The flight canceled?

This morning, I opened my news page online and saw an article about a flight from Charlotte to Nassau, Bahamas, that was canceled yesterday. According to the article, a group of high school students from Boston refused to wear masks on their flight from Charlotte to Nassau (I think they were connecting through Charlotte), so after a lengthy delay, American Airlines canceled the flight and rescheduled everyone to travel today. Sadly, all those folks have to arrive in Nassau a day late, but guess what else? All those people who were supposed to fly out of Nassau on that plane back to Charlotte? Well, their flight was canceled too, because the plane never got there (I checked the American Airlines website to see if the downline flight had canceled, and it had.) See the story on the WSOC-TV website here.

What the what?!?! I love American Airlines, but I can’t believe they punished all the travelers because of the actions of some high school punks. Yes, I called them punks, because they were being absolutely, completely selfish.

Here’s the thing: If wearing a mask is such a big problem for you, you don’t have to fly. These kids knew before they left Boston that they were going to be required (by the Federal Aviation Administration!) to wear masks in the airport and on the plane. They knew. Life is all about choices. If you don’t want to wear a mask on a plane, then you should choose an alternate form of travel. Or in this case, maybe you choose a different destination…unless you want to charter a plane or travel by boat.

My blood pressure went up just reading the article about these selfish kids. I can only imagine how livid I would have been if I had been a passenger on the flight. And if my own child had been a participant? Well, she wouldn’t be on her way to the Bahamas today. Her butt would be on the way home…and big punishment would await her…big punishment. Punishment in the form of no phone or driving for a while. Punishment in the form of researching the meaning of the word “selfish.” We would likely teach her what selfishness was all about by behaving selfishly ourselves. She asks for something for dinner? We say, “No, that’s not what we want. We’re selfish, so we don’t care what you want.” She wouldn’t be hanging out in her room alone. She would be hanging out with us all day, so she would have to do what we want to do. Oh, we could teach her what it feels like when someone is selfish and ruins your plans.

And as much as I love American Airlines, I think they were far too lenient on this group of kids. Fortunately, American gave other passengers hotel vouchers for the night (that would not be enough to make me feel better about it), but the high school students? Well, they weren’t old enough to check into hotels, so they had to sleep in the airport. That was a tiny bit of sweet revenge. But still, American was too lenient. And I hope the parents will punish them when they get home.Those selfish punks, in my opinion, should have been blocked from flying again and left to fend for themselves on how to get back home to Boston. Get on a Greyhound bus. I wouldn’t care how they got there…just get out of the airport.

Not gonna lie…if I had been a passenger on this flight, my head would have been spinning around, The Exorcist-style. I likely would have asked (begged!) the captain to just put them out and continue on, because the rest of us would like to get to our destination. I probably would have cried tears of anger, simply because no one loves a vacation more than I do. It makes me angry just to think about it. A bunch of selfish kids ruined things for everyone else.

Unfortunately, these kids made a bad choice. Life is a series of choices. If these kids want to make bad choices, they will eventually learn there are consequences to their actions, I hope. They will be the victims of their own poor choices. However, in this case, I’m afraid the other passengers were the real victims of these punks’ poor choices. I hope these kids thought about their actions while they were trying to sleep in the airport last night. I hope they were absolutely miserable in the airport (and wearing masks!). I hope they got on the plane today with their masks and apologized profusely to the other passengers and crew. I have a feeling they didn’t offer apologies or ask forgiveness, but I hope they did.