Flying with kids is stressful enough but at least you know there’s bathrooms on board in case your kids has to go to the loo.
Well, that proved wrong, when Stacey Osmond and her two-year-old granddaughter Ruby were on their way home from a trip to see Osmond’s niece in a dance recital.
It was Ruby’s first plane ride and everything went perfectly, until they boarded the five and a half hour flight home from Nova Scotia to Calgary.
Ruby had wet herself on the flight home when a flight attendant refused to allow her to use the business class restroom more than once.
Knowing that her granddaughter would likely have to take frequent bathroom breaks, Osmond arranged for seats near the business class, so they were close to the bathroom. However, the attempt to think ahead didn’t do well with any of the flight attendants. “The second or third time I tried to take Ruby to the bathroom, the flight attendant told me, ‘I can’t have you coming up here anymore,’” Osmond told CBC News.
“I said, ‘She’s a baby. I was given those seats by a booking agent for that reason so that she would be close to the bathroom.’ She said, ‘That doesn’t matter, you are not to come up here.’”
Enraged, but not wanting to escalate the situation with her granddaughter watching, Osmond headed back to their seats.
With the beverage cart blocking the way to the bathroom to the back and the flight attendant refusing to let little Ruby use the bathroom at the front of the plane, the girl tried to hold it. Ultimately and understandably, she had an accident right there in her seat.
Ruby had finished potty training only a few months before, and Osmond hadn’t flown with a small child in over 15 years. The gran didn’t have a spare pull up or change of clothes on hand.
Osmond found some napkins to try and clean the little girl up best she could. She let the flight attendant know what happened. “Later when passing the flight attendant I said, ‘She peed in her seat, thanks.’ She didn’t say anything. But then about 20 minutes later another flight attendant brought us a complimentary blanket for her to sit on.”
The little girl was forced to spend the remaining 3 hours of the flight in her wet seat.
Osmond contacted the company regarding the incident. They’re refused to offer her a refund, instead saying they would send Ruby some things and give Osmond a $200 voucher. Osmond declined this offer. With the exception of asking her to resend the claim number, they haven’t contacted her for anything else.
Osmond says it’s not really about the cost of the flight, it’s the way she and her granddaughter were treated. “I would have like a little common courtesy,” she explains. “You can’t just treat the passengers beyond the curtain like they are not worth your time. Air Canada would not be able to operate on business class alone. And I didn’t pay $1600 to be treated like garbage.”
Fortunately, Ruby seems unfazed by the whole thing and is instead focusing on the fun she had with Grandma while away.”It was a wonderful trip,” explains Osmond. “Ruby was on stage with the dancers and now can’t stop showing us her new dance moves.”
The Gran also offered a tip in hopes of preventing this from happening to someone else. “Get the very back seat,” she says.