(TargetLiberty.org) – An Illinois woman has been thrown off a flight because her two-year-old son wasn’t wearing a mask – while he ate. The 34-year-old, who didn’t want to reveal her full name and identified herself only as Jodi, says she was traveling home from a family visit to Florida on Saturday and was scheduled to take a Southwest flight from Fort Myers to Chicago. However, thanks to what she says was an overzealous approach by airline staff, she was humiliated and forced to leave the airplane.
A woman traveling from Fort Myers, Florida, to Chicago said she was escorted off her Southwest Airlines flight on Saturday because her 2-year-old son was snacking prior to takeoff and wasn't wearing his mask. https://t.co/ujjdZsLv1q
— USA TODAY (@USATODAY) September 14, 2020
Jodi says she and her son were both masked when they boarded the flight, but the problems began when she gave him a pre-takeoff snack to relax his ears. Despite the fact he was eating, she says, flight attendants repeatedly told her to pull his mask up. She tried to comply but he insisted on pulling it down again to eat more candy.
Eventually, he finished the candy and allowed her to pull his mask back up, but although he’d been wearing it for some time, the plane returned to the gate and she was confronted by a manager and told to deplane.
Southwest says it can’t transport anyone aged two or older who isn’t wearing a mask, whatever the reason. The airline says it’s investigating the incident, but Jodi hasn’t heard any more about why she was removed from her flight and forced to spend $600 for another ticket with a different airline.
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