Hari Seldon
Member
I believe the improper scanning thing. They used to print those boarding passes on good card stock but now that shit is on tissue paper.
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United gave toddler's seat away and made his mom hold him for 3-hour flight
- Thread starter Enzom21
- Start date
Goldenroad
Member
Toddler's lucky he made it off the plane in one piece, given United's reputation.
Mega Man's Electric Sheep
Member
One of my cats is 16 pounds (so a 25 pound 2 year old sounds about right) and just her sitting on my lap gets uncomfortable after a while(and I weigh 125), so add 10 pounds to that and some height and it would be quite uncomfortable in short order.
Link
The Autumn Wind
Because now they know the government is unabashedly pro-big business, and there likely will be minimal, if any, actual repercussions.
Brawly Likes to Brawl
Member
How the hell do they just keep fucking up? Clearly this airline should've gone belly up a long time ago.
2017.
At least we didn't beat or shoot you to death.
I think we just found Uniteds new response to customer complaints!
Sho_Nuff82
Member
United stock is at an all-time high despite all the negative press. Why should they give a fuck?
Flight is a commodity, like cable and internet. What, are people going to walk from Hawaii to Boston? There is very little incentive to improve, particularly service for rare flights.
And there are some people out there who would do it to save even just $10. What other people may or may not voluntarily give up is irrelevant in this story. This is not about whether or not she saved money, but that her child was displaced by another passenger and forced to sit on her. In this situation, the only other choices were to voluntarily remove herself from the plane, or to leave her 2 year old behind.
Remember the doctor incident?
CaviarMeths
Member
Yeah keep holding that L United.
This observation doesn't get any more clever or funny no matter how many people repeat it. The age of children is recorded in months up until 36 because it's a stage of rapid development and it's important to accurately document. 24 months is not the same as 27.
Fully grown men are usually roughly twice as tall as they were shortly after their 2nd birthday. Most boys his age would be about 3 feet tall, give or take a few inches.
This observation doesn't get any more clever or funny no matter how many people repeat it. The age of children is recorded in months up until 36 because it's a stage of rapid development and it's important to accurately document. 24 months is not the same as 27.
Fully grown men are usually roughly twice as tall as they were shortly after their 2nd birthday. Most boys his age would be about 3 feet tall, give or take a few inches.
Kremzeek
Member
Hmmmm.... sounds about right.
Night.Ninja
Banned
United hussling hard
RustyNails
Member
No, only kids under 2.
My daughter was right around 3 feet tall at that age, and more than 25 pounds. Kids get surprisingly big fast, then slow down.
The companies make so much money. Goddamn. Just give her a refund. Apologize and say she'll be fully refunded and even get some bonus miles and the story goes away before it even becomes one. United doesn't really even take a loss, not really anything significant. But nah, let's just let these stories blow up, good idea. I mean I get there can be a lot of people involved in these situations but most companies do alright with the "customer is always right" philosophy.
Particle Physicist
between a quark and a baryon
I was on a Delta flight with my family. Apparently they forgot to scan my 3 year olds ticket or it didn't scan right. So the attendants came by, asked if she was on and said, "Okay. Thanks."
I would be so furious if this happened to me.
I would be so furious if this happened to me.
They expected you to give up your purchased seat for free?
See this is why I don't buy their explanation. They're just trying to get out of paying her the $10,000 they promised if they pulled this shit again.
I used to have to fly United a lot and none of this bad press surprises me. Compared to other airlines their staff has always seemed poorly trained and much worse. I've had issues with rude flight attendants, like one who was making fun of "stupid passengers" who couldn't work the bathroom door, which clearly had a broken latch. I've also seen many gate agents and other people who seemed completely unequipped to deal with problems when they happen.
Giriath_89
Member
You'd think US airlines were unregulated reading all the latest news about horrible customer service. If the airlines knew they couldn't step on the rules to sell more seats without suffering hefty fines or worse, they'd have the incentive they need to stop. Is that not the case?
theechrisfox
Member
The regulations that are in place are in favor of these shitty practices. They are getting away with murder, and nobody in our government right now is looking to do anything to get in the way of bigger profit margins. If you do business, you can always make more money. Individual customers and cases like this are not great PR, but it doesn't matter in the least when your business has so few competitors and the consumer has so few options.
I'm honestly amazed they aren't already bleeding badly from this stuff.
There's been a string of shitty news about United recently and they just keep coming.
Majority of people are gonna continue to buy whatever's the cheapest fare
GoldenEye 007
Member
Yeah I thought point 3 is against FAA regulations. Not only should she get a refund+compensation, the FAA should be fining United. But if not, I see it is clearly United policy to require children over two to have their own seat and ticket. So still violating their own policy.
Slackbladder
Member
Competition among service providers is supposed to be what pushes change, better customer care etc. If you have a bad experience with one try a competitor. Unfortunately when they're all shit (or there is no choice) this doesn't work.
jono51
Banned
Kids are getting bigger at a younger age these days, its all the fluoride in the water.
gutter_trash
Banned
and that asshole to her right has to gaule to place his elbow on the arm rest pertruding onto her area
adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Well fucking do something about it then United. Compensate them.
AlteredForms
Banned
Time for some paper to swap hands. She wasn't promised the seat she purchased.
Organized, government sanctioned crime. That's how corrupt things currently are.
RoninChaos
Member
Didn't the president of United come out and say that they'd pay 10k to anyone this happened to? What happened with that?
Beer Monkey
Member
I took a last minute bump a couple years back to leave a flight still at the jetway because a 'lap infant' (who seemed older than 24 months) was on the mom's lap next to me. He was crawling on me and drooling on me.
As the million miler dude in his black suit and white shirt with cufflinks walked down the aisle to take my seat he made a deer in the headlights face when he realized why I took the bump.
The problem is that if you need to fly, what can you do? One of these shitty companies will get your business, and because there is such limited competition for domestic flights, they can pretty much do whatever the fuck they want.
Case in point, last month I flew with my wife and one year old son from Atlanta to Detroit on Southwest. We checked our car seat. When we arrived, it didn't. Southwest offered two loaner car seats, but they were literally infant seats with no base, and looked to have been at least 5 years or more old (car seats expire). Meaning there was no way to install them in our rental. We had to pay out of pocket to rent a car seat from Enterprise, who were thankfully great to deal with.
When we wrote to Southwest to be reimbursed for the $75 rental seat expense we incurred due to them having an inadequate loaner car seat, they basically said "sorry", nothing we can do. They did however give us a $100 flight credit. I would have preferred to just have my money back.
What were we supposed to do? We had literally no choice but to pay out of pocket for a suitable rental car seat, because Southwest lost ours, and could not provide a safe or even functioning loaner.
If I never had to deal with airports or airlines again I would be perfectly fine with that. What a fucking racket
Case in point, last month I flew with my wife and one year old son from Atlanta to Detroit on Southwest. We checked our car seat. When we arrived, it didn't. Southwest offered two loaner car seats, but they were literally infant seats with no base, and looked to have been at least 5 years or more old (car seats expire). Meaning there was no way to install them in our rental. We had to pay out of pocket to rent a car seat from Enterprise, who were thankfully great to deal with.
When we wrote to Southwest to be reimbursed for the $75 rental seat expense we incurred due to them having an inadequate loaner car seat, they basically said "sorry", nothing we can do. They did however give us a $100 flight credit. I would have preferred to just have my money back.
What were we supposed to do? We had literally no choice but to pay out of pocket for a suitable rental car seat, because Southwest lost ours, and could not provide a safe or even functioning loaner.
If I never had to deal with airports or airlines again I would be perfectly fine with that. What a fucking racket
diablos991
Can’t stump the diablos
When does the smear piece come out from United.
That toddler certainly was no angel and has a blemished past they can dig up and publish.
That toddler certainly was no angel and has a blemished past they can dig up and publish.
The standby passenger was definitely at fault here as well. Not only did he take the seat after he was informed that it was booked for the child and force the child to "share" the mother's seat, but he also stuck his elbow into the the mother's personal space.
Wait for the Boston Globe writer to defend him, though. Heck, maybe it's the same guy.
Yeah. 200% refund would be a goodwill gesture.
AtomskEater
Member
Agreed. If they want it to be "goodwill" there should be something additional for the inconvenience and discomfort caused because they messed up. Flying coach usually is pretty sucky anyway, but I can't imagine having a 2-year-old on my lap the whole time while the dude who took his seat monopolizes the armrest.
United refunded the mom the cost of both tickets, plus additional compensation before this thread was even posted. OP used the one story that doesn't include that information.
This is not uncommon, especially if you are scanning multiple tickets in close proximity. That is one of the reasons why they always make a last minute announcement on the plane about where it is going before taking off.
PEOPLE STILL GET ON THE WRONG PLANES.
The bad PR of the past couple of months is all the more reason for a story like this to happen because a FA is going to be less likely to challenge a parent with a lap child.
Honestly, NO CHILD should ever be a lap child, but plenty of parents will still do it and others will lie about their child's age in order to clear that 24 month mark. Even if a FA suspected something was up, I can see a FA not wanting to ask for fear of making a scene.
If the FA knew that the mom and child each had a ticket, then the FA is 100% in the wrong. If the FA thought the mom just had a lap child and was hoping to use the extra space of a spare middle seat, then the FA's response makes sense.
It's a shitty experience, but one that had multiple points of failure as reported in the news.
- Gate agent scanned the ticket improperly.
- Mom did not make it clear that her child was over 24 months had a ticket for the seat.
- FA didn't question why a large child was being flown as a lap child.
Strict adherence to written policy is what resulted in the Dao situation.
AtomskEater
Member
That's actually more than I thought they'd do! :0
George Claw M.D.
Member
That's not the adjacent passenger's arm on the armrest. It's the mom's arm holding the camera she took the pic with.
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