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Continental Airlines Doesn't Allow Teen Coughing

March 29, 2007 at 10:42 AM | by markj | 5 Comments

A Continental Airlines pilot ordered 16-year old Rachel Collier off his flight from Newark to Hawaii Tuesday.

Why? Security threat? In-Flight drunkenness? Nope, try a coughing fit. Yeah.

Collier was on spring break, traveling with classmates and chaperones, but without her parents.

Collier's mother reports:

Upon boarding the plane (she) was asked to leave by the pilot because she had a little bit of a coughing spell.

From there, according to reports:

Rachel Collier and her teacher were left to find their own hotel for the night and had to buy clothes and toothbrushes because their luggage was already on the plane.

Two teachers were escorting 40 kids across the country and this incident meant one teacher was now responsible for 39 students. You can't play much of a zone with that kind of ratio.

A day before the incident, 272 passengers aboard a Continental flight from Hong Kong were detained in Newark amid fears of bird flu. So yeah, maybe Continental was spooked, but c'mon.

Now if Neeleman had to issue a YouTube apology for a spat of late delayed flights during an ice storm, don't you think someone from Continental should be making a video apologizing to coughing teens worldwide? Don't hold your breath.

According to Rachel's Dad, Continental picked up the hotel bill, but hasn't offered up anything else yet. Thanks Continental. You just gave us yet another reason to think twice before flying your airline.

Related Stories:
· Pilot Orders Coughing Student Off Flight [Click2Houston]

5 Comments

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  1. charck

    Jaunted Member

    Good for Continental

    How happy would you be to be stuck on a 10 hour flight full of recycled air with someone hacking up a lung for god knows what reason?

    This is precisely how diseases and bacteria is spread around the world quickly.

    Most importantly, though, is the health of the girl.  What would happen if her condition worsened for some reason and she needed immediate medical attention, but the flight is over the Pacific?

    How annoyed would EVERYONE on the flight be at Continental if the pilot had knowingly allowed her on board, but then had to make an emergency landing in SLC or some other city in the middle because she broke a rib (it happens) as a result of coughing so much?  

    I agree that the decisions network airlines usually make totally suck, but this Continental pilot was watching out for everyone's interests - especially  the rest of the passenger's.

    March 29, 2007 at 6:22 PM
    #Permalink

  1. markj

    Jaunted

    Ok fine...

    ...however, all this could have been a none issue if Continental offered the girl and her teacher a free round trip flight anywhere they fly, pay for the hotel (which they did) and tell them both to order as much room service as they wanted that night.
    March 29, 2007 at 8:19 PM
    #Permalink

  1. charck

    Jaunted Member

    yeah,

    I agree. But continental probably thought they were being overly generous as it was with the free hotel. The contract of carriage surely gives them the right to do this without any compensation.  

    Since it was a nonstop (probably w/o the risk of missed connections) the pilot should have waited for a few minutes so the girl could try to settle down. I bet the other passengers would have been OK with this.

    hotelchatter and jaunted are the best there is, btw. keep it up!

    March 29, 2007 at 10:34 PM
    #Permalink

  1. markj

    Jaunted

    Thanks Charck!


    Yup.  It was totally Continental's right to do what they did, but a little extra love goes a long way towards gaining customer love.

    BTW:  Thanks for the comments on HotelChatter and Jaunted!  We will keep it up for sure.

    March 30, 2007 at 9:29 AM
    #Permalink

  1. pb2162

    Jaunted Member

    Coughing and Continental

    As a woman with Cystic Fibrosis who frequently suffers from a persistant cough that poses absolutely no danger to others, I have to say I think Continental was out of line here. Yes, I understand that other passangers may have felt uncomfortable listening to someone coughing on the plane, but honestly that doesn't strike me as a legitimate reason to force someone off a flight. Should everyone boarding a plane be asked to undergo testing for harmful bacteria? There are, after all, plenty of ways to spread disease without coughing, and many people are sick or ill long before they manifest symptoms. As to the unlikely argument that coughing can cause a broken rib and force an emergency landing, should people with diabetes not be allowed on flights for fear of blood sugar emergencies, or older people for fear of increased risk of emergency? It just seems so arbitrary. I know I feel extremely uncomfortable when, as I mind my own business in a plane, people make comments and shoot me dirty looks based on my occassional coughing, and it just seems to me like this sort of snap judgment that anyone whose body is less "controllable" than normal poses a threat is harmful. I'm not suggesting that the pilot had anything other than the best of intentions - I just think sometimes we're all overly anxious to jump to conclusions for our own comfort or convenience that are hurtful to others.
    April 4, 2007 at 3:09 PM
    #Permalink

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