A total of 101 students and eight chaperones from a high school in New York boarded an AirTran plane bound for Atlanta on Monday for their senior trip, but the flight crew kicked the entire reportedly misbehaved group off the plane before it had a chance to take off.
Yeshiva of Flatbush school officials do not believe the flight crew had justification to kick the group off the early morning flight, but the school’s investigation is ongoing.
“Preliminarily, it does not appear that the action taken by the flight crew was justified,” School Executive Director Seth Linfield said in a statement released to the media Tuesday.
Southwest Airlines, the company that owns AirTran, told media outlets that the students from the Brooklyn-based Orthodox Jewish high school would not remain in their seats or stop using their cell phones despite being asked “several times,” according to a statement from AirTran.
“Both are violations of Federal Air Regulations, as well as our policies,” AirTran said.
But Teacher Marian Wielgus told CNN that while some students may have had “to be told twice” to obey the air flight crew, “they certainly did not do what the stewardess was claiming they did.”
One student said he hadn’t even been given the chance to turn off his cell phone before a flight attendant asked him to leave the plane, according to CNN.
Students and chaperones also expressed their distaste for the incident on Twitter.
“Yes we got kicked off the plane to Atlanta,” one student said. “Who knew Southerners could be so mean”
Despite the initial surprise and lingering doubts, the school “will continue to speak with chaperones and students and reach out to Southwest Airlines to determine the facts,” Linfield said in his statement.
Linfield also said the school does “acknowledge that Southwest Airlines has offered vouchers for future air travel to faculty and students.”
Southwest also put the travellers on other flights into Atlanta on Monday, but the group was split up for the remainder of their 12-hour travel time.
Some students experienced a layover in Wisconsin.
“Welcome to Atlanta, I mean Milwaukee,” a chaperone tweeted during the layover. “Senior Trip continues!”
The seniors did eventually reach Atlanta and even visited The World of Coke, according to tweets.
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