeration. They often ask planes to be diverted because people complain about poor service. The pilot should check for himself and witness a situation without relying on the statements of flight attendants. Maybe the plane should be diverted to kick out a flight attendant. If a pilot trusts a flight attendant, he doesn’t have the good judgment to be flying as a commercial airline pilot.
Were these urban kids who would be doing graffiti and rioting in Philadelphia or normal high school kids who play soccer and are having a good time. It makes a difference. Flight attendants are often rude to passengers so passengers being rude to flight attendants means nothing. If we saw a picture of the students, the eye test is 95% accurate to determine if the pilots concerns are warranted or not.
“Prone to exaggeration?” What a ridiculously lame response.
You know nothing about flight attendants . What if I said to you, oh you are a liar and you can’t be trusted to do your job whatever it is that you do Mr Arnett
So you’re saying the airline should enforce different rules for “urban kids” vs soccer teams of probably well off suburban kids???
Flight attendants “often” ask for planes to be diverted because people complain about poor service?
Really? I would love to know how you know that.
Idiot. You’re implying that minorities should get away with whatever while white kids should get life sentences. Fu*ck YOU and your double standards. You are the reason people are “racist”
One warning to the chaperones. Control your charges behavior or we will discharge the entire group at the nearest airport we can safely land. I had the unfortunate experience of being on a spring break cruise. The things I saw these kids doing when parents weren’t around blew my mind. A 15 yo flashing her breasts in the hot tub with 7&8 yo present. Ice cream fights in the buffet. Taking condiments and smearing them along the walls. Stealing decorations. One group walked up to a table with dirty dishes and swiped every dish to the floor seconds after the previous guests got up. Then screamed at the crew for being lazy and not doing their job fast enough. But I’m sure they are all angels that just need to be spoken with and reasoned with.
Omg if I was staff there I would have been beating these brats to death lol
‘kids will be kids’ is such a beaten excuse for kids to act unruly. This is only brought on by neglectful parents who think a trip to Disney world is going to make things better.
Wayward youth….I soooo miss it!!!!!!
“any movement could “break” the Boeing aricraft (sic)?” … That’s a cheap jab. Seriously, you once were better than that.
Turn the airplane back to where they came from and cancel the flight without refunds. Besides depriving the devil spawn of their vacation parents needs some kind of consequence.
The trouble is, it appearently wasn’t a charter, so there are all the other passengers to consider as well.
Divert to a city where that would cause the adults and their rotten kids the most inconvenience, but not enough to where any thought of “compensation” would be discussed..