We have heard our fair share of horror stories regarding the treatment of families travelling on planes, but this latest one really takes the biscuit.
A US father has shared his outrage after his family was banned from Delta Air Lines – because his six-year-old son had head lice.
Writing over on his website, Out Kick the Average, Clay Travis – who is a sports analyst for Fox News – shared his story in an article titled, Delta Pulled My Family Off Its Planes On Saturday.
"Delta Airlines refused to allow my family to board the connecting flight in Minneapolis and insisted we leave the airport immediately after we exited customs,” he wrote.
“Why? Because my six-year-old son found out he had lice halfway over the Atlantic Ocean.”
In the piece, Clay explained how he and his wife were flying from Paris to Nashville via Minneapolis last week with their three sons, aged two, six and nine.
Everything was fine until, mid-flight to Minneapolis, Clay’s six-year-old needed to go to the toilet. While standing in line, the little boy began scratching his head.
“My wife checked to see why he was scratching his head and saw then that he had lice,” wrote Clay.
“Several flight attendants rushed over too, and peered down at my son’s head. ‘Oh my God, he has lice,’ they said.”
When Clay’s wife came back to their seats, she told him that she had been informed by the flight attendants that the family would not be allowed to leave the plane once they touched down in Minneapolis, due to the head lice!
Clay, who is also a lawyer, immediately searched Delta’s website for their policy on head lice – and came up with nothing.
The family wound up being ‘quarantined’ on the plane while two medics were dispatched to ‘examine their children’.
Once they were given the all-clear, Clay’s family disembarked from the plane and began to queue in customs. It was at this point that they were approached by a nurse and a Delta employee.
“This man tells us that we will not be allowed to take our connecting flight home, that we must leave the airport immediately, find somewhere in the city to be treated for lice, obtain a clearance form that proves we had all been treated, and until we do that we will not be allowed to fly home on Delta,” he wrote.
When Clay’s wife asked where they should go, the Delta employee suggested ‘the emergency room’ and reiterated that the ‘entire family unit was banned from travel on his airline’.
Every medical expert has agreed I was right & @delta was wrong. Now @Forbes weighs in. Read it: https://t.co/DMVXErmrVt
— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) July 23, 2017
Clay’s requests to speak to a manager were denied, and the only satisfaction they received was a hotel voucher. Keen to get home to Nashville, Clay promptly booked his family onto another flight with a different airline.
Naturally, the incident left a bitter taste in his mouth. Writing on his website, Clay stated that while he is ‘sympathetic to the fact that airlines and their employees have tough jobs’, this experience was ‘totally mishandled’.
Forbes has since reached out to Delta for an explanation, but rep Anthony Black has given very little satisfaction.
“Delta flight attendants are trained to perform a first-responder role as outlined by the Federal Aviation Administration,” he explained.
When asked about their policy on dealing with lice, he confirmed that there is ‘not a specific’ one.
What are your thoughts, mums?
