A Brooklyn mother and her six children were kicked off a JetBlue flight Wednesday after the woman’s 2-year-old daughter refused to wear a face mask, leaving the family stranded in Orlando, according to reports.
Chaya Bruck said they were ordered off the plane bound for Newark, New Jersey, despite her pleas with flight attendants as she struggled to get the young child to comply.
"It was horrible, the whole experience was traumatizing," Bruck told the New York Daily News from Orlando International Airport.
Bruck said all the other children were wearing the facial coverings and accused the airline of not following its own policy on masks for children 2 or younger.
On JetBlue’s website, “it says that a child who cannot wear a mask does not have to wear a mask,” Bruck said. “I tried to tell them this, but they didn’t care ... They wanted me off the plane.”
Bruck said other passengers began protesting and "were sticking up for me ... All of my kids were crying. I was shaking ... It was inhumane."
Several passengers stood in their seats to film the episode with cellphone cameras.
“Leave her alone!” one woman called out.
“They were really nasty,” passenger Charzette Poinsette told the Daily News about the airline’s staff. “She was crying, I felt so bad.”
Ten days earlier, as the family traveled to Orlando, Bruck said she argued with one of the same flight attendants over the issue and knew there would be trouble when they crossed paths again on Wednesday.
"The minute he saw me today, he recognized me," Bruck said. "I heard him tell the other stewardesses about me."
Earlier this month JetBlue updated its pandemic polices which require passengers to wear face coverings in order to board. Initially the rule didn't apply to children aged 2 or younger but was apparently updated on the very day that the family was booted in Orlando, the Daily News reports.
JetBlue posted the updated policy at 2 p.m., just 44 minutes after Bruck's flight was set to depart, stating that "all travelers 2 years and older must wear a face covering over their nose and mouth throughout their journey."
After boarding the flight on Wednesday, Bruck said she and flight attendants immediately argued over the age of the girl.
"They came over to me and told me my daughter was 3 years old," she said. "I told them she's 2 ... I know how old my child is, she's going to be 3 in September."
The crew eventually stepped away and that's when another airline official approached Bruck with an ultimatum.
"She said, 'Are you getting off the plane or are you staying?' " Bruck said. "I told her, 'I'm not going, I want to go home' ... But she just kept repeating (the question.)"
JetBlue has not commented on the matter.
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