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Lyndsie Foster

ENGL 2010

2/16/2021

Scott Wilson Goes to Hawaii

Scott Wilson lives in Utah as a strong community member at age 37. Him and his six

siblings grew up in the Valley. Scott and his family are very good people who always make sure

they are fitting in with the rules. It’s been hard for him to miss out on a vacation in 2020 as a

result of the pandemic. They usually go on at least one vacation every year. In order to make up

for the sad times the year before, they knew they had to go on a huge vacation. After much

thought, Scott finally convinced the rest of the family to go to Hawaii for their vacation. Scott

works a desk job at a regular sized company. He doesn’t see the sun much, so this was a big deal.

Scott helped everyone find a good flight that would fit all twenty of them. It would be

strange to travel to Hawaii on different flights. The Wilsons are a family of 20, “ten adults and

ten kids”(Coffey). It took a bit to find an affordable flight that goes for six hours and thirteen

minutes over 2955 miles. The family waited months for their vacation time to come. It was

January 24, 2021 when they finally made it to the Airport. Each Wilson family member had a

suitcase packed and ready to go with a mask on the nose. COVID wasn’t much of a worry for

them because they had already gotten the virus, they used the mask to protect others.

As they walked in, it was very bright with slightly less people than usual. Scott

immediately guided everyone through the process of getting on the flight. It had been what felt

like at least twenty minutes when they finally reached the airplane. They scanned in their tickets

and headed through the boarding bridge. At some point, Scott’s mask slipped down below his
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nose. Another person on the Airplane noticed and asked him to pull it back over his nose. Scott

didn’t think to look over to see who this person was because it didn’t matter. The wilsons were

not the type of family to be rude, so he quickly made an effort to fix the issue.

Scott Wilson simply set all of his bags down, slid his mask up, and picked his bags back

up. After they found their way to the back, “a gate agent approached them with some bad news

from the crew” (Moser #). “They want you to leave the plane”. Scott was shocked, he had no

warning of what was going on other than the small interaction with the other passenger. It’s crazy

to kick someone off of a flight because he didn’t have his mask on the entire time. Scott asked

the gate agent if there was someone he could talk to to get it all sorted out. The agent leaves to go

get more information.

The gate agent came back “insisting the captain of the flight crew needed them off” The

whole family of ten adults and ten kids were directed to get off the plane. As soon as this

happened, other families on the flight were saying things like: this is wrong, that guy was being

rude to everyone on the plane, that family had their masks on the entire time. Regardless, they

got off the plane and were transferred onto several other flights. The family was obviously

treated unfairly. The other gate agents were on the Wilson family’s side and explained that it was

not a normal thing and the other guy was completely in the wrong.

It’s important to avoid being that person who gets people booted from a flight because

you were ornery.

The family ended up overflowing some other flights as a result of the incident. They left

their flight basically empty because they weren’t following COVID guidelines only to put other

flights slightly out of COVID restrictions. All that planning for the family to be on the same
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flight was useless. Each child had at least one adult with them the entire time, so at least that

worked out. It’s not completely the airports fault that the family was kicked off their original

flight. It’s the other passenger that was in a mood and decided that the whole family was a

problem because one adult family member’s mask slipped. The gate agent definitely needed to

re-evaluate when he saw the other families on the flight advocating for the Wilsons.

It’s times like these that make traeling worse. It’s already a possibility that you can miss

your flight, the flight gets canceled, or airsickness. COVID restrictions have everyone wearing

masks to protect from the virus. The fear of COVID makes it easier for crappy people to get

away with things like this. Luckily, the other gate agents recognized the mistake so it won’t

happen again.
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Works Cited

Moser, Ashley. “Utah Family Removed From Flight Over Mask Dispute.” WNKY 40, 27 1 2021,

https://www.wnky.com/utah-family-removed-from-flight-over-mask-dispute/.

Coffey, Helen. “FAMILY OF 20 REMOVED FROM FLIGHT AFTER PASSENGER’S MASK

SLIPS UNDER THEIR NOSE.” Independent, 28 January 2021,

independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/covid-mask-american-airlines-family-b179403

1.html.

“The New SLC Project Fact Sheet.” SLC International, 1 October 2020,

https://slcairport.com/thenewslc/the-new-slc-fact-sheet/.