Mum Claire King, 37, was jetting off for her first holiday in eleven years when she was taken to one side by a male staff member and asked a very personal question
A size 12 mum burst into tears when a Jet2 staff member ushered her off the airport shuttle bus and asked her if she was pregnant.
Claire King was jetting off for her first holiday in 11 years on June 7th when she claims she was taken to one side by a male member of staff and asked if she ‘was expecting’. The 37-year-old was attempting to board the early morning flight from Edinburgh Airport to Ibiza with her parents and three-year-old daughter.
Claire said the bus was ‘packed’ when she and her family got on and it was then she spotted the staff member, who’d checked her passport at the boarding gate, walking towards her. The patient care advisor, who’s a size 12-14, claims he ushered her off the bus and ‘looked her up and down’ before asking her if she was ‘expecting’.
Claire was left speechless by the comment and burst into tears before boarding the plane, claiming it ‘put a dampener’ on the holiday. The mum-of-one was wearing a t-shirt and floaty trousers and says she’s since ‘studied herself’ in the mirror wearing the same clothes and doesn’t think she looks pregnant.
After having four miscarriages before conceiving her daughter, Claire says that no woman should be asked the question if there is any doubt surrounding whether she is pregnant or not.
Jet2 have apologised to Claire and said sometimes their teams are ‘required to ask customers questions for health and safety reasons before a flight’ and the colleague involved ‘will undergo retraining to ensure this does not happen again’.
Claire, from Fife, Scotland, said: “He pulled me over and he said he’d been asked by his manager to come over and ask me if I was expecting. At the same time he kind of looked me up and down.
“I looked at him in complete disbelief because it wasn’t a question that I expected to come out of his mouth. I just stared at him and it was almost like I was speechless.
“I didn’t really know what to say. At that point I turned around and I was like ‘is that a serious question?’ He just looked at me and put his hands up and was like ‘okay, that’s all I needed to know. Enjoy your holiday’, and walked away.
“We were still standing there in disbelief looking at each other as if to be like ‘what the hell just happened, what was that?’. We were escorted back to the bus. The doors closed and as we started to drive up towards the plane, I could feel myself welling up. I could feel myself getting emotional.
“I started crying before we’d even got on the plane. He gave no reasoning. There was no explanation given as to why he even asked that question, what prompted the question, or how he came to that conclusion.
“He said that he has been asked by his manager to come down – whether that is true I have no idea, I’ve got no evidence to confirm that.”
After giving birth to her daughter three years ago, Claire says she ‘carries a bit of timber’, but is grateful for her body which gave her ‘the greatest gift’.
Claire said: “For me personally I’m not happy with my body but I’m beyond happy that it’s given me the greatest gift that I could ask for.
“At the same time it was my first holiday in 11 years, it was my daughter’s first holiday, you do have that self-conscious awareness of yourself and your own body.
“I was about to put my body into a swimsuit, perhaps into tighter fitting clothes, you do have that doubt. But for somebody to then come up and ask you that question, it does just make you think ‘do I really look like that? Is that how I look?’.
“It rocks your self confidence and for the first couple of days of the holiday I was very aware and it did put a dampener on the start of it which was not how this holiday was meant to be.”
If there are any doubts that a woman is pregnant, Claire says the question shouldn’t be asked. Claire said: “I think that for any woman whether you can conceive naturally, struggle to conceive or you need a little bit of help, or your decision is that you just don’t want children, it doesn’t really matter.
“There are woman out there who sadly and unfortunately do struggle to conceive or maybe they’ve just made the decision that they don’t want children.
“For me I did struggle to conceive my child, I’d gone through four miscarriages before I had her. I’ve now made the decision that I don’t want any more children for that simple reason and also because I have the greatest gift that I could ask for.
“Nobody knows behind the scenes what’s going on with other women – you never know what the background story is.
“It’s the principle of being asked that question indefinitely by anybody. If you’re unsure whether a woman is pregnant or not you just shouldn’t ask that question.”
A Jet2 spokesman said: “We would like to reiterate our sincere apologies to Ms. King, which our team have also done directly. The colleague in question is aware that this was not handled in an appropriate manner and is undergoing retraining to ensure it does not happen again.
“Whilst our teams might sometimes be required to ask customers questions for health and safety reasons before a flight, they are trained to handle this in an appropriate manner, and we recognise that this did not happen on this isolated occasion.”