A New Jersey family was disappointed and upset, after being kicked off a jetBlue flight from JFK Airport to Las Vegas on May 3 over a humble Birthday Cake. Cameron Burke and his wife Minta were off to Vegas with their two children to celebrate Minta’s 40th birthday with relatives there.
According to Minta, they were all so happy to board the flight which was a surprise trip for her, booked by her husband.
However once on board, there was yet another surprise, but it wasn’t a happy one.
Birthday cake placed in overhead bin causes controversy
As reported by the New York Daily News, the family had initially placed the butter cream birthday cake in an overhead bin. However, a flight attendant came up to Cameron, saying he had to take it out. He obliged the flight attendant, placing the cake under his seat. However, according to the Burkes, a second flight attendant came along, confronting the first and he said he didn’t know what was happening between the pair, but it “wasn’t pretty.”
Burke could see the second flight attendant pointing at them and appeared to be asking the first if she had said the passenger couldn’t put anything in the overhead bin.
He decided to approach the two airline crew to let them know everything was fine, but the flight attendant turned to him, telling him it didn’t involve him.
However, tensions grew as the attendant then went on to tell Burke that he had been “non-compliant.” Due to the fact that the flight attendant’s behavior didn’t appear to be normal to him, Burke then asked her if she had been drinking.
All passengers asked to leave jetBlue flight
Police at JFK Airport were eventually brought on board the plane and an announcement told passengers that everyone must get off the plane. Cameron said the passengers were clearly taking his side and were very understanding about the situation. Minta said the situation was crazy and she was surprised, as she had always thought highly of jetBlue in the past.
Naturally, the whole ordeal was captured on video and the footage appears to go against a statement by JetBlue, included below.
Another side to the story from jetBlue
As reported by ABC7, following the incident, jetBlue said in a statement that the customer had refused “multiple requests” from the flight crew to remove items from the overhead bin. It continued by saying the passenger was agitated and had yelled and cursed at the flight crew, along with making false accusations against a flight attendant’s fitness to fly.
According to Cameron, he never raised his voice or cursed during the whole birthday cake incident on the jetBlue plane and said his family was at no time told why they were being kicked off the flight. He added that it was strange that the family was immediately refunded the price of the tickets once they reached the terminal with no questions asked, which he said just didn’t appear to add up.