SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
We had two Soylentils submit stories about a family being ordered off a plane by Delta Airlines.
Forced off a Delta Plane and for Keeping Their Seat
A California family used the seat their 18-year old son didn't use because he left with an earlier flight. They made use of it for their child instead, but were forced off the Delta Air Lines plane and threatened with jail after refusing to give it up on the crowded flight..
View all the raw glory or do it with some commentary.
In other news don't use the bathroom, ask for water, or be autistic.
Last time it was United Air's Abuses: Doing the Heavy-Handed Thing a Third Time.
Delta Airlines: "Give Up the Seat or You're Going to Jail"
AlterNet reports
Brian Schear, of Huntington Beach, said he and his family were flying overnight from Hawaii to Los Angeles last week when [Delta Airlines] employees asked them to give up the seat where their 2-year-old son was sitting, reported KABC-TV.
[...] "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," Schear recalled the flight attendant saying.
Delta employees wanted the family to hold the young child in their laps during the flight, but Schear argued that they had bought the boy a ticket because he needed to sit in his car seat to sleep.
An employee inaccurately told the family the boy needed to sit in a seat with an adult, because the airline's website recommends that children under 2 years old should sit in an approved child seat in a ticketed seat of their own.
The entire family was ordered off the plane, and they stayed overnight in a hotel and bought new tickets the following day, reported KTLA-TV
BTW, can someone tell me what ecver= in a YouTube URL means?
Previous:
Male American Airlines Flight Attendant Hits Mother of Twins with Stroller
United Air's Abuses: Doing the Heavy-Handed Thing a Third Time
Passenger Violently Removed From Overbooked United Airlines Flight
(Score: 5, Informative) by AthanasiusKircher on Sunday May 07 2017, @01:42PM (23 children)
I've read about this a couple days ago, and the story doesn't really add up. It's unclear what really happened that led up to this confrontation.
Before I say anything else, let me be clear that there is absolutely no justification for the threats against the family (jailtime, taking away kids), the incorrect assertions by Delta (it's actually against FAA regulations for children over 2 to fly in a lap), or forcing them off the plane once they agreed to cooperate. By the way, Delta has apparently confirmed that the flight was not overbooked, and other sites indicate this was done to accommodate a standby passenger.
So, how did this happen?
Early coverage suggested that the family boarded without using their teenager's ticket, yet still expected to reappropriate his seat for their toddler. Obviously if this happened, there is no justification for the family using the seat. The 18-year-old would have been identified as a "no show" in the system, thereby leading to its reallocation to a standby customer. While Delta was clearly in the wrong in the way they made their request, if the family didn't check-in their 18-year-old or use his boarding pass, exactly how was Delta to know their intentions? (That said, there's the weirdness that they apparently let the family on the plane with TWO carseats for their two kids. If they only had three boarding passes, in my experience the people at the gate would have told them they needed to check the other carseat.)
Some other coverage has suggested that they DID use the 18-year-old's ticket. This is against Delta policy not to allow transferring tickets (and against security procedures if the family pretended their toddler was a different child), but in that case, how did Delta even know anything was weird? Why would they attempt to reassign the seat if it had been listed in the system with a valid scanned boarding pass? Did they somehow magically locate this seat (likely the only one on the plane with the "wrong" passenger in it)?
In the KABC story linked in the summary, the father apparently suggested in an interview that: "He says Delta knew he was planning to use the seat for his younger son when they boarded their return flight." That's a detail I haven't seen reported elsewhere. Again, what does that mean, exactly? Does it mean that he didn't check in his 18-year-old, but asked gate agents about the fact he had previously purchased another seat? And then a gate agent told him it would be okay to use it, but then didn't enter that into the system correctly, thereby resulting in the standby reassignment? Or did he inform the gate agent that he was planning to use a boarding pass for his 18-year-old instead for a 2-year-old with a different name? It seems unlikely Delta would agree to that, since it would be against security policy. In that case, even if Delta agreed, they'd have likely reissued the boarding pass in the right name, which would completely invalidate their later actions to remove the family from that seat.
And in any case, it just seems really unlikely that Delta would agree to either on a flight that had standby passengers. So who exactly did the dad tell at Delta, and what exactly did they authorize?
This is all a very strange story, and we don't have the facts. Was the family justified in claiming the seat or not? A lot depends on how this happened.
Again, whoever was at fault, nothing justifies Delta's ultimate treatment of the family. And really, the background problem to all of this is the non-transferable ticket policy of most airlines, which makes them billions of dollars each year with no benefit for customers whatsoever. (There are no security concerns about allowing ticket transfers; as noted in one of the links in the summary, the TSA has said they can run an instant check on any new passenger.)
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 07 2017, @02:41PM (6 children)
Before I can judge, I need to know if these were Good Folks or not. Does anyone have a photograph or a surname?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Gaaark on Sunday May 07 2017, @03:49PM (2 children)
I modded this funny because it IS in a sad way:
how many times it matters.
What would your initial thought be if you saw they were Muslim/black/jew/sweet transvestite/Ethanol Fueled/poor white trash (tramp stamp and all) versus:
a good, nice white bread family.
Would it happen if it was someone like Hillary Clinton with grandkids? YOu bet your sweet jackalope nope, no matter what the sityation.
Funny.... but sad.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 07 2017, @07:53PM
You missed the part where a surname was given in the summary: Brian Schear, of Huntington Beach. Had none been given, the GP might have had a point. As it is, he just looks lazy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 07 2017, @10:21PM
There is video documentation and other written documentation to go by. Not much need to use prejudgement. Muslims may actually be a security liability as statistics prove. As for black/jew/sweet transvestite/Ethanol Fueled/poor white trash.. who cares.
I think the most important matter is what factors are involved when the airline makes up their decision process. And in most cases it's their own perverted economic incentives and complete deafness in social reciprocity that makes then end up making an ass of themselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 07 2017, @05:09PM (2 children)
Haha the secret racists are downmodding a funny post... I guess as a country the US still isn't ready to admit it has a massive problem with bigotry. Nationalist scum, you think you're helping your country with such attitudes but it is actually the opposite. Oh, and you also promote ideas counter to the great values the USA used to inspire around the world. Today? Imperialistic scum wreaking havoc in other countries for profit and cultural warfare. #1 for imprisoning citizens FTW!!! Oh wait, we're beat out by the Seychelles with their massive population of around 100,000 people and they actually imprison ACTUAL pirates.
Come on you nationalist pricks, downmod some more because you don't like hearing the truth!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 07 2017, @06:40PM
No one needs to downmod you. It's readily apparent to anyone that reads your comment what a useless, jealous prick you are.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 07 2017, @10:38PM
Can't deal with the fact that East-Asians and White people make up the most productive population where brains and less tribal instincts are success factors?
Now USA might have a lot of bigotry but this doesn't change the basic factors at play. And where these populations thrive the values you so much appreciate also by some mysterious ways have a very high likelihood to present themselves and be sustained.
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Sunday May 07 2017, @03:47PM (3 children)
I think that there is fault on both sides. I think it likely that the 18-year old was not checked-in, leading to his seat being reassigned.
However, Delta failed to give the family a refund for their tickets, after bogus threats of jail time, so clearly there is fault on the part of the airline.
Frankly, given the recent incidents in the news, I cannot imagine what these airline employees were thinking.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by sjames on Sunday May 07 2017, @07:27PM (1 child)
There's the problem. They made no effort to figure out what was going on or to amicably resolve the problem, they just started lying about the laws and regulations and making outrageous (and patently false) threats, including threatening a parent with losing their child! They treated the family's every attempt to provide information in hopes of a resolution to the obvious (to them) confusion as a flat refusal to RESPECT THEIR AUTHORITI.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 08 2017, @01:02AM
everybody in this country is turning into little authoritarians. listen to the condescending tone in the second woman's/plane skank's voice. you are under her and she's going to make sure you do what you're told, preferably while groveling. the only thing these people understand or respect is power. they think because their industry is in bed with the tsa they can treat you like slaves. of course, they just watched you get herded through the lines while being molested or irradiated like little suck ass sheep. not to blame the victim but what kind of dumb whore is still flying at this point? like everything's fine and it's just transportation. make them motherfuckers go out of business. a nationwide boycott would end the tsa and the airlines attitude real fucking quick. Or let the industry die. Every time the scum in washington think they can dictate to the people just stop funding it, jackasses. sell outs sell out though i guess huh?
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Monday May 08 2017, @09:50AM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 07 2017, @03:47PM (3 children)
Finally got around to googling your alias -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athanasius_Kircher [wikipedia.org]
Very interesting, I guess it's a compliment that you are trifling with us here on SN.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 07 2017, @05:11PM (2 children)
I wonder if we have any more of these centuries old intellectuals lurking?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 07 2017, @08:53PM (1 child)
Well, there is aristarchus...
(Score: 3, Funny) by aristarchus on Sunday May 07 2017, @09:30PM
[lurk] . . . [lurk] . . . [additional lurking] . . . I just try not to fly.
(Score: 2) by choose another one on Sunday May 07 2017, @04:07PM (4 children)
Exactly - the key is what seat number is on the boarding card for the 2yr old kid, that's the seat they can claim. If it says on-parents-lap (or whatever phrasing they use) then the 2yr old doesn't have a seat - that should be end of story.
If the guy doesn't _have_ a boarding card for the 2yr old but instead has used the one he got for the 18yr old, then security has been bypassed and they have probably committed an offence as well - but like you, I don't think that is what happened because then the system wouldn't have allocated the seat to someone else.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by goodie on Sunday May 07 2017, @05:55PM (3 children)
I don't know... last year we had bought our 1.5yo daughter her own seat because we wanted to use the car seat. We boarded got settled etc. And then came along a standby stewardess who claimed that she had her seat assigned. She was polite but quite adamant about the fact that it was her seat even though I showed her the boarding pass and even the freaking bill from our travel agent showing my daughter as having her own seat. In the end she went out of the plane, made a few calls came back and claimed that she had arranged things. We just told her that there was no issue to begin with until she went and created one. Her whole point was that a 2yo or less should be on the lap. To which we told her fuck no, we are allowed to buy a ticket for her so she can have a proper restraining device...
Overall airlines seem to do some pretty dirty things when it comes down to bumping their own... assholes.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Sunday May 07 2017, @08:33PM (1 child)
Thanks for that story -- sorry you had to go through that, but that sheds yet another light on this situation.
But even then, the facts make no sense in relation to this story. The family actually had a seat for a younger (less than 2 years old) child TOO. Presumably, if the 2-year-old was in the "18-year-old's seat," then the younger kid must have been in the "2-year-old's seat." Even if something like your situation was happening, why would they try to relocate the 2-year-old to a lap (which is contrary to FAA and Delta regulations), rather than the younger child (who, presumably, the parents must have originally planned to have seated in a lap)?
Once again, this whole situation makes no sense, and we'll probably never know what actually happened, because it's likely a combination of both parties trying to "get away with" something they shouldn't have, so they'll just settle it between themselves.
(Score: 2) by goodie on Monday May 08 2017, @12:26AM
I have to agree with you on that we are still missing some details but indeed if you do not board and are a no show technically the airline can give th seat to someone else. I was just venting out some frustration about airlines and standby passengers ;).
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Sunday May 07 2017, @11:21PM
It seems the stories people tell all converge on that airlines behaves as if they can take bought seat property as they see fit. What's needed is some serious lawsuit and civil obedience. So that they will be aware of the fact that if they don't play ball no else need to return the favor.
There must be some basic rules laid down. That when a seat position has been bought and checked in (done when entering the physical airport). The airline can't back out of the deal or they will be charged with fraud. And compensation shall be in cash or bank deposits. No f-cking vouchers for further screwline experiences.
This also makes me wonder if they are also trying to undercut maintenance for critical parts. Just like Alaska Airlines did in 1999 with a MD80 where the service inspections were increased in direct violation of manufacturer requirements of every 600 hours to 2400 hours. The result were 88 dead.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 07 2017, @05:51PM
Also, if I was a standby passenger and I was put next to 2 adults with 2 toddlers on their laps, I would be livid.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Monday May 08 2017, @02:20AM
Executives from United, American, Southwest and Alaska testified at one or both hearings. Delta was notably absent.
I guess they won't be absent from the next set of hearings...
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 08 2017, @01:09PM
God, not another "something doesn't add up" idiot. Ok, Colombo.