Loose Women’s Charlene White refused to board an American Airlines flight when staff tried to seat her away from her two children. The 44-year-old news anchor, and mum to Alfie, seven, and Florence, five, with her partner Andy Woodfield, firmly told the crew: “Don’t mess with me.”
During a conversation on Alan Carr’s Life’s A Beach podcast, Charlene recounted: “I’ve got no problem with complaining about stuff. I almost refused to get an American Airlines flight two months ago because they split me up from my kids, which is illegal.”
“So then I reminded them of aviation law and said to them they sort it out or I’m not getting on the flight and they will have to put me on the next flight with my children. Don’t mess with me. You’re not allowed to be split up from your children because if something happens…
“If there’s an accident and the thing comes down, you can’t necessarily trust a stranger to do that for you so legally you have to sit with your children. And they were trying to tell me that’s not true, and I said ‘I think you’ll find it is’.”
The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has stated that while it’s not against the law to seat children away from their parents or guardians, doing so contravenes their guidelines. The CAA emphasises this could hinder emergency evacuations as parents will naturally attempt to reach their offspring, reports the Mirror.
According to the CAA’s official website: “Young children and infants who are accompanied by adults should ideally be seated in the same seat row as the adult. Where this is not possible, children should be separated by no more than one seat row from accompanying adults. This is because the speed of an emergency evacuation may be affected by adults trying to reach their children.”
Meanwhile, American Airlines has a policy to “assign seats a few days after you buy your tickets so children under 15 are next to at least one adult” they’re flying with.
In a contrasting viewpoint, TV presenter Kirstie Allsopp told The Sun that she prefers to purchase seats away from her children, sometimes opting for business class for herself and her partner while the kids sit in economy. She believes that flying business class should be a significant treat earned through hard work.
She pointed out that she doesn’t want to ‘spoil’ her kids, adding that the money she saves means her family can “take a shed load of holidays”. Kirstie said: “Club class should be huge treat that you’ve worked for. If kids get used to Club class what do they have to work towards?”.