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[Henry Jones Jr]

Read the story. They bought 4 tickets. 3 passengers checked-in. 1 passenger was a no-show. The no-show seat was forfeited and Delta assigned it to another passenger. The 3 passengers still wanted to use the no-show's seat.

This is were things get a little dicey as there is no easy solution. I'm sure in the people's minds they thought "Hey, we paid for that seat and its non-refundable so we should be able to use it." But to the person that got the seat at the last minute, I'm sure they would have been mad if they found out that there was an open seat that the airline wouldn't let them buy. In one part of my mind I think that if they airline already got paid for that seat, they shouldn't be able to sell it again to someone else and get paid twice. But on the other half I feel its more fair to let people who are in stand-by waiting for an open seat to be able to use that one.

I feel that the best solution to a problem like this would be to handle it like they handle leases for apartments. If you have 6 months left on your lease and you just break it and leave early, you are potentially on the hook for all 6 months. BUT if the landlord is able to get someone moved in (and they are required to at least try) and start collecting rent from them after only one month, you are only responsible for paying that one month gap. Perhaps they should come up with a system where you are refunded for your ticket if they end up filling your seat in some way.

 

[RoninChaos]

Yes, you have to hold kids under 2. But from my understating the kid they had was 2.

My kids never had a "carrier." They just sat in the seat. No airline has ever said anything. Not once.

The Airlines actually recommend you buy a seat for an infant and stick them in a car seat.

https://www.delta.com/content/www/en_US/traveling-with-us/special-travel-needs/children.html

The shit went to a place it didn't need to when that woman was like "You will go to jail and your kids will go to foster care" and this was because of ONE FUCKING SEAT. The guy wasn't saying he was going to blow the plane up. He bought the seat, so delta should have said "Look, we will refund your money for this seat, your kid can sit in the wife's lap, and we can get this show on the road". But no. This dumb bitch has to start threatening peoples' kids. WTF is wrong with these people?

Anyway, this post from reddit sums up my feelings:

The only thing the dad was wrong in assuming he could use a seat he had bought and paid for to put a car seat with his infant son in rather than hold him all on an all night flight.

Delta saw an empty seat and jizzed their pants wanting make another quick thousand on a thousand they'd already sold. They weren't counting on somebody using it to put their kid in.

The whole "federal regulations" was a bullshit excuse Delta was using to cover their ass when they found they'd sold a standby to somebody who was using the seat they'd paid for. The dad offered the solution to the problem. "Okay I paid for this seat, I won't put anybody in it, when the flight takes off i'll put my kid in it, it's my seat I paid for you shouldn't just be able to sell it to somebody else because my other son didn't check into the flight."

Delta sells empty seats all the time. In fact they require obese passengers to pay for extra seats, you can purchase extra seats for luggage, musical instruments, luggage or just extra space. So why can't you use it to put your infant in?

Well because Delta had jumped the gun and sold his seat to somebody else.

It's another problem with overbooking flights.

Here's what Delta responsibly should have done. You want to overbook seats to make money? Okay sure. Go ahead. But then YOU get to cover for it if extenuating circumstances happen instead of knocking people unconscious and dragging them from their seats or threatening to jail fathers of infant children.

When they came back to see what the problem was they should have aplogized for overbooking the seat. Asked if he would be willing to give it to the standby passenger in exchange for compensation for the seat he paid for or told the standby passenger there was a misunderstanding.

NOT Threaten to jail the man. NOT try to emotionally manipulate him into giving them the seat. NOT tell kick him and his family off the plane out of vindictive spite. NOT tell him they don't care what happens to him now that it's the middle of the night and they don't have a place to stay.

This is disgusting behavior and policy all around demonstrating the corporate greed rampant in American airline industry and capitalism.

 

[Stinkles]

How hard is it to change the name on the ticket?
.

Extraordinarily hard. Or at least that's what they claim. And expensive. I once went through an ordeal trying to change my ticket name from "Frank" to "Francis" to match my passport. They acted like I was the living embodiment of Al Qaeda and wanted to charge HUNDREDS of dollars to do it.

 

[numble]

Whatever...I read 18 year-old son as 18 month old son.

Anyway, 2 years and up is considered an adult so they must have their own ticket. The airline was asking them to pay for a ticket but not occupy a seat, which is bullshit to me.

They did not pay for a separate non-lap ticket for the infant, though. Please don't make up facts.

 

[Reckheim]

That's complete bullshit. There's something called "company culture." United, Delta, and many other airlines have poor customer service and nickel and diming built in to the company culture.

These people don't get paid enough to care about company culture, and they shouldn't. Poor customer service happens because the employees don't give a shit not because the company tells them not to service their own customers.

Not to mention they didn't do anything wrong in this case.

 

[shintoki]

This is were things get a little dicey as there is no easy solution. I'm sure in the people's minds they thought "Hey, we paid for that seat and its non-refundable so we should be able to use it." But to the person that got the seat at the last minute, I'm sure they would have been mad if they found out that there was an open seat that the airline wouldn't let them buy. In one part of my mind I think that if they airline already got paid for that seat, they shouldn't be able to sell it again to someone else and get paid twice. But on the other half I feel its more fair to let people who are in stand-by waiting for an open seat to be able to use that one.

I feel that the best solution to a problem like this would be to handle it like they handle leases for apartments. If you have 6 months left on your lease and you just break it and leave early, you are potentially on the hook for all 6 months. BUT if the landlord is able to get someone moved in (and they are required to at least try) and start collecting rent from them after only one month, you are only responsible for paying that one month gap. Perhaps they should come up with a system where you are refunded for your ticket if they end up filling your seat in some way.

The easy solution would have been for the folks to tell Delta, hey, our son went home earlier, we want to use the seat for our kid. With Delta saying, okay.

 

[Socivol]

They bought seats for 3 adults and 1 was a no-show, but they wanted to still use the seat for an infant that had a lap-infant ticket. It isn't technically a case of overbooking. They asked for the lap infant to be on the lap. The no-show seat does not belong to you if the passenger for the ticket does not show up even if they are in your party.

Yeah from what I was reading it seems like Delta isn't wrong here. You can't buy a seat and when the person that is supposed to be in it still claim the seat as yours.

 

[ColdPizza]

They did not pay for a separate non-lap ticket for the infant, though. Please don't make up facts.

If the child was 2 or older they paid for a ticket unless they lied about the child's age.

Children 2 or older are not allowed to be carried as lap infants.

Source: flying with children for the past 4+ years.

 

[bachikarn]

Yeah, why is everyone missing this? This is the exact reason why they oversell flights. The 3rd adult no-showed for the flight and lost the right to his seat.

But this isn't a case of Delta having an extra seat because someone canceled. They still got the money for that seat, but Delta wanted to be paid twice for that seat. I do not support that practice.

 

[y2dvd]

Things have always been shitty, so keep taking the shittiness!

Is that honestly some of the responses here?

 

[Henry Jones Jr]

The easy solution would have been for the folks to tell Delta, hey, our son went home earlier, we want to use the seat for our kid. With Delta saying, okay.

Yes, in this particular situation that would have been the best solution. Switch the no-show ticket to the 2 year old. Done.

In that post I was talking more about better handling the overbooking problem more generally.

 

[AkumaNiko]

If the child was 2 or older they paid for a ticket unless they lied about the child's age.

Children 2 or older are not allowed to be carried as lap infants.

Source: flying with children for the past 4+ years.

Did they pay for a ticket for that kid or for the older son? There's a difference. But that being said, the airline could have just let the kid stay and booked the other person

 

[Allonym]

I'm sorry for my ignorance regarding this subject but how is this a thing that continues to happen? Aren't the flights monitored by a computer system that tracks the number of seats being purchased and their availability? They should adopt a movie theater type of seating program where potential purchasers are given a graphic of the plane and see the layout of the seats and from their they can view the seats available for purchase. Hovering over a seat tells you it's individual price, how many other people have viewed the seat since the flight went up and how many people are viewing it at the same moment as you. The system should also inform you what seats have also been purchased. You should also be able to purchase multiple seats and be told the price for buying group seats vs paying for them individually. You can see what seats are reserved for potential crew/employees as well.

If you're checking out and all the seats that you were eyeing aren't available, your transaction won't go through and you'll be told why and which individual seat(s) was the cause. The system will tell you differentiation between the purchasers buying time and your attempted buying time so you aren't left with any questions.

This system is probably already in effect but I wouldn't know since I haven't flown since 2002 when I was 12 but I don't see how there could be any error in a system like this. This makes me think that it isn't the system itself but the airlines themselves bullying the occupants of the plane. Is it that everything is performing as it should and some unforeseen circumstance happens and employees have to take the flight and kick people off? The system should simply always have unoccupied, reserved seats. Sure the airlines will lose money but it's better than being in the media every week for some new PR disaster or beating a passenger.

*I personally don't see what the issue is regarding the usage of the seat by the infant son though. Sure he broke a rule, but he paid for the seat...why should he have to surrender it? FAA encourages you to put your children in seats with a "hard backed child safety seat". He didn't feel comfortable resting his infant/toddler son in his lap and so sent his older son on an earlier flight and gave the seat to his 2 yr old son. He paid for 2 seats, so he had done nothing wrong. He had a right to those seats.The name change is irrelevant because they are immediate relatives with different first names. It's a senseless issue to me but hopefully they were well compensated for their trouble...and what of the older son? Hopefully he just wasn't stuck waiting wherever for his family for 2 days.

 

[numble]

This is were things get a little dicey as there is no easy solution. I'm sure in the people's minds they thought "Hey, we paid for that seat and its non-refundable so we should be able to use it." But to the person that got the seat at the last minute, I'm sure they would have been mad if they found out that there was an open seat that the airline wouldn't let them buy. In one part of my mind I think that if they airline already got paid for that seat, they shouldn't be able to sell it again to someone else and get paid twice. But on the other half I feel its more fair to let people who are in stand-by waiting for an open seat to be able to use that one.

I feel that the best solution to a problem like this would be to handle it like they handle leases for apartments. If you have 6 months left on your lease and you just break it and leave early, you are potentially on the hook for all 6 months. BUT if the landlord is able to get someone moved in (and they are required to at least try) and start collecting rent from them after only one month, you are only responsible for paying that one month gap. Perhaps they should come up with a system where you are refunded for your ticket if they end up filling your seat in some way.

The Airlines actually recommend you buy a seat for an infant and stick them in a car seat.

https://www.delta.com/content/www/en_US/traveling-with-us/special-travel-needs/children.html

The shit went to a place it didn't need to when that woman was like "You will go to jail and your kids will go to foster care" and this was because of ONE FUCKING SEAT. The guy wasn't saying he was going to blow the plane up. He bought the seat, so delta should have said "Look, we will refund your money for this seat, your kid can sit in the wife's lap, and we can get this show on the road". But no. This dumb bitch has to start threatening peoples' kids. WTF is wrong with these people?

Anyway, this post from reddit sums up my feelings:

When you don't show up for a Delta flight, you are still able to get a credit for the value of your flight to be used within the next year. It isn't a case that you paid for nothing.

 

[shintoki]

Yes, in this particular situation that would have been the best solution. Switch the no-show ticket to the 2 year old. Done.

In that post I was talking more about better handling the overbooking problem more generally.

Oi, my mistake.

 

[matt360]

That is not what happened, though. They bought 4 tickets (3 adults in seats and 1 lap child). One of the 3 adults didn't show up for the flight, so Delta assigned that seat to another passenger. The family decided they were going to use the seat of no-show adult for their child. When they were told this wasn't allowed they argued with the crew and got kicked off the flight.

Even so, Delta is in the wrong here. Even though kids under 2 can't have their own seat, Delta still encourages passengers to buy an extra seat for the infant to sit in once the plane takes off. What the fuck difference does it make whose name that extra seat was in, when the baby was just gonna sit there anyways after the plane took off? Such a stupendously bad policy done by all of these airlines. I hope this guy was/will be compensated for this.

Thank God I live in Japan where companies (particularly airline) still understand what customer service means.

 

[Stinkles]

OK, so in this case the family is wrong, but the family is only wrong because the airlines have shitty inflexible rules. The correct thing to do here would be change the name or refund them the cost of the seat, no questions asked. What they were demanding was, according to the rules, not going to happen.

What's aggravating is that on almost every single flight I take, with very few exceptions, the flight is booked 100% full with some suckers waiting for seats. Exacerbated by missed connections and other standby passengers.

This is why I am obsessive about air mile status. It reduces your risk of BS happening. And makes changes easier and cheaper.

 

[Linkura]

These people don't get paid enough to care about company culture, and they shouldn't. Poor customer service happens because the employees don't give a shit not because the company tells them not to service their own customers.

...You just described to me the company culture. It's an intangible thing. Because the employees are treated like shit, they treat the customers like shit. That's part of the company culture.

 

[Mysterious]

Holy shit, Air Canada is so good in comparison.

 

[LewieP]

Dude stayed remarkably calm, even though you could feel his frustration building.

I would like to give a shout out to Air France. I had a flight booked with them from Manchester to Phnom Penh, but due to an error on their behalf, they failed to assign me a seat for the main leg of the flight (Paris to Guangzhou). The error only became clear during checkin.

Once it became clear that they couldn't get me on that flight (about an hour before takeoff), they took me to one side, apologized, and bought me a ticket on the next available flight from another airline, which was Qatar Air, and no doubt cost a lot more than the flight I'd paid for. Qatar Air also took great care of me, and my arrival time was actually slightly sooner than my original flight, because of less time on a layover.

Is this specifically a problem with American airlines? I've only ever heard cabin crew offering to pay people to take the next flight on flights from the US. Do other countries have regulations that prevent overbooking?

 

[numble]

If the child was 2 or older they paid for a ticket unless they lied about the child's age.

Children 2 or older are not allowed to be carried as lap infants.

Source: flying with children for the past 4+ years.

We have the facts about the tickets purchased. They did not purchase a seat for the infant. All the news articles on this incident are clear about it. The child could be 23 months and the news articles say he is 2 for all we know.

 

[Henry Jones Jr]

When you don't show up for a Delta flight, you are still able to get a credit for the value of your flight to be used within the next year. It isn't a case that you paid for nothing.

While this is nice and is certainly better than nothing for some, there are many people who travel very infrequently and a 1-year flight voucher may as well be nothing.

 

[RoninChaos]

Here's the thing. That's how this industry has worked for DECADES. Everyone that flies has been told this, and if they don't realize it then they're willfully ignorant at this point.

I honestly am sick of reading about people who don't know how this industry works and then, after having their own ignorance bite them in the ass, proceed to try to be This Weeks Victim online.

Does it suck? Yes. Should we have a better system? Absolutely. But we don't, and people know that, and still choose to fly. So I really don't feel bad when someone gets bumped from a flight. (Watch-- this is going to karmically set the gears in motion for me to get kicked off my next flight.)

"It's always sucked so it will never get better"

Come the fuck on, man. That's just letting them off the hook.

 

[bachikarn]

When you don't show up for a Delta flight, you are still able to get a credit for the value of your flight to be used within the next year. It isn't a case that you paid for nothing.

You have to pay a $200-250 fee. For some flights, that is more than the cost of a ticket.

 

[HawksWinStanley]

If it's true about the infant not being able to occupy a seat then I would've given it up right then and there. If that's the case then the airline fucked up earlier, not on this flight.

I would've asked for my money back and held the kid.

 

[Linkura]

You have to pay a $200-250 fee. For some flights, that is more than the cost of a ticket.

Yeah, one time my boss had to change her flight to another day. It would have ended up costing more to change her flight due to a $200 fee than to just book another flight entirely because it was under $200 for the fare. So we ended up just booking an entirely new flight. That's the airlines' fault for a shitty system.

 

[TheCochese]

I'm having trouble seeing where this is all Delta's fault. If the ticket is in the other flyer's name, you can't just arbitrarily change it to another passenger. Because as others have said, there's a credit that takes place. The named passenger would have to do it themselves.

Family had an opportunity to stay on the flight if he held the kid, which was the plan in the first place.

 

[jmdajr]

If the child was 2 or older they paid for a ticket unless they lied about the child's age.

Children 2 or older are not allowed to be carried as lap infants.

Source: flying with children for the past 4+ years.

same for me.

 

[ColdPizza]

We have the facts about the tickets purchased. They did not purchase a seat for the infant. All the news articles on this incident are clear about it. The child could be 23 months and the news articles say he is 2 for all we know.

Then we don't have all of the facts. Either the family lied or Delta fucked up.

 

[Clockwork]

Recent airline criticism is deserved, but I cannot get behind the passengers in this situation.

When the 18 year old didn't show up that seat was no longer theirs.

 

[Regulus Tera]

hey guys i got a crazy idea, how about when you sell an airplane ticket you legally have to have a seat available and you cant just sell more seats than you actually have based on some totally arbitrary number of people you predict may cancel

If this happens airlines will take it as an excuse to raise prices for everyone across the board.

 

[Henry Jones Jr]

Oi, my mistake.

No worries. Looking back at my post I didn't really make that clear.

 

[poppabk]

If the child was 2 or older they paid for a ticket unless they lied about the child's age.

Children 2 or older are not allowed to be carried as lap infants.

Source: flying with children for the past 4+ years.

Yep. One caveat is that airline staff seem to often be ignorant of their own regulations when it comes to kids. It was an effort to get my kids car seat on to the plane when we flew because they kept trying to say it wasn't allowed on the plane when the FAA regulations clearly state that it is.

 

[Starviper]

I understand why Delta is technically in the right as far as the rules and regulations go. That said the way the airline rep. handled the situation was dumb as all hell. The family wasn't trying to cause trouble or get extra seats; hell they HAD the seat paid for.

Delta is super frustrating to deal with because of their rules. You cannot make any changes to that ticket you bought without paying 150+ in fees for any little thing.

 

[RoninChaos]

Even so, Delta is in the wrong here. Even though kids under 2 can't have their own seat, Delta still encourages passengers to buy an extra seat for the infant to sit in once the plane takes off. What the fuck difference does it make whose name that extra seat was in, when the baby was just gonna sit there anyways after the plane took off? Such a stupendously bad policy done by all of these airlines. I hope this guy was/will be compensated for this.

Thank God I live in Japan where companies (particularly airline) still understand what customer service means.

OK, so in this case the family is wrong, but the family is only wrong because the airlines have shitty inflexible rules. The correct thing to do here would be change the name or refund them the cost of the seat, no questions asked. What they were demanding was, according to the rules, not going to happen.

What's aggravating is that on almost every single flight I take, with very few exceptions, the flight is booked 100% full with some suckers waiting for seats. Exacerbated by missed connections and other standby passengers.

This is why I am obsessive about air mile status. It reduces your risk of BS happening. And makes changes easier and cheaper.

Exactly. This situation happened because airlines have shit rules and are inflexible as fuck so they can make more money off of people for situations like this. The best thing to do would have been to change the ticket to the 2 year old's name, and get the fucking flight in the air. But no. This chick starts talking about printing FAA rules and shit, when the rules say 2 year olds HAVE TO HAVE A SEAT. Which is what the family thought they were doing right when they put the kid in the seat. That's the part that pisses me off the most, with the exception of the whole threatening the family with foster care thing.

The customer was technically in the wrong because of the airline's shitty rules. And if anyone here doesn't think they're shitty, see what happens when someone books your flight and misspells your name. It takes a fucking act of god and about 400 bucks to make that change. Airlines fucking suck.

 

[RoninChaos]

Recent airline criticism is deserved, but I cannot get behind the passengers in this situation.

When the 18 year old didn't show up that seat was no longer theirs.

Why? they paid for it. If you leave your house for two weeks I can't just move the fuck in and go "Man, you weren't here friday so..."

The big issue here, and the stumbling point for most is that the ticket was for their older son, but they got him on an earlier flight and assumed they could just use the seat for their 2 year old. I don't think there's anything wrong with this assumption because they paid for the seat. That's probably exactly where the thought process stopped, i.e. "Well, we bought four tickets, there's three of us and the kid, the kid can use the seat". That's not an unlogical or crazy thought. The only reason people in here are even defending it is because the airlines have shitty rules in place for name changes or flight changes. Getting a name changed on a ticket takes a fucking act of god and like 400 bucks. Rebooking their 18 year old so that they gave up his original seat and getting him on a new flight probably cost more than just booking a new ticket entirely because Delta's change fee is like 250 bucks. All of this is built around the airlines wanting to get a shit ton of money for a simple change, whether that's a rebooking fee, a name change fee, etc. This shit is happening because the airlines rules are stupid and their booking policies are entirely inflexible.

 

[Skellig Gra]

Why? they paid for it. If you leave your house for two days I can't just move the fuck in and go "Man, you weren't here friday so..."

I would agree with you if it was a little kid but 18 is an adult. I wouldn't expect to just swap one of my buddies seats to someone else.

 

[TheCochese]

Why? they paid for it. If you leave your house for two days I can't just move the fuck in and go "Man, you weren't here friday so..."

The fuck?

I disagree. As the man in the video said, how did he get through security without anyone asking where the older son was?

Because that's not how security works?

 

[matt360]

Recent airline criticism is deserved, but I cannot get behind the passengers in this situation.

When the 18 year old didn't show up that seat was no longer theirs.

I disagree. As the man in the video said, how did he get through security without anyone asking where the older son was? The fact that they made it all the way to their seats without anyone noticing is a failure on Delta's part. At some point somebody should have told the father that he could keep the seat, but he'd have to put his name on it instead of his son's in order to let his infant sit there after takeoff.

It says on Delta's homepage that although kids under two can't get their own tickets for a seat, they strongly recommend the parents buy an extra seat for the infant anyways. I understand the difficulty of changing the names, but this should not have been marked as a no-show. A bit of sense would have gone a long way here. The guy didn't go completely by the rules, but the main failure was on Delta.

 

[numble]

Why? they paid for it. If you leave your house for two days I can't just move the fuck in and go "Man, you weren't here friday so..."

The name change rules are to prevent you from buying up seats and scalping them, because that is actually what used to happen. These days I guess there are also security issues involved.

If you do not check-in to a hotel by a certain time, the room is not held for you.

 

[jmdajr]

I disagree. As the man in the video said, how did he get through security without anyone asking where the older son was? The fact that they made it all the way to their seats without anyone noticing is a failure on Delta's part. At some point somebody should have told the father that he could keep the seat, but he'd have to put his name on it instead of his son's in order to let his infant sit there after takeoff.

It says on Delta's homepage that although kids under two can't get their own tickets for a seat, they strongly recommend the parents buy an extra seat for the infant anyways. I understand the difficulty of changing the names, but this should not have been marked as a no-show. A bit of sense would have gone a long way here. The guy didn't go completely by the rules, but the main failure was on Delta.

The kid wasn't under 2!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[BunnyBear]

This is much less black and white than the United fiasco, but what I don't understand is why the flight attendants rescinded on their offer to let him hold the kid during the flight. That was an option, then got taken away, right? Why?

 

[Zoe]

I disagree. As the man in the video said, how did he get through security without anyone asking where the older son was?

Cause that's not how security works? Security doesn't check shared itineraries.

The kid wasn't under 2!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The family violated policy on the way there then.

 

[Clockwork]

I disagree. As the man in the video said, how did he get through security without anyone asking where the older son was? The fact that they made it all the way to their seats without anyone noticing is a failure on Delta's part. At some point somebody should have told the father that he could keep the seat, but he'd have to put his name on it instead of his son's in order to let his infant sit there after takeoff.

It says on Delta's homepage that although kids under two can't get their own tickets for a seat, they strongly recommend the parents buy an extra seat for the infant anyways. I understand the difficulty of changing the names, but this should not have been marked as a no-show. A bit of sense would have gone a long way here. The guy didn't go completely by the rules, but the main failure was on Delta.

1) Why would anyone ask where the son was?

2) This should not have been marked as a no-show? The friggin passenger never showed up.

 

[RoninChaos]

I would agree with you if it was a little kid but 18 is an adult. I wouldn't expect to just swap one of my buddies seats to someone else.

You fly with your family, right? You know you technically can't sit in your wife's seat according to the airline's policy. But people switch seats all the fucking time. I do it with my wife, no one is threatening to throw us off the flight because I take the aisle seat when she booked it and she takes the middle.

The issue here is the inflexibility of the airline's policy coupled with the family's assumption that they bought the ticket, they should be able to use the seat as they see fit. Please see my edit as I elaborate a bit more.

 

[numble]

I disagree. As the man in the video said, how did he get through security without anyone asking where the older son was? The fact that they made it all the way to their seats without anyone noticing is a failure on Delta's part. At some point somebody should have told the father that he could keep the seat, but he'd have to put his name on it instead of his son's in order to let his infant sit there after takeoff.

It says on Delta's homepage that although kids under two can't get their own tickets for a seat, they strongly recommend the parents buy an extra seat for the infant anyways. I understand the difficulty of changing the names, but this should not have been marked as a no-show. A bit of sense would have gone a long way here. The guy didn't go completely by the rules, but the main failure was on Delta.

He got through security because he had his own ticket. Why would security ask you about other passengers?

They made it to their seats because they had tickets for 2 of the seats.

 

[ironmang]

This is much less black and white than the United fiasco, but what I don't understand is why the flight attendants rescinded on their offer to let him hold the kid during the flight. That was an option, then got taken away, right? Why?

And just the way she responded to it too. "you should have thought about that" Hopefully at least she gets fired even if nothing else comes from this because she really sucks at dealing with customers.

 

[numble]

You fly with your family, right? You know you technically can't sit in your wife's seat according to the airline's policy. But people switch seats all the fucking time. I do it with my wife, no one is threatening to throw us off the flight because I take the aisle seat when she booked it and she takes the middle.

The issue here is the inflexibility of the airline's policy coupled with the family's assumption that they bought the ticket, they should be able to use the seat as they see fit. Please see my edit as I elaborate a bit more.

If you and your wife bought tickets, but she no-showed, she does not check-in, she does not board, her ticket is not used and in a refundable situation they would give her her money back and in a nonrefundable situation they would give her a travel credit. It does not mean you can use that seat that she did not check in or board for.

 

[jmdajr]

The family violated policy on the way there then.

That is totally possible.

 

[Skellig Gra]

You fly with your family, right? You know you technically can't sit in your wife's seat according to the airline's policy. But people switch seats all the fucking time. I do it with my wife, no one is threatening to throw us off the flight because I take the aisle seat when she booked it and she takes the middle.

The issue here is the inflexibility of the airline's policy coupled with the family's assumption that they bought the ticket, they should be able to use the seat as they see fit. Please see my edit as I elaborate a bit more.

I agree that the inflexible policy is an issue and they should have helped them out a little more but you can't swap tickets to a completely different person when you are already on the plane. There are security issues (among others) with doing that.