<p>Thanks for the link on voluntary bumps. My next planned flight is not time sensitive and I plan to try to get bumped. What I usually do then is use some of the voucher to buy a one day club pass. Hang out with free food, drink, wifi and nice bathroom till the next flight.<br>
As for the family. I can understand. I was on a flight where a young mom was travelling alone with an infant. They ended up with a plane issue and gave us all hotel vouchers. Not fun when you don’t have luggage or a car seat with you. Lesson learned: when travelling with small children do not check everything.</p>
<p>I thought people that could not fit in one seat were required to buy two seats, or was there just an uproar about that and it never passed? And why is it they throw women off planes because their child is crying, but you keep an adult on that acts like the above woman? I realize these FA are stressed with unruly passengers; curious who makes the final decision as to what is done with a passenger like the one above.</p>
<p>Speaking of flight attendants, my daughter has had a few deny her request for a peanut free aisle. She has a life threatening peanut allergy and when she was younger we flew Delta 98% of the time as we are in Atlanta. Delta’s ruling is my daughter is allowed a seat where her row as well as the two in front of her as well as the two behind her will remain peanut free. While we had in her profile that she has the peanut allergy, we always told the agent when we booked, as well as the gate agent on arrival and then the head FA when boarding. Most times all worked like it was suppose to, but one flight home from college the FA refused to keep her area peanut free and questioned my daughter about her allergy. The FA said she couldn’t be sure no one had peanuts in those rows on previous flight; my daughter said she understood, she was only concerned with the flight she was currently on. FA continued to hand out the peanuts, but my daughters row didn’t take any; don’t know if they just didn’t want any or were being sensitive to my daughter.</p>
<p>Then on another flight she had a terrific FA. A man near to my daughter wanted peanuts and the FA explained to him that a passenger nearby had an allergy and she could not serve peanuts on his row. He blew up and like the woman above wanted to know how he was going to be able to survive his flight without the peanuts and his drink. He also wanted to know who the passenger was, but the FA told him that wasn’t information she would give him. The FA offered to move him to an available seat towards the back, but he refused to move. My daughter got the FA attention and offered to change her seat so the man could enjoy his peanuts, but the FA told her that if the man didn’t want to move, that was his problem. This FA knew what to do and did it well!</p>
<p>At the time of the first incident with Delta, we emailed and the reply was basically, too bad. They repeated the 5 row free rule, which we obviously knew; that was why we were emailing as they didn’t follow through. While Delta has this rule, the FA don’t all know it or chose not to enforce it.</p>
<p>Interesting about the peanuts. We flew in SW recently. They made an announcement at the start of the flight that NO peanuts would be served as a passenger had a severe allergy. They asked that ALL passengers not open or eat any peanut products. I personally like pretzels better anyway!</p>
<p>I’ve been on flights where the whole plane was “peanut free”. I could care less. Would rather forgo the lousy peanuts then be on a plane with someone who is in a life threatening situation.</p>
<p>Well Delta is not peanut free, while most other airlines are. Delta’s response to me was peanuts are the most request item on the plane so they have no interest in dropping peanut from their snack line. Realize this was about 8 years ago and I have no idea if this has changed. I responded back to Delta that some people also would like to smoke on planes, but they stopped allowing that years ago ;)</p>
<p>I never expected schools, planes, etc… to make exceptions for my child that would harm others, but 5 rows peanut free, which was their own policy at the time, should be enforce by the FA. We can not control what others eat around her, but having several packets of peanuts opened at once in a closed space could possibly cause a reaction. Since college, my daughter avoids Delta when possible and luckily her company uses United or other Star Alliance airlines.</p>
<p>I took an oversea flight to meet H for a long weekend. I got a window seat, happy to go to sleep and wake up in Paris. One couple sat down next to me, as soon as they sat down they started bickering. The woman was complaining about not getting her allowance on time, didn’t understand why they had to sit in the back and be treated like cattle. I soon figured out that they weren’t married, the woman was his mistress. They literally fought for 6 hours. I had to go to the bathroom once and the woman almost bit my head off.</p>
<p>My nephew also has a serious peanut allergy. My sister goes for Chinese food with me whenever possible …her family cannot go for chinese because of his allergies, and so many of those restaurants have peanut oil in the air, etc.</p>
<p>What does interest me, however, is why so many of our children’s generation seem to have such serious allergies? I don’t remember anyone having such serious allergies when I was a child–and now these allergies, especially to peanuts, seem to wide spread.</p>
<p>Does anyone here know why?</p>
<p>I’m gluten-intolerant, so calling an entire flight ‘peanut free’ and only serving pretzels is a problem for me. The rules are 3-4 rows on either side of the passenger w the peanut allergy. I’m also an EMT, so I completely understand the anaphylaxis issues with peanuts, but it’s only a 10’ thing, not the entire plane.</p>
<p>Husband and I are both tall and like the extra legroom an aisle seat gives you. On short flights I’ll give that up to sit next to him ( middle seat) but on long ones we pick aisle seats across from each other. Many times that means paying a bit extra.
Last year we boarded and I found a large lady already in my seat. She asked if I minded switching to her middle seat. I replied that yes, I did. She then stood up and loudly announced that she was claustrophobic and afraid of flying and would be climbing over me in a panic and couldn’t promise I wouldn’t be hurt. So…let this large lady make my flight miserable or switch? I moved over, DH took that aisle seat and large lady took his aisle seat. FA smiled and said " oh good, now everyone is happy". NO, I was bullied out of something I had paid for by the threat of physical harm.<br>
Large lady with fear of flying slept the entire flight and snored with her mouth open. DH offered to toss pretzels into her gaping maw, but restrained himself.</p>
<p>DH and I always book aisle across from each other. Almost always when I book an aisle someone asks me to take their middle seat. I always refuse. That said, I have never been threatened with bodily harm over it. Ridiculous.</p>
<p>I would have told the large lady I’d take my chances, figuring I was nimbler than her and could probably get out of the way in a hurry if I had to. Also, that I would retain the option of suing her if she injured me.</p>
<p>I was on a flight once with an aisle seat. There must have a been a convention because there were about 10 very large women traveling who all seemed to know one another. Two of them were seated next to me in the middle and window seats. Both needed seat belt extenders, although they were, with some effort, able to fit between the armrests, although not without some “spillover.” It was a 2 1/2 hr flight and I was dreading it, but the plane was full so there was no place to go. However, as soon as the fasten seat belt sign was switched off, the lady in the middle got up and spent the flight standing in the back. I don’t know if she was just being thoughtful or if she was more comfortable standing, but it certainly made my flight easier.</p>
<p>Many years ago, on a return flight from Orlando to the DC area, we arrived early to the airport and as hubby was a frequent flyer, checked in and headed to the USAir lounge. After general boarding started we went to the the gate, boarded and found folks in our seats. Hubby tells them ‘you are in our seats’, they provided boarding passes with seat assignments, the same as ours.
Seems another family of 5, with our exact sir name, was on our flight. When they checked in they were given our seat assignments.
They got moved to scattered seats; I don’t remember if it was the Platinum status or our children were younger than theirs, which was the tipping point.</p>
<p>Snowball, thanks for the information about Delta and peanuts. Unfortunately it has become my family airline of choice, and one D is allergic. I wondered why it seemed peanuts were making a comeback! Yes, I’d rather have peanuts, as I avoid gluten, but keeping the flight safe for all concerned is the overriding priority.</p>
<p>Some of my “favorites”.</p>
<p>The flight attendant who harassed me mercilessly when, over an hour into a two hour wait on the tarmac with no food, drink or AC in 100 degree heat, I released my 14 month old so he could stand in the seat. The poor guy was miserable and every time I strapped him back in he squirmed and wailed. I understand airline regulations, but 'c’mon, have a little compassion. All he wanted to do was play peek-a-boo with the friendly teenagers behind him.</p>
<p>The unaccompanied minors who kept kicking my seat while I was trying to get a sick baby to sleep. Every time I politely asked them to stop they just laughed, and they similarly ignored the flight attendant. Finally my mama bear instincts kicked in and I gave them the steeliest look in my arsenal and said “if you don’t stop I’m gonna hold this baby over the seat so she can vomit on YOU!” They stopped.</p>
<p>The woman who insisted the only way she could breastfeed her baby was to sit in a wide cross leg with half of her body resting on mine. No apology, not even a smile, just whipped up the armrest and took over. Couldn’t put down my tray or even read a book.</p>
<p>The guy who wouldn’t stop swearing loudly into his phone despite the fact that he was surrounded by families with young children. Using the <em>c</em> word in front of a 6 year old? Nice. When someone enlisted the help of the flight attendant and she asked him to stop he told her to “mind her own g<strong>d</strong>* f***ing business.” he proceeded to get drunk and spent most of the flight complaining to his seat mate about the (not so nice word for lesbian) FA. It was in the days when FAs didn’t have as much power as they now do to deal with obnoxious passengers.</p>
<p>I should add that I travel a lot so I’ve met a whole lot more nice helpful people than disagreeable ones.</p>
<p>Interesting-- according to Delta’s website, they have what looks like a 7 row buffer rule-- peanut free three rows in front and in back of the passenger’s row
[Disabled</a> Travel | Travel Needs | Delta Air Lines](<a href=“http://www.delta.com/content/www/en_US/traveling-with-us/special-travel-needs/disabilities.html]Disabled”>http://www.delta.com/content/www/en_US/traveling-with-us/special-travel-needs/disabilities.html)</p>
<p>great lakes mom, this might be helpful to you; I just found out that Delta has a new peanut allergy policy that went into effect this summer:</p>
<p>Effective on flights operating June 1, 2012 and beyond, when you notify us that you have a peanut allergy, we’ll refrain from serving peanuts and peanut products onboard your flight. We’ll also advise cabin service to board additional non-peanut snacks, which will allow our flight attendants to serve these snack items to everyone within this area. Gate agents will be notified in case you’d like to pre-board and cleanse the immediate seating area. We’ll do everything we can, but unfortunately we still can’t guarantee that the flight will be completely peanut-free.</p>
<p>I did see on one allergy website that you have to notify Delta 48 hours before your flight. As we have done that with our daughter since she was 2 years old, it is nice to see Delta has changed their policy; lets just hope the gate agents and FA are all aware of the new policy ;)</p>
<p>**Took to long to hit send and jym beat me to the punch!!</p>
<p>^ You gotta watch that jym - she’s quick.</p>
<p>I don’t think I would allow them to remove me from my seat. I may even lie about why I need to get to my destination on that flight, at that time. </p>
<p>There was one time when I knew my flight was overbooked and was hoping to take a voluntary bump but when I got to the gate, they already had enough volunteers. I was actually disappointed that time.</p>
<p>:D
I prefer to think of it as great minds thinking alike… especially here in the hometown headquarters of Delta airlines</p>
<p>Thanks! She has not mentioned it in recent years, aside from being disgusted and feeling threatened when peanuts are served. Will send her the info!</p>
<p>Yes, of COURSE great minds think alike!</p>