Naw, there's only one thing left to do! The airlines gotta outlaw passengers!
Posted on 05/05/2017 8:01:24 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Fill in the blank: “We are sorry for the unfortunate experience our customers had with …” This time it’s Delta Airline’s turn to apologize profusely for a viral video detailing their customer-service experience. Brian and Brittany Shear had paid for a seat used by their toddler on a flight from Hawaii back to California, where they live, when a flight attendant told them they had to give it up, claiming it was overbooked. When the Shears refused to do so, the video shows someone — it’s still unclear who — threatening them with jail and the loss of their children:
WATCH: Delta apologizes after kicking family off plane for refusing to give up their 2-year-old son's seat: https://t.co/WzSEY1z0F7 pic.twitter.com/PpYpCY2FEb
— Good Morning America (@GMA) May 5, 2017
On the video, Brian Schear can be heard talking with a person off-camera — it is not clear whether that person is a Delta employee, a security officer, or somebody else.
After Schear says that he won’t leave — the airline will have to remove him — the person off-camera replies, “You and your wife will be in jail … it’s a federal offense if you don’t abide” by an airline crew’s order.
“I bought that seat,” Schear protests.
Schear then suggests that his wife could hold one of the toddlers during takeoff and then put the youngster in the car seat. Another person, who appears to be a Delta supervisor, tells him that federal rules require that children under 2 must stay in a parent’s lap throughout the flight.
Er … about that …
That is false. The Federal Aviation Administration “strongly urges” that infants be in a car seat, although it permits those under 2 to be held in a parent’s lap. On its website, Delta recommends that parents buy a seat for children under 2 and put them in an approved child-safety seat.
Oopsie! However, there may have been another reason for Delta’s initial demand to have the toddler sit in the father’s lap. The Schears originally bought the seat for their 18-year-old son, but they bought him a separate ticket on an earlier flight in order to be able to use the seat for the toddler in his car seat — as Delta and the FAA recommend. It’s unclear whether the Schears updated the passenger information:
“I bought the seat,” Brian Schear is seen telling the agents in a video of the incident, explaining that he initially purchased the seat for his 18-year-old son but sent the teen home early on another flight so that the toddler would have a seat on the plane. “It’s a red-eye. He won’t sleep unless he’s in his car seat. So, otherwise, he’d be sitting in my wife’s lap, crawling all over the place, and it’s not safe.” …
The issue, it seems, is transferring airline tickets from one passenger to another. Delta Air Lines maintains on its website that “all tickets are nontransferable per the fare rules. Name changes are not permitted.”
Note, however, that is a Delta rule, not an FAA regulation. The FAA allows transfers as long as the names get changed early enough for a TSA check on the new passenger. Regardless, that alone could have been grounds to refuse service, but that’s clearly not the objection raised in this instance. If that was the problem, they would have asked them all to deplane right from the start, and shouldn’t have allowed them on the flight in the first place. Delta wanted the seat for another passenger, despite the fact that the Schears had paid for it, and then kicked them all off the flight for refusing to give it up — even after Brian Schear finally conceded the point and agreed to fly with his son in his lap.
Like American Airlines, Delta learned its lesson from United. When this video began to go viral on Wednesday, they immediately announced an investigation into the incident, then settled up with the Schears, complete with public apologies. It doesn’t matter if an airline can justify its behavior; when grossly poor customer service gets exposed, it’s much better and far less costly to simply apologize and offer a refund-plus to the customers involved. And threatening the loss of custody for parents who just want to fly home after a vacation is a pretty good example of “grossly poor customer service,” regardless of any justification.
After this string of viral videos, two things will happen. First, customers will become a lot more emboldened to stand up to airline employees, especially in overbooking situations, and second, airlines will have to try to eliminate those opportunities as fast as possible. This is a good demonstration of the marketplace at work. We may not need Congressional action on overbooking — airlines now have a strong interest in ending the practice. Markets being what they are, though, expect prices to rise to cover those sunk costs in empty seats, and expect cancellation fees and policies to get a lot tougher, which would have happened whether Congress drove these changes or not.
The LAST thing we need is the government deciding what is good service.
And someone with the name ANDY Jackson should know better.
Let the market work. Good service, and fair prices will win out over all. If I were any other airline I would be changing my policies and advertising the crap out of it.
“I think these employees need to be better trained and be tested on policies.
Why? They have the best employees Unions can buy!”
The only Delta employees who are unionized are the pilots and the flight dispatchers.
Or better yet, have the policies available for you to read before you get to the airport. And then you can whip them out and show the employees.
As someone who has been a “customer service professional” for nearly four decades, I can tell you the problem isn’t training...the problem is that the policies are such that employees will lie, or pretend to not know the answer to avoid the “fight” with the customer.
Often times a policy might be ignored by most people because it doesn’t hurt anyone or it doesn’t matter. Then it becomes an unwritten rule; and then an unofficial policy. And that works well until someone new comes in who is following “the rules.” That person looks like a jerk, but it doing what they were trained on.
Naw, there's only one thing left to do! The airlines gotta outlaw passengers!
I wondered with the same question. I know a ticket in hand for one person can not be used for a different person. For national security reasons, I get that. It’s reasonable.
The problem is that the Rule protecting passengers from the wicked ones can make no exception for the innocent ones.
I understand the parents paid for the seat, but why was a passenger of different name on the ticket allowed to board? Seems like a good opening for terrorists??
Because kids under two aren’t ticketed nor do they have any ID. And they usually aren’t terrorists.
Don’t see how 2500 pounds makes that much of a difference,
What you don't get is that we have regulated deregulation. So the government has already decided that bad service is ok and there is nothing you can do about it. Part of deregulation is that the airlines can deny you boarding and don't owe you squat for it, other than to get you to your destination, eventually.
I am all for free markets, but under FAA regulations there isn't one, and the conditions for a free market don't exist - market dominated by an oligopoly, high barriers to entry, lots of externalities, and huge information asymmetries.
Fly to Dallas enroute to a meeting in Denver, have your flight cancelled, to Denver, overnight in Dallas [hotel, meals, and taxis], and then return home because you missed your meeting, the airline owes you nothing. That is regulated deregulation.
I just can't stand them. On rare occasions when I can fly anything else, I feel like "oh wow, how wonderful. Who knew flying didn't have to be a soul crushing experience?"
Probably because most infants don't (yet) have to carry ID.
I used to get to Gold based on segments flown (15 non stop round trips= 30 segments).
At an average fair of $325, that’s about 5 grand.
15 Round trips on Spirit the same route at about $79 is about $1,200, a $3,800 savings.
I fly alone with a small bag that doesn’t cost extra.
With American, even if you get upgraded to First there’s no food unless the flight is over 2 hours, my route is an hour and fifty minutes, so I’m not paying almost 4 grand more for some pretzels.
To top it off, I have about 20 upgrade certificates that these scumbags won’t let me use now because I’m not a Gold!.
I have something like 16 upgrade certificates BUT you can’t use them. You have to submit to some list and I have never gotten above 29 on that list of requests, even when I’ve requested it over a week in advance. Something like two people get put into first and several times I’ve seen them take off with empty seats in first even though there were 30 people waiting in the upgrade list (they now show it on a big TV screen). Basically upgrades are 100% useless as is their entire frequent flyer program. The industry’s worst.
It is important for landing that they not have too much fuel. Therefore they need to start out with less. I have been in plenty of flights where they had too much fuel. They just pull over on the tarmac and burn it off. 2500 lbs though is a lot of fuel.
Yeah I’ve been a gold or platinum for the last 8 Years, but unless you have that status they treat you like a douchebag.
You can use the certificates if your are Gold or above, if not they don’t want to know your name, no customer service, good luck trying to get them on the phone, 25 minutes to talk to a rep.
Spirit would rather kick nine people off the plane then waste 3000 bucks.
Yes the pilot came on the intercom with a very detailed explanation but unfortunately the intercom wasn’t working very well and we only got every
Haven’t heard an intercom that bad since I used to ride the A train in the mid 80’s
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