“Exactly, she was in the seat, fully paid and some random person is allowed to displace her? WTF?”
I have seen nothing that suggests that a ‘random person’ took Ann’s seat.
Contract law is way over your head.
Suppose I sell you 10,000 bushels of corn at the beginning of the season (Futures contract) and there is a drought. Do I magically get off the responsibility to deliver the corn and get to resell it at the new drought induced higher price. Hell no. Markets would collapse. Ur a moron.
To explain why you not thinky with full brains: Airline seats are a commodity. Tickets are contracts. A ticket is a futures contract. To allow the seller of the contract an out is fundamentally unfair to the buyer. The Universal Commercial Code 400 (UCC400) fully addresses this. Saving a Force Majoure situation the damned airline better give you the damned seat you contracted for.
let me propose an alternative view. Ann boarded first and sat in the proper seat. The second person claiming that seat should have been seated elsewhere.
How so? She was sitting in the seat and they replaced her with a woman with no explanation. Again, WTF?
I have seen nothing that suggests that a ‘random person’ took Ann’s seat.
The question is “Whose ticket had the Seat Number printed on it?”
If it was Ann, then it was “her seat”.
If two passengers had the same seat number printed on their tickets then Delta really, really needs to have it's IT dept. look at the seat assignment program. That software is an important part of checks on passengers for security.