Mom discovers vomit on daughter's Frontier Airlines seat, gets into altercation with flight attendant
A 53-year-old North Carolina woman and her teenage daughter discovered vomit in their seating area on a recent Frontier Airlines flight, and the mother was later reportedly arrested after she "became disruptive" and refused to deplane and get on another flight.
Rosetta Swinney, of Durham, North Carolina, told WTVD that the flight was delayed so the plane could be cleaned, and that she was shocked to see the mess.
"(My daughter) jumped up to say mom! My hands are wet," Swinney told the outlet. "She smelled it. She says 'this is vomit, mom.' So we went to look. It was on the bag, all over her shirt, her hands," Swinney said.
The pair were flying from McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas to Raleigh-Durham International Airport in North Carolina last week. They told flight attendants about the vomit.
"The flight attendants apologized and immediately invited the mother and her teenage daughter to move to either end of the plane so that the seat area could be cleaned by a cleaning crew," Frontier said in a statement. "The mother and daughter were also told that once boarding was complete they would be provided other seats if available. The daughter was also offered cleaning products for herself and invited to use the lavatory to wash up."
Swinney contends the flight attendant in question didn't try to clean up the mess or reassign their seats.
Other passengers recounted the incident on Facebook. "Keep in mind there is an entire row (3) of empty seats in front of us. The attendant could have simply switched their seats and asked someone to come cleanup the vomit," a passenger wrote.
"#FrontierAirlines is DEAD WRONG FOR THIS! Never again!!" the post, which also includes videos, reads.
"The mother was unsatisfied with the response and became disruptive," Frontier's statement continued. "As a result, the flight attendants determined that the mother and daughter should be deplaned and accommodated on another flight. The mother refused, and following procedure, law enforcement was called. Law enforcement then requested that everyone deplane so that the mother and daughter could be removed allowing the aircraft to be re-boarded and depart."
"I felt humiliated," Swinney, who is due to appear in a Las Vegas courtroom in June, told WTDV. "I felt more bad that my child had to see me be handcuffed and taken away from her."
"We apologized to our passengers for the inconvenience caused by the departure delay," Frontier added. "The safety of passengers and crew is our top priority at Frontier."
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Mom discovers vomit on daughter's Frontier Airlines seat, gets into altercation with flight attendant
