Update: Delta has put out a statement apologizing and saying that they have refunded the Schear’s travel costs and provided them with additional compensation.
Unfortunately there is no word on the fate of their agents who threatened to jail them and have their kids put in foster care, or who blatantly lied about FAA infant and carseat policy. It would have been nice to see Delta clarify the correct carseat policy as well.
United: "We threw a doctor off our plane!"
Delta glances around, spies baby….
Delta: "Hold my beer…"#DeltaAirlines— Ian hauer (@Ianhauer88) May 4, 2017
Another day, another crazy airline incident caught on tape:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7pM8IyxpTc
Brian Schear’s story is hard to piece together, but between the video and various news reports here is my understanding of what happened:
Brian Schear was flying with his family of 5, including an 18 year old, a 2 year old, and a 1 year old, from LA to Maui with 4 tickets and a lap child. There was an empty seat to Maui, so they were able to use their carseat.
They likely saw that the return flight, Delta 2222 from Maui to LA on 4/23 was sold out, so they booked their 18 year old a ticket on another airline from Maui to LA, so that their 2 and 1 year old kids would have their own seat and be able to sleep in a carseat on the redeye. Clearly Brian was counting on being able to use his 18 year old’s seat for his 1 year old.
If Brian had asked DDF for advice he would have been told to just use the 18 year old’s boarding pass for his 1 year old and not to raise attention to that.
I book my kids as adults all the time as many websites have issues with bookings for kids. After 100+ flights with my kids nobody has ever said a word about them being born in 1911 and 1913…
Children under 18 do not need to have any form of ID if they have a ticket, so Brian could have easily just used the ticket for his 1 year old. Is it ethical? Some would argue that the airlines are unethical for selling a seat that can’t be transferred and will cost hundreds of dollars to make a change that costs them nothing. Does that make it right? No, but that still would have been the advice given if he wanted to use his 18 year old’s ticket for his 1 year old.
Unfortunately Brian didn’t ask for advice and he told the gate agent that they had a ticket for their 18 year old but that they wanted to use it for their 1 year old. That puts the gate agent in a hard spot. Had he not said that they would have boarded and nothing would have happened, they would have had 4 seats. But once he said that the gate agent couldn’t scan a ticket for someone who wasn’t boarding.
For some reason though, the gate agent allowed them to board the flight with 2 carseats. Considering the flight was oversold I’m not sure how that happened. Perhaps the agent tagged one carseat to be gate checked and Brian brought it onto the plane anyway? However it seems that Brian thought he was going to be able to use all 4 seats that he had paid for, so clearly there was miscommunication at boarding and that’s likely Delta’s fault.
The flight was oversold and Delta wanted to give the seat that Brian had purchased for his 18 year old to another paying passenger. Brian protests that he paid for the seat, but Delta is correct here. Because his 18 year old was not on the flight, he does forfeit that seat.
Then things go off the rails. The situation continues to escalate and Delta wants them off the plane.
A Delta flight attendant goes over to Brian and tells him that if he refuses to leave the plane “Then that’s going to be a federal offense and you and your wife will be in jail and your kids will be put in foster care.”
That is a horrendous thing to say to a customer and will probably be grounds for termination. I would have hoped that the Dr. Dao incident would make flight attendants think twice before saying things like that.
Then at 2:30 into the video Delta employee Jenna shows up and starts spewing the most ridiculous lies.
Airline employees love blaming the FAA for their issues. I’ve encountered that myself and have stood my ground and made them pull out the manual to prove them wrong. Sometimes I’ve even had to ask for the captain of the plane to intervene.
Jenna says, “It’s not a Delta rule, it’s an FAA rule, because he’s 2 and under…he can’t sit in a carseat. That’s the purpose of infant in arms. He has to sit in your arms the whole time. Technically he couldn’t even be on a seat…And he can’t be in a carseat because he’s an infant in arms…He can’t be in a seat at all because he’s 2 years and younger and that’s FAA regulations.”
Brian rightfully protests that he flew to Maui with his kids in a carseat while Jenna says it’s unfortunate that they violated FAA regulations. She is arrogant and condescending and goes down a power-tripping rabbit hole full of lies and fake sympathy. She continues to make up rules that are totally contrary to FAA policy and saying how she wishes they were not like that. Except they’re not like that. Not at all.
FAA regulations say that any child of any size can be in a carseat, so Jenna was dead wrong about that. If you buy a seat, you can put any aged child in it.
FAA regulations also say that only children under the age of 2 can be a lap child. A 2 year old is not allowed to be held by a parent during takeoff or landing, exactly the opposite of what Jenna claimed. A 2 year old must be in a carseat or airplane seat.
Brian correctly argues that it’s safer for the baby to fly in a carseat and that the baby will sleep and not bother other passengers in a carseat. Which is all true, but a shame he didn’t buy a ticket for the 1 year old in the first place as I strongly recommend that everyone ought to.
At some point Brian agrees to hold his 1 year old for the whole flight, but by then it’s too late. Delta insists they leave the plane. They are forced to find a place to spend the night and spend $2,000 on tickets from another airline the next day.
My opinion is that Delta snatched defeat from the jaws of victory here.
Brian was in the wrong. Once he admitted that his 18 year old was not there, the gate agent should have tagged one carseat to go under the plane and Brian should have been told the only way he was going to fly is if they hold their 1 year old as a lap child.
However:
1. The Delta gate agent messed up by allowing them to board with 2 carseats and not informing him that he had forfeited the 18 year old’s seat.
2. The Delta flight attendant’s foster care threat was beyond the pale.
3. Delta’s Jenna needs to learn actual FAA regulations and not spew totally made up lies which were not even relevant to why they had to give up the extra seat.
The power trip that some of Delta’s agents were on led them to say the most ridiculous things and makes the incident look so much worse for Delta.
And so now we have the United dragging incident (and official report+settlement), the American stroller incident, and the Delta foster care incident. Just unreal.
I guess we’ll see what airline craziness next week brings…perhaps it’s time to start flying with body cameras until the FAA decides to require airlines to install surveillance cameras on all planes?
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110 Comments On "Delta: “You And Your Wife Will Be In Jail And Your Kids Will Be Put In Foster Care”"
All opinions expressed below are user generated and the opinions aren’t provided, reviewed or endorsed by any advertiser or DansDeals.
I’m sorry – what is ridiculous is these passengers who think they can do whatever they want. This passenger was trying to steal a seat (steal is the correct word because he tried to put someone in a sit that did not belong to that person).
When told he needed to vacate the seat he refused to the point where law enforcement needed to be called (obviously we don’t see that part on the video).
Instead of people and congress complaining about airlines overbooking (a strategy that allows for cheaper flights AND which was also NOT the case here), laws should be passed that people who break the rules and cause delays get fined
@R:
Steal is too harsh. He did buy a 4th seat on the plane after all.
I agree that Brian was in the wrong and wrote that myself.
However Delta did themselves no favors with their gate agent messing up, their flight attendant threatening foster care, and then sending Jenna to lie about FAA regulations.
Sue them and make $
Thanks, Dan. I started reading the story earlier and it was just too complicated to understand the facts. Figured I’d wait until you posted the story because I knew you would do a much better job describing the fact. Well done!
@Sue them:
They might get back their expenses, but this is no Dr. Dao $10MM payday story 🙂
@Franky:
The news media can’t be bothered anymore to coherently present facts when they report a story. So much lazy journalism, I don’t think they spend the time to bother finding out what actually happened.
Ridiculous.
Wow, I hope the lawyer they hire to sue Delta reads your detailed (and free) legal brief here on the way to victory in the settlement….
Gosh, you should use all this Airline laws knowledge as a paid consultant to lawyers…
Dan, any good deals any good deals on private jets?
I don’t think he did anything wrong at all, enough with these flight attendants who are power hungry. He paid for the seat, what he should have done was check-in his 18 year old for the flight and have his two year old sit there. The airline shouldn’t keep over booking the flights after all these wild videos are going viral.
@Ben:
It’s a good point. I wonder if anyone has even told Brian all of these points?
@Great idea:
😀
@Bad Service:
He did pay for 4 seats, but the rules are rules. You can’t officially transfer a seat.
Of course this whole incident doesn’t happen if he just boards without saying anything. No need for the 18 year old to checkin, just checkin online and have the 1 year old use his boarding pass.
Great write dan.
Delta COULD have saved themselves this headache as Brian was wrong. The stewardess’ were really spewing garbage..
But again, the video wasnt gory or emotional so Brian probably wont make much money….
@R:really?! good joke!(i really hope your not Search Results
serious)
Is it just me, or is the public less sympathetic to flight issues with young kids? A doctor explodes that he can’t get off a flight for an either true or purported appointment with a patient, and every big news site and channel talked about it for days (granted, he was in the right, i am just trying to draw parallels here). Only smaller and more local websites seem to be discussing the stroller incident and today’s incident. I hope Delta does offer some sort of monetary compensation to this family, but I doubt they would if there isn’t enough public pressure on them like there was with the doctor incident.
Dan, you should stop posting things that are unrelated to the purpose of your site. No more politics will be tolerated.
This case would have been the same if it wasnt overbooked and there was one person on stand-by for that seat. Once they see that person didnt board, the airline can give it away
@Sherry:
That was different because of how gory it was.
@Jay Son:
This site has always been about travel and deals.
But don’t let the door hit you on the way out, I don’t want to be sued for that 😀
@Dave:
But the gate agents whould have known that by the time they started boarding the flight.
@Dan:
right, that’s what I meant by have the 18 year old check-in online and use his ticket to board the plane for the 1 year old to sit there. Easy.
The airlines need to get a hold on their power driven flight attendants. These unnecessary incidents are getting out of hand lately.
@Sherry: well if you get hurt like the DR did…
@Jay Son: who asked you?!
@Jay Son: Im pretty sure anything travel related is relevent to this site
Thanks Dan for this interesting and informative post. After reading this story on other outlets, when I saw your post I initially thought “not another click bait”. I decided to read it anyways as you usually add some good tips and tricks. Once again you have. Thanks.
surprised he got up after the Dao incident. imagine the PR nightmare if Delta/police forcibly took his baby. also if he would have stayed in his seat to wait for the FAA rules, the rules would have shown that his baby is allowed in the car seat. not sure if I would have got up.
They left him with 2 options: 1) get off the plane, 2) empty the whole plane. I wonder what wouldve happened if he chose option 2?
@Bad Service:
Yup.
@Dk:
I don’t do clickbait. If it doesn’t have substance I don’t post it 🙂
Nothing worse than clicking on something and getting trolled for the click.
@anonymous:
True. But perhaps he didn’t want to be knocked unconscious and lose his teeth?
@Joey:
They would have emptied the plane and reboarded without him. It happens.
@Jay Son: you’re forbidding it, lol? Gai kacken oifen yam.
Well written and explained. Made no sense from other reports.
Hi Dan, thanks for the thoughtful post. I’m interested in your advice for traveling with very young children (I’m expecting to become a father soon). Would you mind to clarify? It sounds like your recommendation for Brian is to book his 1-year-old as an adult, and then present the boarding pass at the gate and gloss over the age/D.O.B. issue. Is that right? I don’t understand why his child needs to be booked as an adult (1911! lol). Is it just because the websites are crappy?
@Tucknology:
Some websites (like BA.com) won’t let you book a seat for children, so I write 1913 instead of 2013, etc.
Otherwise, no need to do that.
Some more advice here:
http://www.dansdeals.com/archives/112939
And b’sha’a tova-congrats 🙂
Dan, It’s time for a comprehensive post on passengers rights, including what rules are really in force and for what they give a blind eye. I would do the same as Brian did. Forgetting a birth certificate at home would of been for a nightmare till now
@Eliezer:
It’s funny, this stuff is so second nature to me that I’m not sure I could compile a list of everything that comes naturally to me after thousands of flights.
@Dan: Isn’t that lying though?
@Confused:
Feel free to ask your LOR, but is it my fault their website is so poorly designed that it won’t sell a ticket for my kids as it ought to?
@Dan: so start and youll keep adding till its perferct
@Eliezer: It’s time airlines trained their agents properly. I work for a national company, most problems customer encounter are usually a result of under-trained, incompetent agents.
I agree with anonymous. If he was going through the whole effort of videoing he should’ve just stayed on until they forced him off. No way they would pull a “Dao” on a family with two infants.
But the overselling of seats is interesting. I had a friend who was traveling with his wife. His wife decided not to make the trip in the end but being a good husband he booked her the aisle on both legs of the trip and he took the middle. Because one flight was fully sold out it turns out that he, who paid for two seats, ended up being in the middle seat. He’s 6′ 3″.
It boggles my mind how an airline can refuse a refund but still sell that seat. But I guess that’s why 90%+ of the time I’m on Southwest.
@Anonymous:
United promised to do that.
Hopefully the others will follow suit.
@Mark:
The risk with that is that they can both be arrested.
@Dan: its worth the $1 M payout
@anonymous:
Perhaps to you, but clearly not to them.
@Dan: If you call the airline they would sell for young children with their real birthday?
@Not so confused anymore:
They would, but BA often has 1 hour+ hold times and their agents don’t actually know how to search for award space, so I’d have to HUCA 5 times, and then I’d have to fight for them to waive the phone booking fee because their website doesn’t support seats for kids.
I sleep just fine writing 1911 rather than going through all of that, thank you very much.
And nothing has ever come of it. But I’d be perfectly happy to explain myself if anything ever did.
Great post.
You forgot to mention that they also didn’t follow FAA regulations by allowing two children in infant seats to sit in the same row (see the ABC video). They each need to be sitting by a different window.
If I decide to fly with a 1yr old and do NOT buy a seat and instead hold the baby in a front back, is there an FAA regulation requiring the baby to be OUT of the front pack during takeoff/landing? I’ve gotten mixed feedback about this…
I’m confused about the option to book kids as adults – once a ticket is issued for someone over 18, won’t they require some form of ID to even let that person board the flight? Wouldn’t that make things worse (like they can clearly see it is for a 5 month old but require an ID for an “adult” ticket)? Or am I misunderstanding things?
Dan, I’m not sure boarding with someone else’s boarding pass is the same as entering the wrong DOB. This may be very illegal (you can argue that a detail like DOB is between you and the airline as the government already knows your correct DOB, but the falsifying the identity of a passenger on an airplane feels like a federal thing).
We flew USAir and our baby threw up 10 min into the TLV-PHL flight, all over me, herself and our other daughter. When we stripped our baby down to her diaper we got yelled at that FAA regulations state all passengers must be wearing a shirt. No matter how young or how old. The reason she wasn’t redressed yet was cuz the fasten seatbelt sign was on and we cldnt stand up to get to the overhead compartment.
He was seriously yelling that our two year old wasn’t wearing a shirt and we were violating FAA rules.
That really is a made up rule that USAir used to like to spew.
I was also thinking that they should have just boarded with the 18 year olds boarding pass. But since he’s 18 and not younger wouldn’t he have been required to show ID at security? You could obviously just not show that boarding pass at security but what I was wondering is does the airline get indication when they are scanning boarding passes while boarding the plane that that person didn’t go through security?
@Dan1:
No such regulation that I’m aware of.
@Joe:
Prohibited for use during ground movement, takeoff, and landing:
• Lap-held child restraint (commonly referred to as a belly belt);
• Vest- and harness-type devices that attach the child to the parent, the parent’s restraint system, or to the aircraft seatbelt
• Booster-type (backless) child restraints (even though they may bear appropriate labels showing that they meet applicable UN standards or are approved by a foreign government).
@Chaya:
There is no age written on a boarding pass or ticket.
@Ben:
I didn’t advise him to do that. But he could have done that and nothing would have happened and nobody would have cared.
@USAir flyer…:
Crazy!
@Not sure:
No, the ticket does not indicate an age.
Only someone who is actually over 18 would need to show ID, it has nothing to do with the ticket.
@Dan: I think steal is a fair word. Yes he paid for the seat, but he purchased a seat for person A and person A didn’t travel. He’s now giving it to person B. The fact that they are both his kids is irrelevant. It is not different than me trying to take my friend’s ticket on a flight he couldn’t make.
@a good yeshiva bachur: I’m totally serious. Yes, I sound a little extra curmudgeon-y, but I’m just of everyone looking to be catered to.
From the NYTimes:
“Delta policy generally prohibits passengers from using a ticket bought in another person’s name. Federal regulations do not bar such a switch as long as the new passenger’s name can be run through a data base, according to a Transportation Security Administration spokesman.”
Dan, have you ever heard of this happening in practice? I thought that name switches were never allowed.
@Anonymous:
The record labels also prohibit you from selling your CDs. That doesn’t mean that they are correct in doing that or that it is stealing to buy a sold CD. There’s a first sale doctrine in this country.
@joetraveller:
I’ve made name changes. Airlines will do it for their top elites or in extenuating circumstances.
Brian wasn’t belligerent or a safety risk. Once he agreed to hold the Lap child they should’ve been allowed to stay on the flight
Even if Delta is right, and even if there was no video running, this odd just a stupid way to treat a customer. Imagine for a moment that Amazon customer service ran an airline. What would they have done. I don’t know if the gate agent had the authority to issue a complementary ticket or not. Butthat would have been the best bet. Otherwise just ignore what he said and board the baby
“…so Brian could have easily just used the ticket for his 1 year old.”
Isn’t concealing the truth, effectively the same things as lying, Dan? Your recommendation doesn’t reflect well on someone like you who has offered a lot of good advice on your site over the years. And it cheapens the perception of you.
@Dan’s Words Not Mine:
I did not recommend that he do that. I said he could have.
@Dan: Ever Clicked on the check box when it says” I have READ and agreed to all the terms” they are sometimes 10 pages long. Did you really read all those 10 pages??
@Liar:
Only when I’m bored.
Agree completely with your assessment Dan. Regardless of who is in the wrong, I was horrified at what those flight attendants said to this family.
@Nikki:
That is the bottom line. Just a horrific response to the situation by Delta.
I can’t help but feel like this guy was emboldened by the Dr. Dao incident. Felt that the would get his way because of all the backlash at United. When he saw that Delta wasn’t backing down, he got up with his family and left.
We are creating a system where passengers get to decide what the rules are, and it will not end well.
This is the problem with the court of public opinion.
@Emboldened:
If he really felt emboldened he would have made them drag him off the plane.
@Nikki: May not have been worded in the best way, but if both parents get arrested that child is going to some government agency until they get out — that part is true
I’m just waiting for someone to comment that this is the Muslim’s fault cuz of 9/11 🙄
@Dan: You are correct.
Delta pro rules states: “A row may contain more than one child restraint device if the children are from the same family or travel group.”
What was the outcome? Did they sue delta?
Hopefully congress will do something now. Dan, can you write a clear list of airline practices that are unfair, including mileage devaluations, so we can copy and send to our local congressmen and Bill shyster?
I’m not sure why so many people are confused about this case. The guy checked in at the gate with 4 people and scanned 3 boarding passes. When 3 BPs are scanned, that means that 3 seats become occupied on the plane. Then they sat down and took 4 seats, 3 of their own, and 1 other one. As time went by, that other seat was assigned to someone else (because it was a “no show” at the gate). Then they refused to vacate the seat that wasn’t theirs. When you refuse to vacate a seat that isn’t yours, you are generally asked to leave the aircraft (I once saw a guy removed from the aircraft because he refused to leave an exit row seat that wasn’t his).
Furthermore, this video begins in the middle of the saga, not at the beginning. If you listen closely to the first few seconds you will hear the FA (or airline rep) saying “their position is if you do not abide …. then you will have to get off the plane”, and the guy replies “well then they can remove us off the plane”. This implies that the guy had an option to take the baby into his lap before he started arguing with them. The minute you start arguing with the crew, they have the right to remove you from the plane (ships and planes are not democracies, the captain is “king” and decides who stays and who goes).
@Dan: “No such regulation that I’m aware of.”
I’m not sure if it a regulation, but the FAA does say on their website* that carseats must be installed in the window seat “so it will not block the escape path in an emergency”. We once traveled with 3 of our kids in carseats (on Delta), but I don’t remember if they were all in window seats.
* https://www.faa.gov/passengers/fly_children/
@Dan fan:
This just happened last week!
@Mark:
No, he told the gate agent about the 4th seat and the agent allowed him to board with 2 carseats.
Then came the foster home threat.
And then came the blatant FAA lies.
@Mark:
It does NOT say must. It says “should.”
There are exceptions, including flying with more than 1 kid, as described in the full FAA advisory:
http://www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/media/Advisory_Circular/AC_120-87C.pdf
@Jay Son:
“No more politics will be tolerated.”
ROFL.
Do you also run into random houses, turn off the NBA playoffs, and then rant and rave like a lunatic that “no more sports will be tolerated” . . . in someone else’s house?
Are you sure tsa can’t see it in the system? They always,ask my kids their ages and seem to be checking it against something.
Dan one thing I don’t understand , basically if an infant don’t need to show ID, that means that they don’t need a passport to travel at all?
How is that?
How did they get past security? IME the tsa employee looks at each boarding pass and asks the child or more likely the parent is this so and so. I understand not volunteering info but when the TAS agent asked the parent regarding 18 year old ticket is this “so and so” should the parent lie?
Not to get too gemara-y, but…
What would happen if I am assigned 26E and switch with my wife in 26D?
What if I switch with a stranger?
What if I am in 1A (extra leg room) and my wife is in 26D, and I pay 1B to switch with her?
What if I buy a seat for my 18 month old and not my 3 month old?
Can they all switch according to the contract?
Taking the last case, what if I buy a seat for my 3 year old and not my 3 month old. I know legally they can’t switch, as the FAA doesn’t allow a 3 year old as a lap infant, but what about contractually?
Wouldn’t it follow that contractually it’s allowed? What if I switch my 3 year old and 3 month old after takeoff? My 3 year old can sit in my lap at that point, so the baby can nap, correct?
What if my 3 year old is really 18? Why can’t they switch except for takeoff and landing?
At what point do I have “rights” to the seat to trade it or switch it etc?
Brian not understanding the exact minutiae of the terms, while his lack of understanding, really falls at Delta’s feet to educate him in this case.
Earlier commenters who said we need laws etc against this type of behavior seem to be missing something. This is a human being who might have officially been “stealing”, but he didn’t think so and didn’t realize, and was probably never properly told so. He was probably yelled at, was lied to, got the run around, and no one talked to him straight and simply said: if your 18yo doesn’t board the plane, the seat is still considered a no show according to the contract, and we give it away, even though you paid for it.
People need to get off their high horse and realize Brian is a human being and isn’t necessarily following all the mechanics of the airline industry. He’s just a family man trying to fly home with his family.
@Not sure:
Never been an issue for us.
@David:
I’m only talking about domestic travel.
@Anonymous:
Either they said he was his brother at security or they added the 1 year old as a lap child to get a lap child boarding pass.
@Yosef:
Who was talking about seat trading?
You can trade or pay someone else off all you want.
Wouldn’t the 18 year old need to physically be there to get a boarding pass?
@Danna:
No, that’s what online checkin is for.
I didn’t know about the AA stroller issue. I was hoping AA will do a bigger mess than United and Delta combined since US airlines tend to copy each other’s moves.
I think Jenna is going to have a tough time explaining to her boss how she came up with these lies. Maybe she hasn’t read the FAA guidelines in a long time.
I don’t know if it’s a cultural thing in the US but I work for a Japanese company and co-workers of all ranks avoid confrontations.
Great post as usual. I understand that the person who was waiting to get on the flight also paid for his/her ticket but I would like to think that I’d give up my seat if I knew that my insistence to board would cause a family with two small children to have to deboard.
@Dan: “It does NOT say must. It says “should.—
Yes, you are correct, it says “should”!
In any case, the carseat itself wasn’t the issue here. The issue was that they took someone else’s seat and refused to vacate it.
@Mark:
It is the issue here.
Delta was correct, but their agents handled this in the absolute worst way possible.
I think we all (including Delta) agree that Delta employees handled this badly. Delta just made a statement about this incident –
http://news.delta.com/delta-statement-regarding-flight-2222-maui-los-angeles-april-23-2017
@lawboy: “but I would like to think that I’d give up my seat if I knew that my insistence to board would cause a family with two small children to have to deboard”
Wow! If someone put their kid in a carseat into your seat, you would really give up your seat, and buy a new ticket for a later flight? You sure are a nice guy! 🙂
can anyone help me out?
I am flying (with AA) now with a lap infant who is currently one and a half, but will be over 2 for at the time of the return trip. He is booked as a lap infant for the entire trip, what will be for the return will he be able to fl as a lap? will I be forced to book a new ticket for him? do I have to worry that flight will be booked and not be able to get ticket [forcing me to lose my ticket too??]
@Mark:
It wasn’t his seat, he was getting on the plane only due to the situation.
@sam i am:
He needs a return ticket.
@dan isn’t there some sort of penalty delta has to face for flight attendants that very clearly don’t know FAA regulations or choose to do the contrary? Seems like a pretty big safety factor.
@Dan: I do this as well, but since I have no elite status with AA and want our family to be automatically put together, I call AA afterwards on bookings where we are unable to select seats together and they are happy to update the DOB information for my children.
If this would be an international flight could he have also used the older brothers boarding pass? Records would have shown that the older brother already left the country
@anon:
Report them to the FAA.
@Eliteflyer:
That works too.
@Usher:
No, you need a passport on an international flight.
Everyone blaming the airlines and wants them to change. That’d be amazing but history shows that the only change with all of these videos is more expensive flights.
How could they have asked advice from you?
Is there an email or text for that? You said if they asked your opinion you would have advised them
@Sara:
What are you referring to?
First good job to Brian and keeping his cool! so I can’t remember is not an expert on airline policy from his perspective he wasn’t trying to game the system
Interestingly, the same FAA page that says “should” be placed in a window seat (not “must”) also says the following:
“If you do not buy a ticket for your child, ask if your airline will allow you to use an empty seat. If your airline’s policy allows this, avoid the busiest days and times to increase the likelihood of finding an empty seat next to you.”
@R:
” laws should be passed that people who break the rules and cause delays get fined”
Don’t you think a better law, apropos this case, would be to require a refund of the fare if the seat winds up being sold to another passenger at a higher price?
@Yosef: Brian is a human but Brian was also baiting the agents. Clearly since the video is his it only shows the part that is beneficial to his argument, but EVEN in his video the beginning part has the agents speaking with him saying relatively nicely he can abide or folks can come remove him from the plane — to which he responds “have them come take me off the plane.”
People feel empowered and all the sympathy he is getting here only further empowers the next guy who doesn’t think rules need to be followed.
I wonder how elal would respond to the these storys!?
Regarding what seems to be an increase in over-booking caused problems, can someone explain why over-booking is even allowed??? If someone buys a ticket, that ticket is almost always non-refundable. So if a passenger doesn’t show up for the flight and their seat remains empty, the airline has lost ZERO. So why are they allowed to sell someone’s seat twice and then force someone to be tremendously inconvenienced?
I think the real point here is that the airlines put profit first.
Profit above customer service
Profit on each and every possible upsell ahead of long term customer satisfaction because there are so few airlines and most of us can not pick and choose one airline over another (EWR is 75% or so UA).
If you went to a movie and bought one ticket each for your, your wife and two children, then entered the theater with three of your friends would anyone on the planet think it is okay for the theater to tell you it was necessary to buy three tickets since the original three people will not be attending?
The airlines have gotten away with non-sensical behavior and an irrational fee structure designed to just suck money out of passengers for far too long.
This irrational the captain rules and the airlines can impose fees at will just has to stop.
If there is an extra seat can you use it for a car seat or can they tell you that since you didn’t pay for it, you can’t use it.
Dan this kind me of the FAA “rule” when I tried doing a plan B on UA. The ticket agent almost arrested me in Houston. Lol
@Confused: @Dan’s Words Not Mine: @Liar: Are you people serious??? What are you doing at this site at all?? I was sure you are still waiting at the crosswalk for the walk signal although no cars passed for the last 10 minutes.. Don’t bother with this site, go count your fingers instead
I tend to generally agree with Michael. The airlines are trying to sell Congress and the public on the idea of a completely degraded experience for coach together with customer service. How does that even work?
“Thank you for calling our airline. We’ve gone out of our way to make your experience uncomfortable so that we can maximize profits. We’re going to find every way possible to increase fees and reduce benefits. The only thing we’ve kept from more civilized days of travel are ticketing and routing rules that can only frustrate you. If something goes wrong we will usually hide behind made-up rules. How can I be of assistance?”
As for R’s comment, I don’t think there’s any sense of empowerment for the flyer. From the beginning of the TSA security line to the FAs who will ignore you standing there until you interrupt to say “p-p-please, c-c-could I have some more water” to many domestic flights where the pilots hardly even turn off the seat belt sign even when there’s no turbulence, the coach flyer is a hamster in a wheel. Anger and resentment sure, but I don’t see a lot of empowerment.
Rotter.net took DansDeals story and they mention this site on their storie.
http://rotter.net/forum/scoops1/400043.shtml
@Dan: good to know ! Thanks
@Manny: Overbooking is done because people do not show up/cancel. This allows the airline to ensure the flight goes full or with the least amount of empty seats.
This also allows the airline to offer you fares of $59 from NY to Miami that everyone loves. Want to end overbooking — no problem; it will go back to $400 each way like in the 80s
If only he had called a shady lawyer before being removed. They then could have started screaming like someone was murdering them and flailing around so that they are bloodied and unconscious. Think of the settlement a family of 4 including 2 toddlers could have received? Too bad they left like normal lucid civilized people.
We flew to panama on Copa airlines, 2 adults, a 2year old and a lap infant. we brought a car seat for our 2 year old, which had her own seat. once on board the plane, the steward comes over and tells us that the car seat is too wide, and it needs to fit perfectly between the armrests. (we had a full row- 3 seats).
Then he proceeded to tell us that a car seat needs to have a tag that states that its aprooved for use on airplanes, and this one didnt have such labels. (ironically i bought it on a dans deals sale :))
Long story short, he made us check in the car seat, and we toddler was hyper for 7 hours.
Funny thing is, on the return flight, nobody said a word, and we had 2 cars seats with us.
#huca
@moishe: Which car seat was it? Most do have an FAA approved sticker on it. Important to check that before flying.
I had the same experience with delta, a few years ago, I was with twin infants. don’t fly delta!!
@Anonymous: Graco Nautilus 65 LX 3-in-1 Harness Booster, Matrix https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00Y2862VC/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apap_7P81aMjNrDiJw
Mark says “The minute you start arguing with the crew, they have the right to remove you from the plane (ships and planes are not democracies, the captain is “king†and decides who stays and who goes).” Why is it that most people do not agree with this when it comes to Dr Dao? Because he is a “Doctor”? According to the medical board that is questionable. Considering his record and his inability to see patients more than once a week and only in an office, why should we give Dr Dao any more respect?
@ Dan
Suggestion to add to your recent airline posts:
Southwest and JetBlue have significantly cheaper fees than other airlines for unaccompanied minors…