The optics are bad on this one.
The passenger paid for the seat for an adult child, who took an earlier flight (I presume, by paying for a seat). The passenger then thought he could use the seat for another child, an infant, who originally was going to fly in his mother’s arms. The switch in seat assignments was apparently not communicated to the airline company.
The airline looked down its manifest and saw a no-show, pocketed the money paid for the no-show’s seat, and sold the seat a second time to another person.
Regardless of the fine print involved, the original passenger paid for the seat, and also did not communicate the switch of the seat to another person. And, the airline pocketed the original passenger’s payment for the seat, and then sold the seat a second time.
The 20-20 hindsight solution is that airline should have refunded the original passenger’s payment for the seat if it wanted to insist that he fly with the child in the lap.
Unstated is that the family was probably trying to game the system. SAY the infant was going to fly in the mother’s arms but quick look for an empty seat once the plane was airborne, hoping it wasn’t a full flight. Then, discovering that flights were filling up, sent the adult child on an earlier flight to “free up” a seat for the infant child they had originally hoped they would get for free.
Also unstated is that the economy is picking up, and people are showing up in greater numbers than the airline programs suppose (based on the soft economy of the prior several years).
He did, to the agent at the gate before boarding the flight. That agent is the corporation..................