Breastfeeding Mother Removed from Plane

On October 13, 2006, Emily Gillette of Santa Fe, New Mexico boarded a Freedom Airlines flight with her daughter and husband at the Burlington International Airport in Vermont. The flight was readied for take-off after a three-hour delay, at which point Gillette began to breastfeed  her 22-month-old child. Though she was blocked from the view of other passengers due to her window seat and husband sitting next to her, a flight attendant nonetheless requested that she cover herself with a blanket. When Gillette refused, she was asked to leave the plane.

Public breastfeeding in Vermont is legal under act 117 (S.B. 156, L. 2001), which amended the Public Accommodations Law 9, V.S.A. 4502. It states: “Notwithstanding any other provision of law, a mother may breastfeed her child in any place of public accommodation in which the mother and child would otherwise have a legal right to be.” 

The Gillette family was provided a new flight the following morning. Gillette later contacted the Vermont Human Rights Commission to file charges against the airline.

Mesa Air Group, Inc., the parent company of Freedom Airlines, issued a statement via their Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Jonathan Ornstein. Ornstein said, “So there is no confusion, I would like to let folks know that we firmly support mothers’ right to nurse their children on board our aircraft. We have no company policies whatsoever that hinder breastfeeding in any way.” He went on to apologize to the Gillette family, and explained that the flight attendant in question “was relatively new to her job and made an unfortunate and incorrect decision.”

On November 15, 2006, a group of approximately 30 mothers held a “nurse in” at the Delta Airlines ticket counter at the Burlington International Airport. Mesa Air Group, Inc. has a contractual agreement with Delta. A nurse in consists of a group of breastfeeding mothers all nursing their children together in a given place, often in protest of a an anti-breastfeeding rule or request.