Delta throws family off plane

[davidvel]

Here we go again with another rush to judgment story. It seems they were trying to have their younger son fly under the ticket of another person (older son, who took an earlier flight.) They probably didn't want to change name and incur higher expenses. I expect it will be similar to the United story: public doesn't like the rules (passenger must have ticket in their name to occupy a seat), so airline is wrong.

 

[Talent312]

"The Points Guy" story seems fairly complete. It indicates that "mistakes were made" on both sides.
https://thepointsguy.com/2017/05/family-kicked-off-delta-flight/

IMHO, the family screwed up by laying claim to a seat for a family member who did not check-in. Just 'cuz you paid for a seat doesn't mean you get to decide who can use it on the plane.
.

 

[davidvel]

"The Points Guy" story seems fairly complete. It indicates that "mistakes were made" on both sides.
https://thepointsguy.com/2017/05/family-kicked-off-delta-flight/

IMHO, the family screwed up by laying claim to a seat for a family member who did not check-in. Just 'cuz you paid for a seat doesn't mean you get to decide who can use it on the plane.
.

It still mis-states the facts though:

A Southern California family said they were kicked off Delta Air Lines Flight 2222 from Maui (OGG) to Los Angeles (LAX) when they refused to give up their son’s seat for another passenger.

According to KABC Los Angeles, the Schear family was asked to hold their two-year-old son on their lap so his seat could go to another passenger on the overbooked flight.

The seat did not belong to the toddler, but was ticketed in the name of another family member who flew on another flight earlier. Also, the father mentions overbooking, but there is no evidence of this, and Delta denies it was an overbook situation.

 

[maddog497]

If you watch the entire video, one of the reps gives incorrect information. Yes the family should have did the name change. And the father should have excepted resposibity for not doing that, however the people enforcing the rules need to know the rules.

Also, the father did eventually offer to give the seat up and have the child sit in his lap. The rep stated it was to late for that.

Poorly handled by the airline.

Sent from my ZTE A2017U using Tapatalk

 

[davidvel]

If you watch the entire video, one of the reps gives incorrect information. Yes the family should have did the name change. And the father should have excepted resposibity for not doing that, however the people enforcing the rules need to know the rules.

Also, the father did eventually offer to give the seat up and have the child sit in his lap. The rep stated it was to late for that.

Poorly handled by the airline.

Sent from my ZTE A2017U using Tapatalk

Its a bit confusing. I did not hear it that way. She does say that the kid can't be in the car seat and must be on lap, and mentions his age, but it seemed to be in the context of them not having a seat to put the carseat on. She reiterates this when the father says that he'll hold him until they take off, then put him in carseat on the seat.

She may have mis-spoken, but I don't believe that the flight attendant/agent believes a child over 2 can't be in a car seat and must be on parent's lap, if a seat is purchased for that child.

 

[davidvel]

For those who have not yet seen the story, I would suggest you watch the video (noting it was taken and edited by the parents), and draw your own conclusions as to what happened factually, before being told what is in the video by various reporting outlets.

 

[VegasBella]

If you watch the entire video, one of the reps gives incorrect information. Yes the family should have did the name change. And the father should have excepted resposibity for not doing that, however the people enforcing the rules need to know the rules.

Yes, from my understanding this is true.

They gave incorrect information about BOTH the policy of toddlers and the safety of toddlers in their own seats.

FACT: babies and toddlers are safer in car seats on airplanes than in their parent's lap.
FACT: it is perfectly legal AND within airline policy for toddlers and babies to have their own seats and to use FAA approved car seats in those seats. (The only issue is that you might have to move out of an exit row if you have a car seat - no car seats in exit rows.)
FACT: FAA rules say "Accommodation of a CRS in an Empty Seat. Air carriers are encouraged to allow the use of an empty seat to accommodate a CRS. However, air carriers are under no obligation to allow a non-ticketed child to occupy an empty passenger seat"

Read: https://www.faa.gov/passengers/fly_children/
and
http://fsims.faa.gov/WDocs/8900.1/V03 Tech Admin/Chapter 33/03_033_006.htm

My experience is that flight attendants hate car seats and will nearly always try to take them from you or convince you not to use them. My experience - flying with a car seat AND a paid ticket for my son in his name - they will try to take the car seat or tell you it's not allowed. You have to stand your ground to keep the car seat.

This situation was made more complicated because of the ticketing issue. But the fact remains that the flight attendant told this family to do something that was unsafe.

 

[mdurette]

Really...it seems almost daily there is some sort of video about passengers treated badly...all well, at least somewhat entertaining.

My 2 cents. This guy tried to use his older sons ticket (who flew on a different flight) for one of his younger kids. It doesn't work that way....but somewhere along the line, he shouldn't have been able to get on the plane without changing the name from older kid to younger kid. Did he just bypass the gate holding the 2 YO and hoping gate agent assumed kid was a lap child????

VegasBella - I never experienced the "attendants hate car seats" that you mention. DD flew with us numerous times, always with a paid seat and her car seat. Then later on with a CARES harness. Not once did a flight attendant even give us the evil eye for it. At that point, we were flying Southwest 100% of the time.

 

[spirits]

Where is the common sense? It seems that things are being run so tight that when a glitch appears there is no time, no leeway....for anyone to make a reasoned solution under duress. Packed over sold planes....timelines to be met and a quick decision to be made with partial or conflicting information. God, I would not want to be an airline worker.....seems that cutting costs have made for some horrible situations and people have to follow outdated simplistic rules that are not meant for complex situations.
Here in Canada there is a high demand for no frills flying. Cheap flights when they work well....trips from hell when things go wrong. I am glad that my husband does not like to fly...we drive for our holidays. Kinda hard to enjoy Hawaii that way but we drive to Victoria BC and just have to make do.

Our view from our unit

Our ride. Guys, I am not bragging.....our friends fly to Hawaii or to Europe...........this is what we do.....and after hearing stories about crowded flights....I am glad I am married to a flight chicken (;

 

[breezez]

I watched the video a couple times. I believe the air line could of handled it better, but everyone knows that only ticket passengers can take a seat. If son was a no show you loose the seat. It sucks loosing a seat from Hawaii, but obviously money was not an issue since they bought their 18 year old son a last minute flight the previous day.

After watching though - makes me wonder if they were deliberately trying to get in conflict with the airline to get a video and try to be the next people scoring big on an airline lawsuit. If I and my wife felt strongly we were in the right I doubt either of us would have sat there calmly and casually recorded the entire event. Recording would of been last thing on my mind. Just seems odd to me she is sitting their the entire time recording and not saying a word.

 

[Helaine]

After watching though - makes me wonder if they were deliberately trying to get in conflict with the airline to get a video and try to be the next people scoring big on an airline lawsuit. If I and my wife felt strongly we were in the right I doubt either of us would have sat there calmly and casually recorded the entire event. Recording would of been last thing on my mind. Just seems odd to me she is sitting their the entire time recording and not saying a word.

I felt the same way. The framing was perfect, very steady and clear - like they were waiting for this to happen. It didn't feel spontaneous like others I've seen - it seemed setup to capture what was going to happen.

 

[davidvel]

I felt the same way. The framing was perfect, very steady and clear - like they were waiting for this to happen. It didn't feel spontaneous like others I've seen - it seemed setup to capture what was going to happen.

If you watch the video, you can see both her hands, so she must have propped it up on something (carseat?) Or maybe the 2 year old took the video.

 

[Helaine]

If you watch the video, you can see both her hands, so she must have propped it up on something (carseat?) Or maybe the 2 year old took the video.

That's funny!

 

[tompalm]

As a passenger these days, you have to know that someone will record an incident inside the plane anytime something is going on. It doesn't matter who took the video because there are probably other videos. So any intelligent passengers needs to keep their cool and comply with instructions even when they know they are right. The airline gate agents did not use good judgement because they didn't put themselves in the passengers shoes. The gate agent has a mission to complete and didn't think it through or how it would look on TV after kicking a passenger and family off the plane. The airlines need to do some training after all the events that happened in the last month. It is a new day. Passengers win again by keeping cool because the airline will compensate them and they will get more out of it than it cost. Just like the family on American Airlines that was not cool and calm, but ended up getting extra compensation. I will say the passenger or man on that flight that threatened the flight attendant is lucky he didn't get kicked off that flight. Stay calm and cool. You are being recorded. Count on it.

 

[Phydeaux]

Our view from our unit


Our ride. Guys, I am not bragging.....our friends fly to Hawaii or to Europe...........this is what we do.....and after hearing stories about crowded flights....I am glad I am married to a flight chicken (;

You can't drive everywhere. To abandon air travel due to these instances of negative stuff is analogous to surrendering your drivers license due to road rage instances.

Do you have any idea how many flights there are in a given day?

Moral: don't succumb and live your life based on media sensationalism. It's just a bad idea.

 

[Ironwood]

In Canada West Jet is ordering new Boeing's and introducing a new ultra low fare airline. The article doesn't say it, but I thought I hear they are downsizing seat size and jamming another 29 seats onto the new planes. I can't imagine how tight it will be! Maybe it'll be standing room only with their next iteration of ultra discount!

https://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=...393922&usg=AFQjCNEzPV8OF9eqLmWz6ErbD2xl5b78PQ

 

[Kel]

I watched the video. To me, the airline was correct in enforcing their rules. Prior to boarding, the family should have changed the name on the ticket so one of the babies could have taken his older brother’s seat. It looks like the flight was sold out and when the family’s older son did not check in that simply means there is a seat available for a standby passenger. It doesn’t matter that the father paid for the seat or not. The person assigned to that seat did not check in and now the seat is available. Period. They should have shut up, put the baby on their laps, not delay the flight and head home. Or, their choice of option 2, of getting off the plane. And, I agree others, they were anticipating this would happen and the wife started to video the situation. The family was wrong and the airline was right.

And, in the moment, I think the flight attendant or airline official simply misspoke about the car seat issue.

And, Delta didn't throw the family off the plane. The family chose to not take the flight.

 

[VegasBella]

The family says they discussed the issue with the gate agent and were told it would be fine for them to use the seat for the car seat.

Technically, Delta could give that seat to another passenger, sure, but should they? Given that the family had paid for the ticket AND that FAA recommends giving empty seats to babies in car seats, it would have been better customer service (for the whole plane - remember they said he was going to cry if he can't sleep and he was more likely to sleep in the car seat than on Mom's lap) and it would have been safer if they just gave the family the seat for the baby.

And there's just no excuse for the flight attendant giving out false information about the FAA regulations and threatening the family with losing custody of their children.

 

[Talent312]

You can't drive everywhere. To abandon air travel due to these instances of negative stuff is analogous to surrendering your driver's license due to road rage instances.

I concur.
I won't drive more than 5 hours in a day (where I live to So.Florida). Anything more, and I'm in a plane. If I did not fly, I would have missed so much, such as...

Catherine's Palace in St. Petersburg, Russia; the Cliffs of Moher in Ireland; riding the glass elevator to the top of the Eifel Tower; walking the cobblestoned streets of Florence, Italy; a week on the Big Island of Hawaii; and dining on fish in Homer, Alaska (technically you could drive there).

IMHO, for those experiences and 100's more, it's worth the trouble and whatever grief you must endure.

.

 

[dougp26364]

A few years back, we began looking for destinations which we could drive to instead of flying. At one point we flew upwards of 6 times per year. We've cut it back to two or three times per year.

For the most part we haven't had many issues with the airlines and certainly no major conflicts. Hiwever the co start money grab, reduction in comfort as they cram ever more seats in the cabin, various levels of coach class seating and the difficulty with which it's become using our FF miles, it's just grown to be more of a hassle than we like to deal with in vacation.

Driving does limit our choices for vacation but, it also reduces cost and, to some degree, removes frustration as we don't have to deal with security issue, flight delays or tight connections. Point to point, flying is going to take us between 6 and 10 hours in the continental US, so we're will to drive upwards of 10 hours before choosing to fly, and that gives us a reasonable selection of places to visit.

We do have friends who travel with us from time to time. For them there is NO destination in the lower 48 that's out of driving range. Even trips that take 3 days driving, the rent a car and drive. They absolutely refuse to fly and enjoy the drive, hitting highlights along their route. So it is possible to drive to anywhere if you're talking about the lower 48 states in the US. it just depends on how motivated you've become.

 

[Phydeaux]

I concur.
I won't drive more than 5 hours in a day (from where I live to So.Florida). Anything more, and I'm in a plane.
If I did not fly, I would have missed so much, such as...

Catherine's Palace in St. Petersburg, Russia; the Cliffs of Moher in Ireland; riding the glass elevator to the top of the Eifel Tower; walking the cobblestoned streets of Florence, Italy; a week on the Big Island of Hawaii; and dining on fish in Homer, Alaska (technically you could drive there).

IMHO, for those experiences and 100's more, it's worth the trouble and whatever grief you must endure.

.

Like your list. Have been to several of them. As a multi-million mile frequent flyer, I wouldn't know where to begin! Hard to believe that at the very beginning, I too had a irrational fear of flying. Good thing I conquered that!

 

[davidvel]

The family says they discussed the issue with the gate agent and were told it would be fine for them to use the seat for the car seat.

There are references to this, but so far this is not confirmed.

Technically, Delta could give that seat to another passenger, sure, but should they? Given that the family had paid for the ticket AND that FAA recommends giving empty seats to babies in car seats, it would have been better customer service (for the whole plane - remember they said he was going to cry if he can't sleep and he was more likely to sleep in the car seat than on Mom's lap) and it would have been safer if they just gave the family the seat for the baby.

And there's just no excuse for the flight attendant giving out false information about the FAA regulations and threatening the family with losing custody of their children.

This could be said about any airline rule. In looking at any single case, it may seem so easy to just make an "accomodation", and change the rules for a single passenger.

What of passengers who paid for coach start sitting down in first class because they have a bad back, or some otber medical condition, or any other reason that the masses feel it would be the "right thing to do?" If these people refuse to move and make a scene should we give in them too?

Delta alone flies over 500,000 passengers every day. I certainly don't like all of the airline rules, but the one that requires each passenger to have their own ticket for a seat makes sense to me. In any event, as a traveler, I do not want a system where the rules are selectively enforced on a case by case basis upon the whim of gate agents and passengers that make a scene and refuse to leave the plane when they don't think the rules should apply to them that particular day. If a ruke doesn't apply to them, then why shouldn't other passengers demand that a rule they don't like be waived. The foxes will be running the hen house.

Delta flies over 200 million people a year. If all the airlines follwed this model, the chaos we see now will be calm. We already see it happening more afer the United incident. Airlines may need to change their rules, but the whiny passengers must see that the ones in place are being evenly and consistently enforced or there will be no end to these incidents.

 

[maddog497]

This could be said about any airline rule. In looking at any single case, it may seem so easy to just make an "accomodation", and change the rules for a single passenger.

What of passengers who paid for coach start sitting down in first class because they have a bad back, or some otber medical condition, or any other reason that the masses feel it would be the "right thing to do?" If these people refuse to move and make a scene should we give in them too?

I don't agree with your position on this example. There is a difference between trying to manipulate the circumstances to get a free upgrade vs having one of your children sit in a seat you paid for. They weren't asking for anything more than they paid for unlike trying to get bumped up a class.

I get it that for whatever reason, (most likely to save the fee if there is one for the name change) the family didn't properly put the name of the child they intended to sit in the oldest boys seat once he was no longer going on that flight. If they had done that none of this would have turned out the way it did. We could leave it at that a point the only finger at them.

I have never had anyone check my ticket once on the plane to confirm I was sitting in my assigned seat. I understand they could but they have never. There has never been a need to. My wife and I have changed seats depending on the day and the mood we were in. I have changed seats with my kids so one could sit with their mother. I understand that may be different here as the airline most likely put someone else in that seat when the person that was appointed to it didn't show up. Delta stated this was not an overbooked flight but that could mean a number of things.

However, once that error was made, whether intentionally or not, the airline compounded things by not doing what they could to address the issue.
There are many questions that no one who wasn't there can answer but using the video as it is the only thing we the general public have, Delta did not handle this correctly after it started to go wrong.

1) The video starts with security on the plane, so not sure of the conversation leading up to that but if the family was planning on making a scene from the start why not post the entire footage?

2) To have an employee threaten to have their children removed from them because they were disputing whether or not they were entitled to that seat, was way way over board. I'm pretty sure no airline trains their employees to escalated these types of issue to "your going to lose your children"!

3) If the real issue wasn't an overbooked plane and the need for that seat, why then was there no effort to have the family proper change the name on the seat, cost or not cost and go from there? The delay of doing such couldn't be a real factor as the attendant stated multiple times, they were prepared to stay there as long as it takes.

4) Although we should all know the rules and regulations when we fly, the expectation would be most certainly that someone working for the airline/airport would most definitely know the rules and regulations. The is not doubt that was not the case here with the misleading comments about the child not being allowed to be in car seat! At 4:17 of the video the female attendant states "he can't occupy a seat because he is 2 year or under".

5) How did the parents get past the gate with 2 car seats? Would the gate attendant not count each car seat to ensure there were seats for those?

6) From what I could tell no threats (other then in the beginning about going to jail and taking the children away) or any real tempers escalated in the conversation so no need to assume that the safety of the flight was at risk. Why then once the father stated he would just have the child sit on their lap, did the attendant not allow that?

Unfortunately, we all know how this ends up. Instead of dealing with it then and there, Delta will deal with it after and most likely will cost much more than it should have.

For clarity, I get it that the family didn't do want they should have to avoid this whole thing but once that horse was out of the barn, the airline did little to get it back in other than close and lock the gate making sure it couldn't.

 

[TUGBrian]

I only have an issue with the argument where he says he "paid for the seat"...perhaps im mistaken...but didnt he deliberately put the child whos seat it was for on an earlier flight?

how can you still claim the seat is yours if the airline has already flown that passenger to another destination. Its like me getting on an earlier flight and demanding the seat for my original flight remain empty....that doesnt seem logical at all to expect the airline to do this.

perhaps im just reading it all wrong...as you see the airline side...and the passenger side...and again the truth always lies somewhere in the middle...but this fact seems to be at the center of the controversy as its being used by both sides to justify their actions.

 

[VegasBella]

I only have an issue with the argument where he says he "paid for the seat"...perhaps im mistaken...but didnt he deliberately put the child whos seat it was for on an earlier flight?

So I honestly don't know what happened. But all the news articles I read said either "he put the older son on an earlier flight" or they say "he BOUGHT a ticket for his older son on another flight." None of them make it clear as to whether he used that ticket's value by putting the older son on another flight or if he forfeited it by buying an entirely new ticket and not canceling the old one. Obviously, he may have bought an additional ticket for his older son to fly back earlier. CNN article on the issue said he bought another ticket and a Washington Post article talks about the issue as transferring names on a ticket, not an issue of a forfeited ticket for that flight. They might have it wrong but they certainly imply that the family was owed a seat.

Furthermore, many articles state that this was all cleared with a gate agent and some articles say it was even cleared with a ticket agent. Given that there were standby passengers I have to assume the gate agents wouldn't just give up a valuable seat if the family had actually forfeited that ticket by transferring the older son to an earlier flight.

I don't know how often they fly or whether they're a strict rules-following type of family but I don't feel this was totally unreasonable of them to make this assumption. It certainly does sound like they walked through their reasoning with at least someone representing Delta and they were told it was OK. Many of us know not to trust that kind of info but many of us also know that it's worth a shot.