by Donald Wood
Last updated: 4:55 PM ET, Mon December 11, 2017
A woman and her family were kicked off a Spirit Airlines flight after attendants told her to stop breastfeeding her son and she was reportedly too slow to react.
According to KHOU.com, Mei Rui, her elderly parents and her two-year-old son boarded Spirit Flight 712 from George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston to New York City at around 6:30 a.m. local time when the plane was delayed due to an "insufficient de-icing solution."
Rui said her son became agitated and began crying. In an attempt to calm the child and help him to sleep for the duration of the three-hour flight, she began breastfeeding the boy.
Once she was feeding, an attendant asked her to stop and buckle her son into his seat before takeoff. Rui asked for a few more minutes to finish the feeding, but eventually sat her crying son in his seat and prepared for departure.
Despite following the flight crew's original request, an attendant came over to the family and asked them to leave the plane. In a statement from Spirit's director of communications Stephen Schuler to FoxNews.com, the family was kicked off for not listening to the instructions of the attendants.
"We were forced to remove a passenger from flight 712 after they refused to comply with crew instructions several times while the doors were closed during taxi and safety briefing," Schuler said. "To ensure the safety of our guests and crew, FAA regulations and airline policies require all passengers stay seated and buckled during takeoff and landing. We reviewed multiple accounts from the crew and other guests sitting nearby and we apologize for any inconvenience caused by this issue."
The group was met by airline staff and airport security when they left the plane, who informed them they would not be allowed back on the flight. In response to the incident, Spirit has issued a full refund to Rui and her family.
"We're not lawbreakers or trouble seekers," Rui told KHOU. "We're the elderly, a baby and his mother, why did they have to treat us this way?"
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