Airlines are just pulling one stunt after another--now even less legroom in economy

Parent Cafe
81

Infants aren’t required to have ids, if he was trying to scam he could have told him the baby’s name was the name of the 18 year old’s that the ticket was originally issued to, if they questioned age could have been a “clerical error”.

I just don’t see this as so much of a scam as that the father didn’t understand that he was forfeiting the seat by putting the 18 year old on a different flight. The FA going on and on about babies must be lap children and aren’t allowed to be in car seats was just crazy and then when they agree to hold the baby and give up the seat they still kicked them off the plane hold everything up even longer while they disembarked and searched the cargo hold for their luggage.

You really think this was the best way to handle things?

82

It makes no sense to me that this family was kicked off the plane, none. They acquiesced to carrying the child, so why were they forced to deplane?

83

People were still boarding so Mason hadn’t technically given up his seat yet according to their records – for all they knew he could still be coming.

84

They would not ask for ID for the young children or even the teenager. And lets please not force parents to travel with birth certificates to prove the ID of their children. With adoptions and blended families you could 3 or 4 family names and all sorts of confusion.

The Delta agent was way out of line, threatening the parents with jail time, threatening that they would lose their children and giving all sorts of wrong information about the safety of car seats and Delta’s policies regarding them.

But the problems undercutting it all are these: the flight was overbooked, and the horrible and entrenched culture of airfare ticketing where apparently everything is carved in stone with Michelangelo’s favorite chisel and no one is allowed to change anything without paying 3X the original ticket price or being threatened with federal prison.

IF the flight hadn’t been overbooked none of this would have happened.

IF the parents could have easily called or gone online to change the seat from one kid to another, none of this would have happened.

We don’t know if the they failed to check in for that seat (doubtful…), or if they paid for a seat for the 2 year old on the way there (could go either way…). But we do know they were given false information over and over and then threatened with jail time and told, “you’re on your own”. That’s horrible.

85

After being o. Our laps for several 5+ hour flights, our young kids begged us to always buy seats for them, even if they COULD fly free as lap kids. We did, for our comfort and theirs.

The car seat and booster seat were sometimes too big and bulky to fit on the airplane seats, so after the first few flights, we would just ship the seats and strap the kids into airline seats using the regular seatbelt. Now that they’re making the seats narrower all the time, I’m sure this is an increasing issue.

86

My husband is 6 ft and has wide shoulders. He’s not enormous, just built like a man with wide shoulders, narrow hips. His shoulders on some flights have been literally wider than the seat itself. He’s not some incredible hulk sized guy either.

I agree with the sentiment that it isn’t the legroom for me, I’d like a tad more room in the seat so people aren’t getting their shoulders, elbows and excess weight all over me. And some seats are so hard…they may need to start charging for seat cushions so you don’t need hemorrhoid cream afterwards.

87

They do require birth certificates for infants under to prove that they are under 2 and don’t need a ticket. They don’t always check it, but they can do so.

88

If you had not checked in for your flight 45 minutes before departure, you gave up your seat.

Makes me wonder how the airline employees knew that the baby with the car seat was not in the assigned seat… This could have only happened if the older brother did not check in.

89

“Infants aren’t required to have ids, if he was trying to scam he could have told him the baby’s name was the name of the 18 year old’s that the ticket was originally issued to, if they questioned age could have been a “clerical error”.”

If you’ve booked a seat in the last decade or so, you’ll note that you enter a birthdate in addition to a name so it would be hard pretending the baby was the ticket holder.

90

I’ll try to say this one more time. Or maybe three more times.

A lap baby is not entitled to a seat.
A lap baby is not entitled to a seat.
A lap baby is not entitled to a seat.

If you have not paid for a ticket for that specific individual, they are not entitled to a seat. It doesn’t matter if you have bought out every single ticket on that plane for your family members, if you have not bought a ticket for that lap baby, he is not entitled to a seat.

Yes, they could easily check that the other child was not going to be on that flight, if he had already boarded onto an earlier flight. In fact, if you purchase two tickets for the same route, the same day, if the airline notices it, they will likely cancel one of those tickets.

A standby is a person who is trying to get on a different flight, and has put themselves on the standby list for it. Likely the same thing that the family did for their older son, they very probably put him on standby for an earlier flight and he got on. Is it really the better thing to do, to give a seat to someone who had not purchased a ticket, as opposed to someone trying to get on earlier, who had paid for a ticket? And it is likely that the Delta employees who did that would be disciplined for not following the company rules. When an airplane is full, you don’t give a lap baby a seat.

It appears to me that the wife is doing the recording, and the passenger is talking loudly for the recording. As incredibly stupid and rude it is to tell him how he could get arrested and his kids get taken away from him, it’s obviously an idle threat from a young woman speaking weakly to an overbearing man. As if for a moment he was intimidated.

I have no doubt that the employees who kindly (or mistakenly) allowed them to use the car seat on the first flight are going to be disciplined. You see how people who get away with something once think they can get away with it every time. Well, they let me do that last time, so therefore I am always entitled.

91

I think they would have a big problem pretending the baby was 18 years old, which of course they could tell from the booking information. They could have pretended he was just really small for his size…

But I am sure that they knew there was an issue when either someone tried to get in that seat and they weren’t allowed by the parents, or the flight attendants went around counting empty seats and lap babies.

92

Really, really, really small. :smiley:

93

Well…you never know, right? People come in all shapes and sizes.

However, you could get yourself arrested by pretending to be someone else in order to use their ticket, and I don’t think that little guy would do so well in jail. :open_mouth:

94

I saw a message on another board that said since when we are purchasing an airline ticket we are clearly not actually purchasing a “seat” on that plane so perhaps airlines should not charge people until they actually reach their destination. The father paid for that seat so the baby was not a lap child.

@busdriver11 Do you really think it’s fair that the airline is paid twice for the same seat?

I thought the father was very civil, he did not raise his voice or use profanity. I did not take what the FA said as an “idle threat” at all given recent event should anyone take want FA say as idle threats? She was clearly making things up as she went along.

95

If the plane had gone down, the manifest would not have matched with the souls on board. Airline would be in big trouble by allowing the little boy to fly under his brother’s name. The older boy’s family (the ones not on the plane) could collect on the life insurance and payout from the airline. The boy could disappear and live happily ever after. This probably happened back in the day when people would resell their tickets to other people.

96

The airline is not paid twice for the same seat because the passenger who did not show up could have requested a refund (minus any cancellation) and the passenger who moved into his seat from another flight did not occupy a seat on the originally assigned to him flight.

97

The infant did not have to fly under mason’s name. Once they discovered he was taking his brother’s seat they rebook the ticket. They would have to book the stand by passenger so why not the infant? Why throw a family of 4 with 2 infants off a plane for a stand by passenger? The stand by guy didn’t even have one ticket and this family had four.
Sometimes you have to look at the big picture and make adjustments. I bet if you asked the stand by passenger to voluntarily give the seat back to the infant he or she would have done so. I would.

98

Delta allows same day flight changes for $50, and sometimes will also give it to you for free. It is extremely likely that was what happened in this situation, who are we kidding that the family actually purchased an additional last minute one way ticket for the older son on an earlier flight.

If you don’t take your flight, you can often get your ticket refunded (on a refundable flight). On a non-refundable ticket, you can still cancel it and get the value minus the service fee.

Of course it’s fair that the airline might get paid twice for the same seat. If you don’t use it, you can get at least a partial refund and someone else gets the seat. If they are going to not make allowances for no shows, watch it be harder to get on the flights, and more expensive. If you don’t board in time, you might forfeit your seat. Rules of carriage.

99

3scoutsmom, of course it was an idle threat. Did he seem alarmed?

I don’t think the interactions by the crew/gate agents were good. They were pretty poor. But my take is that they were intimidated by the guy yelling at them, and did not react appropriately. They need more training. I’m sure you see this in customer service situations in other professions, particularly with the aggressive male/timid female scenario.

I encounter men like this every now and then, and I’m pretty sure of how to deal with them. First, be very familiar with what you’re doing, have no uncertainty. Be confident, don’t leave any room for them to argue. Be clear and precise, calm and polite. Don’t show any sign of weakness.

100

You don’t know the standby passenger didn’t have a ticket. He could have had a ticket on an earlier or later flight and needed a change.