‘They kicked me off the flight for taking a photo of my kids’

“The Jetstar person called me an ‘idiot’ and wouldn’t let us get on the plane… it was traumatic,” the furious dad reveals.

Every parent with a smart phone is an amateur photographer these days.

Good light breaks through the clouds while your kid is playing in the sandpit? You’re there capturing the best angles. Spot a cute babycino foam moustache? Engage portrait mode and snap at will.

So when Jimmy Mitchell pulled out his phone on the tarmac to capture a photo of his wife and two kids as they climbed the stairs to board a Jetstar flight on Wednesday, he thought nothing of it.

But he’d missed a key announcement before boarding: no one was to use their mobile phones on the tarmac because the plane would be refuelling.

That mistake would cost him and his family their flight.

“This is the worst experience I’ve ever had flying,” he said in a TikTok about the experience.

“I try and get on the plane, I take a photo of my kids as they get on the plane, in flight mode, and the lady calls me an idiot.”

She told him he couldn’t get on the flight.

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Jimmy Mitchell took a photo of his wife and kids boarding the plane. Photo: Jimmy Mitchell

Dad banned from flight after using mobile

Jimmy was shocked.

“I turned around in disbelief because I was half way up the stairs at this point. I basically stormed over to her and I was like, ‘Are you serious? What did you just call me?’

“She was basically saying ‘you can’t take photos on the tarmac, you can’t take photos on the tarmac’.”

At first Jimmy refused to accept that he’d done anything wrong. He argued with the woman until finally she refused to let him get on the plane.

“If she had literally just said anything else, like ‘get off your phone’, I would have done it.”

“Apparently, they made an announcement, but I had noise cancelling headphones, Pauline (wife) told me after the fact – I didn’t hear it, there was no notifications about it, there was no signage, no nothing.

“All she had to do was say something constructive. ‘Get off your phone,’ ‘you can’t have your phone out’ and I would have been like ‘sorry’, but she screams across the tarmac calling me an idiot.”

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He was shocked when the Jetstar staffer kicked them off the flight. Photo: Jimmy Mitchell

Jetstar responds to mobile phone incident

Speaking to news.com.au, a Jetstar spokesperson explained that they would investigate the incident.

“All our customers and team members have the right to feel respected when flying with us or when at work and we’re looking into what took place in this instance,” the spokesperson said.

The spokesperson added that banning mobile phones on the tarmac was a blanket policy “as this is an operational space and we remind customers of this via gate PAs”.

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Followers were almost unanimous about the incident.

“Take it further and don’t let them get away with what they have done,” one person said.

“I’ve been told off for having my phone out on the tarmac but definitely not kicked off the flight,” said another.

Originally published as ‘They kicked me off the flight for taking a photo of my kids’