"I asked for just a couple more minutes to finish because if he woke up at that point he would have made a lot of noise," Rui said. "I said, 'I promise I'll finish before you close the plane's door.'"
The flight attendants conferred at the front of the plane. Rui stopped feeding her son, and as she predicted, the baby began crying. That was when the crew instructed Rui she needed to get off the plane, she told The Post. With her cellphone camera rolling, Rui asked why she was being asked to leave if the baby was strapped in.
"It's not like I was resistant, I put him in the seat," she said. "If they had shown a little compassion, it wouldn't have happened, they didn't have to let it escalate."
Eventually, the crew announced all the passengers had to get off their phones. At the end of the Jetway, police officers were waiting as the mom struggled along with her crying son. A Spirit Airlines representative told her she would not be allowed back on board.
"I just want to know why we were kicked off the plane?" Rui asked the airline representative as he and a handful of uniformed officers blocked her from the plane gate.
"Because you were not compliant."
"Could you tell me which part of the instruction we were not compliant with?" she asked as her son continued to cry. "I think we deserve to know that."
But the airline representative declined to give more details.
"If this happened to your family." Rui said.
But the airline representative cut her off. "It wouldn't happen to my family, I can assure you."
According to Rui, her mother and father, Chinese natives who lived through the traumatic experience of the country's Cultural Revolution, were already terrified from the run-in with plane authorities.
But the day got worse, she says. The family waited for an hour for their luggage, but the items were never returned. Then, after riding back home, Rui's father, who suffers from heart ailments, collapsed and had to be rushed to the emergency room.
In a statement to Houston's KHOU, Spirit stood by the decision to take Rui and her family off the plane.
"Our records indicate a passenger was removed from Flight 712 after refusing to comply with crew instructions several times during taxi to runway and safety briefing. To protect the safety of our guests and crew, FAA regulations and airline policies require all passengers to stay seated and buckled during takeoff and landing. We apologize for any inconvenience to our guests. As a courtesy, we've issued a full refund to the passenger in question."
Rui never made it to New York. The run-in with Spirit was another blow in an already tough year, Rui said. Her family lost their house and possessions (including her piano) in Hurricane Harvey, she said, and they are still living in temporary housing.
