Gay Parents Blocked From Boarding Plane As Family, While Straight Families Allowed

Airline employees refused to allow the gay parents to board together with their child as straight families seemed to get a pass.

Split image of gay parents Jeff Cobb and husband holding their baby at a pride parade and an EVA Air plane on the runway

In what seems to be the latest example of the friendly skies not being so friendly for LGBT+ travellers, gay parents Jeff Cobb and his husband complained about their recent flight with EVA Air.

Flying from San Francisco to Taipei with their infant daughter, the couple claimed they were separated from boarding together while straight families were not.

Jeff posted to Twitter: “My husband and I were told only one of us could join our 19 month-old in the family boarding group… I explained we were both the fathers of the child, and they said it was their policy that only one parent can board and the other has to wait in the normal line.”

Cobb continued: “Not having flown EVA before, I accepted it and let my husband and child go while I boarded later. When I met him on the plane, he said there were many other (straight) families all boarding together. I’m very disappointed that the EVA ground staff at SFO thinks it’s ok to separate same-sex families during boarding. I will definitely not be flying this airline again after this incident.”

Making things more questionable, when the family landed in Thailand for their connecting flight with the same airline, they were allowed to board together as a family.

Following their complaint, the airline apologised, saying “It is our policy that passengers traveling with infants can have priority boarding. The policy does not limit the number of accompanying adults or specify the relationship to the infant. This unfortunate incident was due to misunderstanding. Our San Francisco ground-handling agent understood that only one parent could board with an infant.”

It begs the question, however, why did the misunderstanding only take place with gay parents and not straight parents?

The airline concluded “We have apologised to our passengers and reminded our airport staff and agents about our priority boarding policy so that we can prevent this kind of incident from happening again.”

© 2018 GCN (Gay Community News). All rights reserved.

0 comments. Please sign in to comment.