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.....................
They said the son went on an earlier flight so I would guess he got his money back from this flight. I think Delta may be correct. I’m sure the jail thing was said in jest.
The point is to punish in such a way that the action does NOT happen again. Make an example of the perp.
Overbooking is fraud, pure and simple. The airlines only get away with it because they are large and powerful and connected corporations.
As with ANY time an individual or entity does wrong, the repercussions should be of sufficient severity to dissuade others from doing the same.
If EVERY overbooking cost the airline millions in damages, eventually they will stope doing it.
I like the ability of social media to level the playing field between the individual and the big powerful entity.
Stupid should hurt. You can’t hurt a corporation physically, you can financially. Bumping someone who has paid for a ticket is both FRAUD (regardless of any weasel words on the back of the ticket on the click-through) and stupid; EVERY incident of it should HURT badly enough to make even a multi billion dollar corporation take notice.
You can go buy a whole plane full of tickets....and you will have to have them ticketed in names that have valid ID’s.
You cannot then give away those seats/tickets to whomever you choose....just because you paid for those tickets.
If those listed as the ORIGINAL ticket holder (in this case, the 18 year old son) don’t show for the flight, you cannot decide who gets to sit in those seats, just because you paid for the tickets.
It’s clearly listed on airline tickets....ONLY named passenger, for EACH ticket, may use the ticket.
They didn’t pay for the toddler’s seat. Their teenager son may have paid for a seat, but it was not transferrable to the toddler. Bottom line, the toddler didn’t pay for a seat and therefore was not entitled to a seat.
Yes it does....a two year old MUST be held on a parents lap.
Age two is the demark, where tickets are required, at least for Delta:
Delta web site:
http://www.delta.com/content/www/en_US/traveling-with-us/special-travel-needs/children.html
Ticketing Requirements
No Ticket Required
You may travel with one1 infant in your lap without purchasing a ticket if:
the infant is less than two years old, and
you are at least 18 years old or the infant's legal guardian, and
your travel is within the U.S.2
Ticket Required
You'll need to purchase a ticket for your child when you:
have a child that is age two or older.
have a child that turns age two during a trip — a reserved seat and ticket are required for the entire journey.
prefer the child to sit in a seat with an approved restraint.
have a second child, regardless of age, and you already have a child who will be sitting in your lap.1
want your child to earn miles for a SkyMiles account.
will be traveling between countries, regardless of whether or not the child occupies a seat.
Child Fares & Special Discounts
Travel Within U.S.
Delta does not offer discounted infant and child fares within the U.S.
Brian Schear was blatantly trying to cheat the system. You just cannot give the ticket to another person. You have to cancel the first ticket for your elder son and buy a new sear for your toddler. Everybody knows that in this post-911 era. FAA regs won’t allow a passenger not on the manifest to fly. The airline cannot choose which regs to enforce and which to ignore.
How in the world did they get the toddler past security and onto the plane in the first place? His name did not match the passenger manifest. Maybe the similarity of the kids’ first names fooled the TSA and airline people - Mason and Grayson. It’s another breakdown in security.
You link proves my point. I have never needed any ID for my child except a passport when we are traveling out of the country.
As I said on another thread today:
22,000 flights a day, 365 days a year. It should not really be news that every couple of weeks an airline employee connected with one of those many flights does something stupid or less than photogenic. I’m more worried about terrorists (ISIS, Al Qaeda, Antifa, the DNC, and Black Lives Matter), and about our elected politicians.
____________________________________________________________
In this particular case, the family handled this completely wrong. They were required to show ID for an 18 y/o for that seat to be taken (as registered when the seat was purchased), or to go through the proper procedure to change the ticket. I’ve done that sort of change and had to pay extra to handle it properly, instead of hoping to sneak by. Instead, they put a child who had not properly checked in on that seat and assumed that reserved the seat for the child. The airline would have seen that as what it was - an un-ticketed passenger in a seat whose occupant had not checked in.
I don’t like it, but that’s where we are in terms of security and airline “service”. The airline was tone deaf, in terms of recent news, but the family was completely wrong. Airline seats are purchased by and reserved for individuals, not by and for families. That’s something TSA requires, when they are not too busy molesting innocent travelers.
Schear says he originally bought the seat for his 18-year-old son Mason, but then decided to send him home on an earlier flight so that he could use the seat for his younger child, Grayson, who was placed in a car seat.
Per Delta, a child of 2 needs their own seat. They cannot be on the parents’ laps.
https://www.seatguru.com/airlines/Delta_Airlines/infants.php
Exactly. They didn’t want to buy a full-fare ticket for the toddler, pay the $100 change fee for the existing ticket, and then get a voucher for the ticket that expires in a year.
Pulling a fast one, indeed. Their own fault. Zero sympathy. We all know the rules.
For most stuff I agree. But when it comes to airlines it is a bit tricky. You don’t just purchase a ticket. You purchase a ticket in the name of the passenger that will be using the seat.
In this case, the article says, “...he originally bought the seat for his 18-year-old son Mason, but then decided to send him home on an earlier flight so that he could use the seat for his younger child, Grayson, who was placed in a car seat.”
Grayson is not who the seat was purchased for.
I’m curious if a flight attendant, flight Marshall, law enforcement officer or anyone else threatened you with jail time if you’d be so quick to dismiss it as jest??
That's what I was thinking. For a short flight,, I wouldn't mind holding my toddler on my lap, but that has to be a really long flight (never been to Hawaii).
If they don’t overbook, there will need to be other changes. e.g. higher ticket prices or heavier penalties for cancelling, or eliminating the ability to cancel. Kinda like concert tickets.
Hey, the rubes gotta talk about SOMETHING!
The question is: Did they board with the “18 year old’s” ticket? If not, then that ticket is still valid and can be used by paying a change fee. If the gate agent accepted the ticket then I agree it was paid for.
“Their teenager son may have paid for a seat, but it was not transferrable to the toddler. “
I’ll go out on a limb here and say Dad bought the tickets. If dad wants to sit in moms seat or either of the kids, it’s his prerogative. F Delta, United and all the others.
And hold a squirming 2 year old for 4+hours from HI !?! They are clearly nuts.
That is true, but it was reported at the gate to the agent, and supposedly was taken care of BEFORE they boarded the flight..............
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