Posted on 05/04/2017 6:16:50 AM PDT by Red Badger
LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- A Southern California family says they were kicked off an overbooked Delta airplane because they refused to yield a seat held by their young son.
The Schear family of Huntington Beach says they were flying from Hawaii to Los Angeles last week when airline staff asked them to give up a seat occupied by their 2-year-old son and carry him on their laps for the duration of the flight.
They tried to refuse and argued with airline staff, but say they were threatened with being sent to jail.
"You have to give up the seat or you're going to jail, your wife is going to jail and they'll take your kids from you," Brian Schear recalled the airline staff telling him.
Despite feeling they were in the right, that threat was terrifying, said Brian's wife, Brittany Schear.
"As a mother, you have a 1-year-old and a 2-year-old - it doesn't matter whether that's true or false. It put fear in me," she said.
They filmed the encounter with airport staff and posted it on YouTube.
VIDEO AT LINK.....................
Wow. Way to turn that around. I have no issues with folks who do this, and if I flew, and flew first class, I'd have no problem with it, and would do so. But the same logic that says this kid shouldn't have been able to use that bought and paid for seat (bought and paid for by his father) also says that it shouldn't be possible to give your bought and paid for ticketed seat to someone else.
When I've booked flights, on every single booking I've done, with Southwest being the exception, I've bought and paid for particular seats with my ticket purchase. Sometimes there's a need for a change when boarding, and the boarding pass will be changed to reflect that, but most times when I did fly, the ticket and boarding pass both reflected my seat assignment.
I say this noting that the last time I flew was in March, 2014, and prior to that would have been July 2010. I'm not keen on dealing with the bullsquat of flying commercial these days.
.... but what if I buy the seat next to mine because I don’t want anyone sitting there? Does the airline get to overrule that and not give me my money back?
I know JetBlue does (or did), because we specifically asked them that, when we thought we might have to fly them to JFK.
We ended up flying our usual airline, so did not have to purchase the middle seat on JB. (We were wanting our own row section.)
A simple fix is to sell 100 tickets for 100 seats and not more then can be seated.
There is no one more valuable then the paying customer.
You certainly do not tell someone to put their kid on their lap in a already too cramped seat. The VIP they wanted to seat must have been real proud of themselves costing a family the money and aggravation.
At a minimum, they should get a total refund of all their airfares, reimbursement of their next day United airfares, hotel bills and meals, legal fees, plus a hundred grand for aggravation by their employees.................
Hubby said it was United. We don’t remember the size but it was the one the New Orleans Saints charter. Sure, identifying dead bodies is one thing but there was no reason not to assign families together to begin with instead of intentionally separating everyone. They were just throwing around their authority. On the return flight, they didn’t care and there was no assigned seating. Boils down to if there’s a dictator crew/desk or not.
So i cannot buy two seats for a crosscountry flight so i have enough room and do not have someone sitting in the middle seat? I paid for both tickets.
“They paid for the seat. Doesn’t matter which kid used it. “
But it does. Who paid is not at all important. The name on the ticket is the only person entitled to sit in that seat. Period. If they didn’t change the name then they can’t use it. The ‘owner’ of the seat was not there, regardless of who’s money was spent.
You can as long as they are both in your name.
” I have seat assignments for three seats.”
No you don’t. The NAME ON THE TICKETS have those seats. Who paid does not matter.
Pay attention, for Pete’s sake.
No you don’t. The NAME ON THE TICKETS have those seats. Who paid does not matter.
If this is honestly their policy, it is exactly that lack of common sense that is making folks so angry. If I buy 2 tickets for me and my hubby to fly to a wedding, and last minute he has a work obligation. I don’t want to go to said wedding alone. I will take my sister with me. That is none of the airlines business, as long as my sister is not on the do not fly list and has the proper identification. Airlines are NOT doing background checks on passengers, so it is absolutely none of their damn business.
Airline employees, stuck on stupid.
This appears to be the crux. The claim was made that it was changed at the gate prior to the flight, and the gate agent was okay with it. That remains to be seen.
That being said, the father still bought all the tickets, it was still his family flying, there shouldn't have been any issue to begin with. As I said, I know in the past, this was never an issue, the ticket could be handed to someone else and they could board with no issues. Just check in at the gate and change the name, if even that. Post 9-11-01, it got really stupid, really fast.
“Boils down to if there’s a dictator crew/desk or not.”
Absolutely. Somewhere on the concourse there’s a little space for each airline. In it is a counter with some manager standing in front of a status board. Across that counter ‘associates’ receive their marching orders and on the way out to the gates they pass by large whiteboards with todays positive reinforcement messages.
Sounds like your outbound flight ops manager hadn’t updated the message.
And Southwest is the best exception. You get to choose your seat as you board. Not at the head of the line? You can pay at the gate to board first in "business class" by paying an extra fee ($40 I believe). Of course you may still have a 250 pound Bubba take the middle seat, but you take your chances with any other airline in that regard too. I was to fly Delta in March; my first non-SWA flight in many years on a budget fare. Unfortunately, my travel date needed to change and the cost of the new ticket ($200 change fee plus difference in fare) was greater than the original ticket cost plus my new SWA fare! I chalked it up to lesson learned and now stick with Southwest only.
I guess Delta is trying to outdo United with two in less than 2 weeks...Sheesh!
Would there be a boarding pass issued for the seat bearing the infants name?
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