Oct 30, 2009 7:18 pm US/Pacific
Southwest Kicks Mom, Cranky Kid Off SJ Flight
SAN JOSE (CBS 5 / AP) ―
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A Southwest Airlines jet takes off.
Scott Olson/Getty Images
Kids will be kids, but one cranky 2-year-old was acting too much his age for a Southwest Airlines flight crew who kicked him off a San Jose-bound flight earlier this week.
Pamela Root said she was confident her son Adam's screams of "Go! Plane! Go!" and "I want Daddy!" would subside once they took off Monday.
Instead, she said the plane returned to the gate in Amarillo, Texas, and the pair was escorted off.
The crew said they bounced Root and her son off the flight because passengers could not hear preflight safety announcements.
A spokesman for Southwest Airlines said that the carrier had apologized Friday to the 38-year-old stay-at-home mom.
Spokesman Chris Mainz said the airline called Pamela Root to apologize and indicated that she would receive a refund and a $300 travel voucher.
Root said she also hoped to be compensated for the portable crib and diapers she had to buy for the extra night away from home.
Southwest had previously acknolowged that removing a crying child from a flight was unusual but indicated that flight crews had leeway to resolve situations as they saw fit.
(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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