Pregnant woman with disabled daughter kicked off EasyJet flight accuses airline of 'emotional distress'

8 September 2023, 20:13

A heavily pregnant woman with a disabled child who was kicked off a flight to a family wedding says she wants to take on the airline for causing "emotional distress".

Siobhan Foster was flying with EasyJet from Belfast to the Spanish island of Ibiza to attend her brother's wedding over the August bank holiday weekend.

But she, her husband and young disabled daughter were ejected from the flight for being "aggressive" - which Ms Foster said came from simply asking for help putting her bag in the overhead locker.

Easyjet maintained that she and her group had been "disruptive" and denied any wrongdoing.

"I have spoken to a solicitor about what happened to us," Foster told MailOnline.

"I have got a view to sue them for emotional distress. I don't know the amount yet I will be seeking from them. The baby is due in five weeks and after all this that's happened I don't think I will ever step on a plane again.

"At the wedding I was in a lot of pain in my stomach afterwards because of all the stress. I was obviously worried about the baby."

Previously, Ms Foster said the flight attendant looked "grumpy" as she boarded the flight on August 19, but she asked her if there were any more space in the overhead lockers.

"Her reply was a sharp ‘Clearly Not’.

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To Ms Foster's question asking if she could help her find somewhere else, the flight attendant said that the pregnant woman would need to find somewhere herself.

Ms Foster asked again, and said the flight attendant told her she was being "abusive" and it wasn't her job to help her.

"Then another air hostess, an older lady, approached me to say look this isn't our job to help etc, I said any other airline I've flown with have been more than helpful with me as [I'm] pregnant etc so of course then she said i was abusive.

"I honestly wasn’t and the whole plane can vouch for me."

She added: "To say i was in shock was an understatement", telling her followers that "in no way shape or form was I aggressive".

"The whole plane could see how she was being towards me."

Ms Foster said she found somewhere for the bag and put it up herself - but then two more crew members came over to tell her that she was being aggressive.

"I decided to ignore her and she started raising her voice saying LOOK AT ME!

Ms Foster added that they should not speak to her like that because she was not "a child" and continued to ignore the crew, before bursting into tears.

They were then told they were being thrown off the plane for being aggressive, without any proper explanation, Ms Foster said.

The pilot told everyone on the plane that there had been an incident with the passengers at the front. He eventually asked everyone to get off the plane.

According to Ms Foster, all the passengers on the plane were chanting to get the flight attendant off the plane herself.

When the family eventually left the flight, police officers met them to escort them to get their luggage. They weren't able to leave Belfast airport until 9 that night.

"I actually am so distressed over this I honestly thought I was going to go into early labour," Ms Foster said.

They eventually flew to Ibiza from Dublin the next day, at a cost of £1,500 in total.

Ms Foster said she had "no words" for how "stressed, upset & overwhelmed" she had been.

She said that Easyjet "should be ashamed of themselves" and she was "in shock" at how she was treated.

She decided to use Easyjet to flight back, and said: "I was actually frightened because I wondered if they were going to stop me.

"But they were absolutely fine and there were no problems whatsoever."

An EasyJet spokesman said: "We can confirm that flight EZY3003 from Belfast to Ibiza on 19th August was attended by police before departure due to a group of passenger behaving disruptively at check in and then onboard.

"easyJet's cabin crew and ground agents are trained to assess and evaluate all situations and to act quickly and appropriately to ensure that the safety of the flight and other passengers is not compromised at any time.

"The Captain took the decision to ask all passengers on the flight to return to the terminal so the situation could be resolved and as soon as it was they reboarded and the aircraft continued to Ibiza.

"Whilst such incidents are rare we take them very seriously and do not tolerate abusive or threatening behaviour towards our crew or other passengers. We would like to apologise to the other passengers for any inconvenience for the delay this caused.

"The safety and wellbeing of our passengers, crew and ground agents is always easyJet's priority."