Delta just booted a family off a flight from Maui to LA. I’m not saying there was not legitimate misunderstanding. I’m also not saying Delta handled the situation as it should have. But I am saying that the ultimatum was appropriate.
Let me first boil down the story as concisely as I can–
- Family of four — husband, wife, teenager, infant baby
- Family sends son from Maui to Los Angeles on earlier flight (separate ticket)
- Assumes that they will still have access to his seat
- But they don’t check him in / scan his boarding pass
- Baby is settled into big brother’s seat
- Passenger now assigned the seat arrives to find baby in seat
- Delta ground staff explain that family is not entitled to the extra seat
- Back and forth ensues
- Threats made from Delta toward family about incarceration
- Police called
- No arrests made – family voluntarily leaves flight
- Delta refuses to book family on alternate flight
- Family spends $2K on new tickets to get home (on United)
Poor Strategy
The root of the controversy is clear: a false assumption. I don’t fault the family for thinking they could keep the seat they paid for, but they certainly went about it wrong. Instead, they should have scanned the older brother’s boarding pass at the gate, ensuring that he showed boarded. Since there are no ID checks, this should have worked like a charm — the baby would have had his own seat. Just don’t scan the infant ticket.
But the situation played out differently. A Delta agent (or FA) said–
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.
I condemn that sort of talk. There is no excuse for it.
I wish the family would have been cajoled into just putting the baby on their lap and flying home, but discussion could have gone on all night. It is clear to me the conversation was not yielding progress. Delta had to get rid of one problem or face a host of others if the flight cancelled or arrived into Los Angeles with several missed connections.
Thus, I’ll grudgingly side with Delta here.
CONCLUSION
Forget trying to make sense of airline rules. I can make a strong case as well as you can that if you buy a seat you should have a right to it, even if remains empty. But that is not technically the way things work.
I do feel bad for this family who did not seem to be looking for any trouble and acted with surprising calmness in light of what happened.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe the Delta Flight attendant says at 0:13 that they will be incarcerated and their children in foster care. So it was recorded …
I was on the flight from Maui, it took us 19 hours to get to San Jose. We missed our conecting flight in LA, as many other people missed theirs too. I also was not able to go back to work on Monday. During the whole episode, my wife and I were separated, she was on the plane and I was told to wait in the terminal. My wife was sitting a few rows in front of this family. From what my wife heard, the families older son never checked in, therefore that set was sold after a certain time. Common sense tells you seats are not transferable especially if the person does not check in. If this was the case you could buy a ticket and let anyone show up and use it. We were compensated with 2 two hundred vouchers which I felt was not just compensation for 19 hours and loss of work. We missed our connection and could not get another flight to San Jose from LA for 7 hours. There was nowhere we could go rest in the airport and we had no sleep since the flight had been a red eye. It was clear this man wanted to scam the airline and did not care about the lives of the other passengers, of which there were many young children. Shame on this self righteous…….., he should apologize to us and share whatever he got in compensation.
You’re a scum bag
You couldn’t be more of a douche if you tried.
Wow.. really. Douche
This has to be the most stupidest thing I have ever heard from an adult. You want this man to apologize for a seat he paid for? You are speaking nonsense. Scamming the delta airlines? why would he want to do that in the middle of the night with his children. He wanted to get home after vacation. And his son didnt show up since he purchased another ticket for an earlier flight. He bought the seat so he can do whatever he wants with it. So what you didnt contact with your wife. He has 2 kids! They probably slept in the cold while you slept by yourself like you usually do. Pathetic excuse of a human being we have here.
The fault is with the gate agent. The situation was explained to the agent who should have made sure that this wouldn’t happen.
Your an idiot
Pleese do everyone around you a favor and kill yourself. You could always become a decent, rational, nuanced human being but I don’t think thats likely so blow your brains out please. Mouth breathing sperger
First how was the man “scamming” anyone. He paid for seat. Also Delta told him the safety seat was “not allowed” which is a lie. Also they threatened the family with incarceration and losing child. You were inconvenienced and obviously a moron. May your future travels get you as much empathy as you’ve shown here. Douche
The comment about sending the parents to Jail and taking away the children is definitely in the full recorded version.
Thank you and Brian — I found it.
I have to disagree slightly with you. They should have never purchased a seat for someone not physically traveling on the flight. That is really security issue. What they should have done, which has been allowed in the past but not 100% sure about now, is to purchase a confirmed seat for the infant at 50% off the adult fare. This was something that airlines offered as recent as 2013, at least to my knowledge. (I was a travel agent for 12.5 years). As long as the child is under the age of 2, a seat could be bought at 50% of the normal adult fare. This guarantees the infant to have a seat. But I would not recommend purchasing a ticket for someone not actually traveling because once there’s a No Show, its value may be completely lost.
The person telling them that they will go to jail is the security person or airport police, not a Delta employee. This person does not work for Delta.
Really? You feel bad for this family? I was not there, so I don’t know what happened. But the way you tell this story, they are taking advantage of the situation. Oversold flights, of course they are going to accommodate anyone who can be accommodated. Delta was in the right with this, and it is very hard for me to see any situation where the family was wrong. If I think about it a little bit more clearly, the only thing delta could have done differently was to not make any threats to put them in jail. If that actually happened, that was a bit of an overreaction, although this is stealing what the family did.
But don’t you think the family is reasonable to think they could hold on to the extra seat they paid for? I do, even though I know that is a losing argument.
Actually no. If they paid for a seat for older son he used it on early flight. His ticket is now used and can’t be checked in and scanned again. There are stop checks in place that would not allow this to happen. Once son traveled the seat was gone. They did not pay for ticket for infant. You want a seat, pay for it. Family was wrong. Delta could’ve handled it a little better and shouldn’t have threatened them with jail and taking away the kids. They should’ve just stopped arguing and placed infant on there lap. Then they would’ve been on the plane and other customers wouldn’t have missed there flights! It would’ve been cheaper for them if they would’ve just purchased a ticket for the infant in the first place. You hear the father say he (infant) only falls asleep in car seat. In the end they tried to scam and lost! Delta shouldn’t have compensated this family!
Older son did not use his ticket on an earlier flight. He bought a totally separate ticket.
Really? You clearly heard him say towards the end that he would hole the infant and they still refused them to stay on that flight. They also paid for another ticket for the older son. He didn’t use the ticket for the delta flight with family. You obviously don’t have kids. It’s the families fault in your eyes until it happens to you. If anyone sided with Delta or the security guard, they should rethink what they put this family through.
5 year later and your comment makes me write this….
You also read that the father offered to take the baby in his lap and got denied. The flight attendant was not providing valid arguments. She stated the wrong rules, she did NOT have any good answers and was rather cold and heartless. I own 2 companies and one of them is rather large, our ~4200 employees can not book delta flights via our corporate travel agency since 2019. Delta should have suspended the attendant and
The only person who has a right to be ashamed of what happened at anyone but themselves is the airline executives and the passenger who was sitting in the seat that was almost stolen.
Prick.
There seems to be break and discontinuity in the video frame around around 5:38, with a possible further interaction that is not being presented, that may have given rise to Delta’s ultimate decision to de-board them rather than proceed with the option of relinquishing the 4th seat and allowing the baby to be travel as a lap infant.
Ignoring right and wrong, this is the type of thing that happens to less seasoned travelers. They lose. No one reading this blog would ever make the mistake of not checking in/scanning a boarding pass and then think the seat wouldn’t be at risk of getting sold.
I fly Spirit on occasion and almost every time someone gets whacked with a bag penalty or there is a giant man who can’t fit in his seat and doesn’t understand why he isn’t sitting next to me in the exit row or big front seats. Same thing on Southwest with families getting split up since they didn’t check in 24 hours before hand. Or how if you don’t rebook when airlines issue fare waivers for snow, you are almost certainly gonna be out of luck by the time your flight is cancelled.
Ultimately we understand something that really confuses most people. It did not use to be like this but now unseasoned flyers have a much worse time.
You read that the father offered to take the baby in his lap and got denied. The flight attendant was not providing valid arguments. She stated the wrong rules, she did NOT have any good answers and was rather cold and heartless. I own 2 companies and one of them is rather large, our ~4200 employees is not able to book delta flights via our corporate travel agency anymore. Delta has done the this to me and my family, I was traveling in business class with a group of executives (11) and my younger brother was traveling with my younger cousins in economy (3). They meet a similar flight attendant and ended up also being threatened by her, he was told a similar story. “If you don’t leave willingly you will be forced”. The flight was overbooked. They wanted my brother off due to him not stating his full name in his booking. He’s full name is Jack Cao Li and on the ticket it was written as Jack Li. My family and multiple other entrepreneurial family’s have stopped flying Delta. I have personally influenced hundreds to not fly Delta, I will continue not flying Delta. I will make sure none of my employees fly Delta via work.
Matthew – I just wrote about this as well and I agree with you. I’m with Delta, though I think there could have been some better attempts / communication by the FA to accommodate this family.
Also if the flight was not oversold as Delta said, why wasn’t there a seat available?
http://www.pointswithacrew.com/family-kicked-off-delta-flight-sitting-seat-didnt-belong
“I wish the family would have been cajoled into just putting the baby on their lap and flying home”
As I understand it, the family did agree to give up the seat. DL kicked them off anyways (probably out of spite). DL deserves all the bad press they get. And yes, I agree with you that the pax caused their own screwup here.
Did the family pay for the son’s earlier flight?
Yes they did. They bought another ticket for that flight.
Disregard my above comment. It looks like they paid for sons earlier flight.
Is the family blameless in this? Nope.
The PR fallout, though? All Delta.
Yet again, a powertripping airline employee threatening law enforcement action for what is at most a civil dispute. All of the major carriers need to get control of their employees and make them understand that law enforcement action is appropriate only for safety issues. No airline employee should be uttering a single word about calling the police for non-safety issues unless they’re a senior manager.
Someone needs to remind airlines that “if you’re explaining, you’re losing” and they should act accordingly.
These so call people airlines really appears to me they wish to be in the package shipping business. They don’t want to properly interact with humans no longer, they do not want you to call them on the phone, they do not want to see you or check a bag in for you at the ticket counter. They do not want to help you at all as if you are a package in a box to them and can be stacked on top of each other????? Sounds familiar right. All these current U. S. flag carriers need to go compete with UPS and FedEx and get out the people transport business if they do not wish to work with people anymore. This may allow some decent carriers to emerge in the market place to provide real human service to the traveler, you know with plenty of room, large aircraft, even plenty wide-bodied aircraft like was once common across America. Meal service for all, better than some restaurants at one time. It was a pleasure to fly at one time, not a hassle like today, they were actually happy to serve you. The fares was reasonable and did not change fictitiously from outbound to return leg and all the other likely illegal or at least immoral games they play with fares. America was not founded on this type of corporate greed and behavior but it lives in everything in 2017. Apparently self regulation has not worked well for this industry and it’s time to consider placing them back under regulations again. My opinion, I’m old enough to remember when this industry served America well and I certainly know how sorry and shameful this industry has become today.
Kid was two years old. Can’t sit on a lap.
The only thing that struck me about that video is that his wife is pretty hot…esp after two kids 🙂
That is not his wife. His wife Brittany was the one filming the video, “Video courtesy: Brittany Schear”, across the aisle. Knowing who filmed the video, I question the motive of this family. The middle seat next to the man was not the seat in question because the two-year-old was still in his seat. That means the one-year-old (in the two-year-old’s seat) and the two-year-old (in the no-show teenager’s seat) were seated across the aisle with the mother. (Can the two passengers sue “Brittany Schear” for posting this video without their permission since California is a “two-party consent” state?)
Did I read the family was told they could use the seat for the infant by someone at Delta in this process? The passenger seemed to indicate “Delta was informed of our plans.” They broke the rules, but I can absolutely sympathize with a less seasoned traveler who gets an unclear answer from a front line employee.
Again, I phrase in the form of a question.
You really think they should have scanned the boarding pass and fooled Delta into believing that someone was on a flight that he wasn’t on???
They paid for the seat, its theirs. The airline has rules in place to benefit the airline. Again they use the law to try to enforce a civil matter.
Matthew, you are completely wrong. Airplanes enter into a contract with customers when they purchase a ticket. What other company can just change the rules after they enter into a contract. Plus these nimrods threatened these parents and don’t even now FAA rules.
Listen to the recording: the man offered to put the child on his lap to end the delay for everyone so they could get home. DELTA DENIED THEM THIS OPTION, the very option they said he needed to do initially. How can you side with Delta if the man offered — after arguing for a bit, but calmly — to do what Delta told them (incorrectly) they were required to do and keep the infant on his or his wife’s lap for the whole trip? And Delta wouldn’t even rebook them on a flight the following day to ameliorate the problem? Yes, the family may have “done it wrong” by not scanning the teenager’s boarding pass, but Delta could have either let them fly with the baby on their lap or put them on a flight the next day.
This is where employees sticking by their guns to enforce rules — which may or may not be correct (as we saw here, they made up several false claims about FAA rules and threatened incarceration) — instead of calling a higher-up supervisor to figure out a common-sense and legal way out of a bad situation. Instead, they poured fire on it, got a boatload of bad publicity, will probably end up making good financially to the family, and nudged the airline industry one giant step closer to Congress getting involved.
“I do feel bad for this family who did not seem to be looking for any trouble and acted with surprising calmness in light of what happened.”
Wouldn’t you keep your “calmness” if you know your wife is videoing the incident?
I think Delta should have made a better attempt to accommodate this family. It’s not like they were outright trying to steal a seat. I get that the ticket was non-transferable but letter of the law vs. spirit of the law. Think how many of us have had someone bend the rules in our favor at one point and the good will that it generated vs threatening to call the cops and take someone’s kids away. Major customer service fail.
I agree that this family probably honestly thought they could simply swap one child for another with no problem. But I have a real issue with the suggestion that they should have scanned the teenage son’s boarding pass, basically pretending that the baby was actually the older son (in fairness, you’re not the only one I’ve seen suggesting this). That’s a clear violation of the contract of carriage, if not outright fraud. Plus, what would happen if the gate agent noticed that the lap child boarding pass was never scanned, then questioned the parents about it? Good luck explaining your way out of that one.
But of course, the bottom line here is it’s way past time to hold airline employees accountable for the outright misrepresentations and lies used just to get rid of passengers. The FA in the video lied by claiming the parents would be arrested. Allegedly, another employee told the parents that FAA regulations requires all infants under 2 to ride as lap children – another lie, since you can indeed purchase a seat for an infant if you use an FAA-approved car seat. I highly doubt either one of these employees will be held accountable. All they have to do is claim the parents were a “safety threat”, and Delta management will have their backs all day long. This type of nonsense needs to stop, yesterday.
Lap child didn’t need a boarding pass scanned. There was no boarding pass for the lap child. Family purchased two tickets ( two different flight ) for their
18 year old.
If Amtrak has any sense, they’ll start taking all these videos and creating an ad pushing people to get Congress to pay for (Amtrak) service improvements. This stuff is gold.
Right up until TSA security molestations spring up at stations anyways
I agree with MeanMeosh; Delta clearly erred when they stated that the infant could not sit in a child seat, in his own seat; in fact, Delta permitted their infant to sit in a child seat, in his own airline seat on the trip over to Hawaii. Clearly, Delta’s employees don’t know how to defuse these kinds of situations; nor, do they know how to treat their customers with courtesy. I didn’t realize that they also were family court judges, when they threatened the parents that their children would be taken away from them. Unfortunately, the flight attendants, who used to be glorified waiters and waitresses, have now become outright bullies, provocateurs, and outright vile creatures! I think that the Creature from the Black Lagoon, had more tact and manners than they did.
i think they wanted it both ways. I wonder if they planned to try to refund the “unused” ticket after they returned to LA. Yes, they should have scanned the boarding pass.
Free flight what day
If you watched the entire video, the Delta employee was aggressive and LIED TO THEM from the start. She claimed that it was ILLEGAL for the infant to be in the car seat. There is no such regulation or law and in fact contradicts DELTA’S OWN WEBSITE which recommends you 1) buy a seat for your infant even though you aren’t required to 2) place them in a car seat for safety purposes. The women was lying and trying to intimidate the family like some mob enforcer- “It would be a real shame if something should happen to your kids, if you know what I mean”. The fact is, Delta was trying to double dip and get two fares for one seat. It’s also disputed that the family didn’t scan the ticket and they have repeatedly said from the beginning they explained the situation to the counter agent at check-in and again at the gate (when they were asked if they needed to gate check the car seat). And that makes more sense than the version Delta is spinning right now that they somehow sneaked onto the plane with the car seat and were trying to pull a fast one. The only one trying to pull a fast one is Delta who 1) shouldn’t be overbooking planes anyway on extra long flights 2) was trying to get paid twice for one seat. IF (and that’s IF) the parents failed to scan the ticket, Delta’s computers would still show that two of the three members of the group HAD checked in (because the computer shows tickets booked together) and if there was any question about using the third ticket, the gate agent should have called the family to the counter BEFORE it tried to sell that seat to a standby passenger. It NEVER should have gotten to the point that the family was seated on the plane and Delta then forced this confrontation on a plane ready to taxi.
BTW, people buy multiple seats ALL THE TIME. There is no rule that says one ticket = one passenger. “Customers of Size” sometimes need two seats and right now there is a case where a passenger is suing the airline because he was forced to stand for ten hours because he was on a full flight next to a large gentlemen who needed two seats and was spilling over into his own seat (the armrests couldn’t be lowered because he was so obese). The airline offered “credit” for about a fourth of this ticket and said “take it or leave it”.
Also, it’s not unheard of for businesses to buy an extra seat in order to transport something valuable. I worked for a company that bought a middle seat for a one-of-a-kind prototype that was too big for the overhead compartment and was so valuable it couldn’t be trusted to being checked as luggage. I’m sure the Stanley Cup doesn’t go via Fed-Ex either.
I am sorry but don’t airline employees understand the negative culture they create by situations like this? There may be issues on both sides but if the flight was not oversold why not move the (new) adult passenger to another seat?The situation went south for Delta when their personnel lied. Threatening parents is unacceptable. I cannot believe Delta removed but would not rebook family they removed. The employees who lied need to be fired. There needs to be retraining. The parents were pretty calm. Delta claims they compensated the family but was it fair compensation? All inconveniently affected passengers need ‘fair’ and full compensation. Delta, you are what your staff makes you so right now you are losing.
You entire article is a piece of trash. You are a troll. You didn’t get hardly any of the facts about this, just repeated what others already reported, and then threw in your extremely crap opinion. Get a life loser.
Tell me how you really feel Mohammed. I appreciate your continued clicks.
He just gets payed by delta voke trans activist Biden supporter hero, who cares we have some morons like him! If I pay my music! My tick fuck delta! They make mistake now families avoid them at least temporarily.I hope they learn from mistakes unless they fired attendent that we can not forget
The family was traveling with two toddlers, not one infant. Technically a family of five, but with only two of their children on board. #getyourfactsstraight
Hope your plane crashes someday Matt. No one would ever miss such an irrational sub human with no empathy or basic wrangling of objective logic. Post modernists like you should all be rounded up and shot for denying proof and circumstance only when it serves your grift or ego. Sociopathic, incel, worthless pathetic waste of humanity who is a jernalist for travel advice. Couldn’t be more of a loser cuck if you tried
Also, Matt, in case it wazn’t clear I’m telling you to kill yourself. No one likes you and everyone talks behind your back what a boring piece of garbage you are. I can smell it reading your self felating bio. My click is definitely worth the price of me throwing the mirror in your face. Drink bleach, gun barrel in mouth, suicide by cop, no one will care just do the only good thing you’ll ever do in your life as a troll and end your existance. Preferably on a live stream for others to see that’d be good internet
No, it wazn’t clear. Lol. Silly troll.
matthew, nobody cares about your opinion
You cared enough to comment. Thank you.
Matthew, you’re wrong.
You buy a ticket, the seat is yours…not the airlines….in terms of the flight anyway..
I side with the family.
Hey author check your brain, I hope you do not have family I will be sorry for your kids if you have, Number 1 think he pay for seat! That fly attendant need be prosecuted for threatening family with no authority! I hope delta fired if not family should press charges anyway. Department of Transportation should issue fine, than the attendent will be fire