Grammy-nominated cancer researcher: I got kicked off flight for breastfeeding
A Houston pianist and cancer researcher says she was booted from a Spirit Airlines flight — along with her 2-year-old son and elderly parents — for “non-compliance” with instructions not to breastfeed her child.
Mei Rui and her family were aboard Spirit Flight 712 from her home in Houston on Friday en route to Newark – a trip connected with a clinical cancer study in the Big Apple, The Washington Post reported.
But the early morning flight was repeatedly delayed because of a lack of de-icing solution, she wrote on Facebook, so she began breastfeeding her son, hoping it would lull him to sleep during the three-hour flight.
“Every parent with a young child can image, you don’t want to be that parent on the plane,” she told the paper. “It would be very embarrassing. I was just trying to avoid that.”
While the plane’s door was still open, one of the flight attendants told her the boy hed to be strapped in his seat for takeoff, she said.
“I asked for just a couple more minutes to finish because if he woke up at that point he would have made a lot of noise,” Rui said. “I said, ‘I promise I’ll finish before you close the plane’s door.’”
When Rui stopped feeding her son, he began crying in his seat and she was ordered off the plane. She asked why she was being asked to disembark if the baby was strapped in.
“It’s not like I was resistant, I put him in the seat,” she told the paper. “If they had shown a little compassion, it wouldn’t have happened, they didn’t have to let it escalate.”
Eventually, all the passengers were instructed to get off the plane. She was met by police officers at the gate, where a Spirit rep told her she would not be allowed back on board.
“I just want to know why we were kicked off the plane?” Rui, who captured the scene on her callphone, asked the rep as he and several cops blocked her from the gate.
“Because you were not compliant,’” he told her.
“Could you tell me which part of the instruction we were not compliant with?” she asked as her son continued to cry. “I think we deserve to know that.”
But the employee refused to give more details.
“If this happened to your family …,” Rui said before being cut off by the rep, who said: “It wouldn’t happen to my family, I can assure you.”
The ordeal also took its toll on her parents, Chinese natives who had been traumatized by their country’s Cultural Revolution, she said.
To make matters worse, Rui’s father — who she said has an aortic aneurysm and several hypertension — was rushed to a hospital after collapsing.
In a statement to Houston’s KHOU, Spirit defended its decision to kick Rui and her family off the plane.
“Our records indicate a passenger was removed from Flight 712 after refusing to comply with crew instructions several times during taxi to runway and safety briefing,” the statement said.
“To protect the safety of our guests and crew, FAA regulations and airline policies require all passengers to stay seated and buckled during takeoff and landing. We apologize for any inconvenience to our guests. As a courtesy, we’ve issued a full refund to the passenger in question.”
The incident is the latest blow this year for the family, which never made it to New York. Rue said they lost their house during Hurricane Harvey and have been living in temporary housing.
The Yale grad, who holds degrees in molecular biophysics and biochemistry and music, has been performing classical piano since the age of 10, according to her bio. She received a Grammy nomination in 2015.
“I had never imagined something like this could happen to our family. I am heartbroken that I could not protect my old parents and Lukas from this cruelty!” Rui wrote on Facebook.