Is 2017 becoming the year of airplane incidents or have these things always been happening and they’re just getting more publicity due to phones and social media? Either way, here’s another incident about a family getting kicked off a plane. This time JetBlue Airways is the culprit.
A family from New Jersey boarded a flight from New York’s JFK Airport to Nevada to celebrate a birthday, but things didn’t go as planned. Cameron Burke told the New York Daily News he and his family were celebrating the 40th birthday of his wife, Minta Burke, and as part of their carry-on luggage, they had a cake which they put in the overhead bin.
Burke tells the newspaper, “A flight attendant nicely asked me to remove the cake from that compartment, so I moved it to another one. She then asked me to move it to underneath the seat in front of me, I did.”
That’s when Burke says another flight attendant got involved and scolded her coworker and then him about the cake. Then another airline employee got involved, which is when Burke and his family were asked to leave the plane. Burke refused to leave and started recording the incident on his cell phone.
Jersey City family kicked off flight over a cake. @JetBlue says passenger was agitated/security risk. Video appears to tell different story. pic.twitter.com/q0zQzNbHoa
— CeFaan Kim (@CeFaanKim) May 14, 2017
Then, two Port Authority police officers showed up to investigate the situation and they concluded that Burke and his family did nothing wrong. However, JetBlue still found the Burkes at fault. In order for the family to get off, the airline has all of its passengers leave the full flight.
The Burke family was refunded their tickets and reward points, but clearly, their trip did not get off to a good start. Their travel plans weren’t completely ruined as Burke was able to book his family a flight with United Airlines the following day. He plans to file a lawsuit against JetBlue and has reached out to the National Action Network.
