Over the past few months, it seems like every time you turn around, there is another story of an airline running into trouble with customers not wanting to get off planes. We’ve had #leggingsgate, and then #bumpgate upped the ante. The outrage toward United Airlines has been significant and widespread. The internet even saw a rash of memes after the second incident. And that’s probably only half of the recent stories.
Today’s story comes from a family who was kicked off of a red-eye Delta flight from Hawaii to Los Angeles.
The basics of the family getting kicked off a Delta flight
Typically when these stories come out, they are slanted to favor the individual and against the large corporation (airline). And while certainly there are many instances of the airlines being in the wrong, there are generally (at least) 2 sides to every story, so I like to try and figure out the details of what’s going on
Here are the basics of the story as far as I understand them. Brian Schear and his family flew to Hawaii with his wife, an 18 year old son (Mason), a 2 year old (Grayson) and a 1 year old.
They bought 4 tickets and had both of their younger son as lap children. While most reports indicated that Grayson is 2 years old, if he was a lap child he must be under 2, so maybe they’re rounding up.
For the return flight, they (correctly) realized that a 2 year old without his own seat would make the flight a nightmare, so they sent their 18 year old son on an earlier flight home, and then figured that the 2 year old would use the 18 year old’s seat.
[SEE ALSO: Why it’s time for no more free lap “toddlers” on flights]
The family’s mistake
I can see the family’s basic argument – “I paid for 4 seats and there are 4 of us and you can’t put someone else in the seat”. Unfortunately, while it holds logically speaking, it’s not how the airlines see it, per their contract of carriage. It’s a different side to the same argument what the airlines won’t let you do hidden city ticketing because they don’t see you buying a ticket from City A to City C via City B as A->B and B->C. They view that as one ticket from City A to City C. It’s why United sued Skiplagged.com (though the lawsuit was thrown out I believe)
The problem appears to have occurred when Mason (the 18 year old) did not check in to the flight (because the family was just using Grayson’s lap infant pass). So Delta marked him as a no-show, and assigned his seat to someone else. When that person went to sit in the seat occupied by the Schear’s toddler, flight attendants got involved and said that he would not be able to sit in that seat. Delta says that the flight was NOT overbooked, so I’m not sure why the person couldn’t have sat somewhere else.
Here is the YouTube video uploaded from the situation (record video horizontally people!!! 😀 )
Again, I can understand the Schear’s side of things. They paid for 4 tickets, and had 4 people sitting in them, so what’s the problem? Unfortunately, that is not how things work on flights. Had they just used Mason (the older son’s) boarding pass and checked him in, everything would have been fine. The toddler (and all children under 18) don’t need to show ID when going through airport security or at the gate, so it seems like that would have averted this problem.
But once his ticket was marked as a no-show, it was canceled and his seat was given over to someone else. Again, if the flight was not overbooked, it seems like Delta could have figured that out and taken some time to accommodate everyone. Some of the news reports talk about the flight attendant saying that the 2 year old could not sit in his car seat, so I don’t know if anything with the car seat not being FAA certified was involved or note.
Could Delta have handled this better?
YES!
I’m sick of flight attendants having pretty much absolute power, but that’s the way it goes. And it doesn’t look likely to change any time soon. Flight attendants are not policemen and I question whether “you’re going to go to jail and they’ll take your kids from you” was a valid statement.
But basically, once you start arguing with flight attendants, they have pretty much unlimited, unchecked power and they’re going to decide you’re a “safety risk” and kick you off the plane. I don’t agree with the power that flight attendants have somehow gotten, but that is the cold reality of things.
It seems that cooler heads could and should have prevailed here and a solution reached where everyone found a seat and the plane was able to take off and reach its destination
Your take?
What do you think? Was Delta in the right? Should the family have been able to keep their seats? Was Delta right in removing from the plane?
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Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
Unfortunately the PAX screwed up and you gotta understand that you can’t just let someone else fly under someone else’s name. I can’t decide that I want to take my daughter instead of my son on a flight. Usually name changes aren’t even allowed. They really should have checked instead of just “going for it”.
At least they did one thing correctly. The didn’t film the crew which can be a security concern and crew have shown up on other recent onboard videos.
I can understand why Delta would take the position that this wasn’t an oversell, assuming it otherwise wasn’t. When Mason failed to check-in or board within the cutoff he was declared a no-show which left his seat open to be resold or assigned to a standby (and I am somewhat unclear of the treatment of standbys in terms of their right to a seat and under what circumstances it is or isn’t an oversell if a standby is denied boarding because the plane is full). Once the no show was declared there was now an open seat on an otherwise full plane which allows one more paying passenger to sit in the seat that was deemed vacated in accordance with the contract of carriage.
There’s no “kind of” here. If you sit in a seat that you didn’t check into at the gate (i.e. scan right before entering the aircraft) then the seat is NOT yours. It is considered to be a “no show” and gets assigned to someone else. That’s how it works and that’s how it always has worked.
While I totally agree with you, I think it’s a reasonable assumption to make (for a non-seasoned traveler) that I paid for 4 tickets, there are 4 of us, so what’s the problem? You are correct that this is not how it works, and ultimately Delta is correct that the seat no longer belonged to them when they didn’t check in. It’s unfortunate
The guy should have simply given all 4 boarding passes to the gate agent to scan. Then there would have been no problem at all.
The family was 100% in the wrong – what century do they live in? Obviously you cant just show up and take someones seat who didn’t check in or board. Delta has nothing to apologize for.
I’m guessing you didn’t watch the video? One of the Delta reps clearly states that it’s against FAA regulations for a child under two to sit in their car seat on the plane. That is simply untrue. She kept saying that they were working on pulling up the rules in regards to that and I can tell you that they wouldn’t have found that.
I think there was a miscommunication about what the real issue was. As I’ve read, the two year old had his own seat as did the mom and dad and 18 year old. 18 year old took an earlier flight and the parents assumed they could use that seat for their one year old. That was the problem, not the car seat.
Obviously some retraining is needed but the family is in no way blameless.
most teens and infants don’t have ID’s, nothing for TSA or the airline to check. how did they know the infant’s name? that it wasn’t his teenage brother?
I think the problem was that they didn’t scan the 18 year old’s boarding pass, so the seat originally for him (that the 2 year old was now sitting in) had been given to someone else
Delta released a statement – http://news.delta.com/delta-statement-regarding-flight-2222-maui-los-angeles-april-23-2017
That was a whole lot of nothing from Delta 🙂
I guess technically Delta was not in the wrong since the older son didn’t check in, but I’m siding with the family on this one. The father was very cool and calm – I couldn’t ever stay that cool.
The father also brings up good points – if one was truly a lap baby, why were they able to check-in and board with 2 car seats?
Plus you think delta would have handled it better considering what just happened with United. The Delta employee not even knowing their own rules about someone under 2 not being ‘allowed by law’ to sit in a seat – ridiculous.
I see the FA said they would fetch their checked bags. How long could that have taken? Digging around underneath the aircraft to find their bags that are all mixed together with all the other bags?
I do not understand why this is an issue. The had a one year old lap child who did not need a seat they should have jut shut up and kept him as a lap child and shut up it was their dumbness for doing what they did
Right – i think that was the 2nd mistake (after not scanning the 18 year old’s boarding pass). You’re never going to win an argument with a flight attendant and at some point they’re just going to decide to kick you off. Like you said, they should have just sucked it up and put the kid on their lap
They bought 4 tickets… that is correct. but one of the tickets (and seats) was used by the 18 year old on an earlier flight. Why would they think they should still be able to keep 4 seats?
No – I think they bought an ADDITIONAL ticket for the 18 year old on the earlier flight